Chapter 10:
The “Roaring Twenties”
The End of Progressivism
• Remember that at the
end of The Great War
Americans were ready to
return to their isolationist
and conservative roots
• The Republican party
came back very
conservatively after the
Bull Moose Party split
• The Republican party
controlled the White
House in the 1920s
Nativism in the 1920s
• “Old Stock” Americans
saw the seeds of
sedition ( like socialism
& anarchism) with the
foreign-born
• Emergency Immigration
Act of 1921
• The Immigration Act of
1924
• These laws favored
immigrants from
northern and Western
Europe
Nativism & Sacco and Vanzetti
• May 5, 1920 they were
arrested for killing two
men and stealing
$16,000
• Both were Italian-born
anarchists
• They were sentenced to
death & executed
• Even though there was
doubt as to their guilt
Nativism & the Ku Klux Klan
• The New Klan wanted
100% Americanism
• Membership restricted
to native-born, white
Protestants (WASP)
• They were against
African Americans,
Roman Catholics, Jews,
& immigrants
• At its peak in 1924, it
had 4 million members
Harding said the nation needed to
“return to normalcy”
• After World War I most
Americans were weary of
Wilson’s crusading idealism
& wanted isolationism
• There was a post-war
recession 1919-1922
• Harding favored laissez-faire
policies
• Hawley-Smoot Tariff
• Lower Taxes on Wealthy and
Corporations
• Lax Enforcement of Antitrust
Laws and Regulations
President Warren Harding
Attempts at Disarmament &
To Outlaw War
• Harding sponsored the
Washington Navel
Conference and US
membership in the World
Court
• Five-Power Treaty (1922)
• Four-Power Treaty
• Nine-Power Treaty
• The Kellogg-Briand Pact in
1928
The Kellogg-Briand Signing
Harding to Silent Cal
• One thing that Harding
was a visionary during
this era was Civil Rights
• Harding dies in 1923
due to food poisoning
• Calvin Coolidge was
able to keep clear of the
scandals that hurt the
Harding Administration
The 1924 Presidential Election
Democrats finally
got behind
John W. Davis,
after 103 ballots
at their convention
The Progressive
Party and the
Socialist parties both
nominated
Robert M. La Follette
He received more
votes than any other
3rd party
Republican
Calvin Coolidge
won the election by
keeping focus on
La Follette b/c he
was a communistic
& socialist treat to
the U.S.
The Growing Consumerism of the 1920s
• Home Entertainment was
bolstered by the huge
growth of the radio
• People of the 1920s also
bought a large number of
automobiles & home
appliances
• Americans also went to
motion pictures like
never before in the 1920s
Airplanes & Automobiles
• Wright Brothers in Kitty
Hawk NC – 1903
• Airplanes in WWI and
the airmail
• Charles A. Lindbergh &
Amelia Earhart
• Auto invented in 1895
but Ford makes cars
affordable because of
the moving assembly
line
Lindbergh
Ford
The Business of Farming
• During the 1920s,
agriculture remained
the weakest sector in
the economy
• There was massive
overproduction
• Most farmers were
struggling to survive
• Congress passed the
McNary-Haugen Bill
twice but Coolidge
vetoed it twice
Setback for the Unions
• With the Conservatives
back in the White
House and the
progressives out of
power Unions faired
poorly
• During this time labor
unions lost about 1.5
million members
The Gastonia Strike of 1929
Presidential Election of 1928
Democrat
Al Smith
New Yorker &
Catholic
Republican
Herbert Hoover
Protestant
The Scopes Trail a.k.a.
The Monkey Trail
• Teacher John Scopes
went against state law
and tough evolution
• William Jennings Bryan
took his religiousfundamentalism &
made it a crusade
against evolution
• The result of the trail in
Tennessee was that
Scopes was guilty
Clarence Darrow & W.J. Bryan
The Anti-Saloon League & Prohibition
• By the 1910s the AntiSaloon League had
become one of the
most effective pressure
groups in U.S. History
• Prohibition had a racist
element against
Germans and Italians
• They wanted to police
the behavior of the
poor, the foreign-born,
and the working class
Prohibition &
the Rise of Organized Crime
• Prohibition did not give
birth to Organized
Crime however, it did
give criminals a huge
source of new income
• The rise of Speakeasies,
bootlegging, hip flasks,
and cocktail parties
• Most celebrated
gangster was Al Capone
Al Capone
The Roaring 20s:The Jazz Age
• F. Scott Fitzgerald called
the postwar era the Jazz
Age b/c young people
were willing to
experiment
• Jazz blended African
and European musical
traditions
• This new music bubbled
up from New Orleans to
K.C., Memphis, NY, &
Chicago
The New Morality
• The guardians of
morality or the old
timers were in shock
b/c of this “Jazz Age”
• Fitzgerald wrote about
“petting parties”
• Other writers informed
the nation about the
new woman w/ bobbed
hair, heavy makeup,
skirts above the ankle
and smoke and drank
Flappers
The Great Migration
• The movement of
southern Blacks to the
North began in 19151916 w/ the expanding
war industries
• The legal restrictions on
immigration continued
the movement in the
1920s
• In the 1910s 323,000
blacks moved North
• In the 1920s 615,000
blacks moved North
The Universal Negro
Improvement Association
• Was lad by Marcus Garvey
• Garvey told African Americas
to liberate themselves from
white culture
• Garvey declared blacks
should go to Africa and start
their own republic
• Many of Garvey’s ideas
would reemerge later under
the slogan of black power