THE ROARING TWENTIES
Election of 1920: R: Warren G. Harding – Ohio(61% of the
vote) versus D: James M. Cox, Ohio Governor versus
Socialist Party candidate: Eugene V. Debs
ISSUE: U.S. admission to the League of Nations
WARREN G. HARDING: Former US Senator
Died unexpectedly on August 2, 1923, in San Francisco
Streamlined the budget, approved measures assisting
farm cooperative and liberalizing farm credit, supported
antilynching legislation, tolerant on civil liberties issues.
1921 pardoned Eugene V. Debs(WWI speech denouncing
capitalism and the war)
Veterans Bureau and Teapot Dome Scandals
OHIO GANG: Charles R. Forbes(guilty as director of
Veterans Bureau for waste and misappropriation of
$250,000,000 of veterans’ funds), Harry M.
Daugherty(committed suicide-lax in prosecuting graft in
Veterans Bureau and in enforcing prohibition laws), Edwin
Denby(resigned due to Teapot Dome Scandal), Albert
Fall(convicted of bribery and sented to 1 year in prison and
fined for Teapot Dome Scandal)
CALVIN COOLIDGE: SERVED (1923 – 1925) AND (1925 –
1929)
An “Inactive President”
Believed that “government should interfere as little as
possible.”
Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon – responsibility
for streamlining the federal budget and for reducing the
nation’s WWI debt
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, worked to
promote a more efficient, better organized national economy.
ELECTION OF 1924:
R: COOLIDGE(easily won) v. D: JOHN W. DAVIS
(FORMER AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN) v.
PROGRESSIVE: ROBERT LaFOLLETTE
ELECTION OF 1928:
R: HERBERT HOOVER(58% of the vote) defeated
GOVERNOR OF N.Y. ALFRED E. SMITH(RCC) V. Socialist
Party candidate, Norman Thomas
ISSUE: Prohibition
HERBERT HOOVER: Stock Market crash & beginning of
the Great Depression
THE ECONOMY:
1921 – 1922: Recession
Unemployment remained 3-4%
Farmers had a difficult decade
Trends: to weaken the union movement and to remove causes
of industrial discontent
Union busting; union membership declined
Overproduction of food led to a sharp decline in food prices
and farm income.
1922: Highest tariff in US history (Fordney-McCumber
Tariff)
Material culture:
Consumerism
Growth of the motion picture industry
Radio: newest instrument of mass culture
NBC established in 1927
1929, 40% of American households had a radio
Sports flourished
“The Jazz Age”
The automobile: Ford Model T & Ford Model A 1908 – 1927
American writers: The Lost Generation
Ernest Hemingway
H. L. Mencken
Sinclair Lewis
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Eugene O’Neill – only Am. Playwright to win a Nobel Prize
Women & Blacks
“The new woman” – flapper: smoking, drinking, dancing
wearing seductive clothes and makeup
Activism: YWCA, League of Women Voters, Equal Rights
Amendment
HARLEM RENAISSANCE:
Langston Hughes
James Weldon Johnson
Countee Cullen
Zora Neale Hurston
Claude McKay
Alvin Locke
Marcus Garvey – Universal Negro Improvement Association
Responses to the new culture:
Immigration Act of 1921 – quotas
1922 Cable Act
Immigration Act of 1924 – further limitations; banned Asian
immigration
1929 National Origins Act – limited quotas
KKK
Fundamentalism – Scopes “Monkey” Trial
18th Amendment: Prohibition
Foreign Policy
Washington Naval Conference 1921 – 1922
The Five-Power Pact 1922
The Nine-Power Pact
The Four-Power Pact
Geneva Naval Disarmament Conference 1927
London Naval Conference 1930
Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928
Dawes Plan 1924
Young Plan 1929
War-debt Moratorium
Lusanne Conference 1932
The World Court
DOLLAR DIPLOMACY IN LATIN AMERICA
Hoover-Stimson Doctrine 1932 – response to the Japanese
invasion of Manchuria 1931