The Roaring
Twenties
Roaring Twenties
Women
had right to vote
Fashion more liberal
Alcohol was banned
Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh
Movies
Jazz
Decade of Prosperity and Play
Unemployment
was low
60% of wealth with just a few
families
27,500 wealthiest had as much
as 12 million poorest
Desire to return to normalcy but:
High prices
Increased demand for goods
Wages low
Labor strikes; Boston Police,
steel workers, (both
unsuccessful)
Civil Unrest
Red
Scare
Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer
Palmer Raids
Sacco - Vanzetti Case
ELECTION of 1920
 Republican
 Warren
G. Harding and Calvin
Coolidge
 “Return to Normalcy”
 Isolationism, Laissez -faire
 Landslide victory for Republicans
Warren G.Harding
1921-1923
 Popular
 Wife
, Florence King DeWolfe ran
his campaign
 Golfed, Played poker, had a
mistress
 Poor judge of character
Warren G. Harding
 Teapot
Dome Scandal
–Govt. oil reserves sold for business
interests
–Sec. of Interior Albert Fall
 Naval
Limitation Treaty
 Immigration Legislation
Harding

“I have no trouble with my enemies, but
my friends keep me walking the floor at
night”

Many took bribes, many caught
POLITICAL SCANDALS
Teapot
Dome Scandal
–Albert Falls: oil rich public lands
set aside for the Navy
–Secretly leased to oil companies
for cash and cattle
POST WAR ECONOMY
 Assembly
line: (Henry Ford)
increases productivity by 40%
 Corporate mergers
 Oligopolies: Fix prices, lead to
chain stores
 Advertising
 Installment-buying plans
ORGANIZED LABOR
 Organized
labor membership
falls
 Managers offer benefit plans
 Wages rise slowly
POST WAR ECONOMY
Inflation
–Caused by wartime shortages
1919
- 3,600 strikes
Boston Police Strike
Steel and Coal Strikes
LABOR under HARDING
 American
Plan
–UnAmerican to join a Union to
get a job
–Employees offered benefits,
wage increases, stock options to
show unions were unnecessary
–Harding pardoned many Union
leaders
Gov. Calvin Coolidge

“There
is no right to strike
against the public safety by
anyone,anytime, anywhere!”
CALVIN COOLIDGE
1923-1929
Republican
VP:
Charles Dawes
“Silent Cal”
“Business of America is
Business”
Prohibition
Prohibition
Ban
on Alcohol
Eighteenth
Amendment
Bootlegging
PROHIBITION
Volstead
Act: Enforce
Criminal acts
st
1933 – 21 Amendment to
repeal
SPEAKEASIES
Moonshiners
Made
illegal alcohol from grain
Shipped from Ireland Canada
Speedboats delivered liquor
faster than Coast Guard ships
Souped
up cars out ran
government agents
Early beginnings of NASCAR
Speakeasies
Illegal clubs
Criminal Gangs
Al Capone
 Gang violence

Organized
Al
Crime
Capone
Racketeers
Made businesses pay
“protection money
Finally
convicted on White
Collar crime not violent crime
Income Tax evasion landed
Capone in jail
African American Migration
 Reached
millions
 Racial Prejudice everywhere
 Marcus Garvey
 W.E.B. Dubois
 KKK
 Immigration laws: Quota System
SOCIAL VALUES
 Women
 Divorce:
1-17 ; 1-6; now 1-2
 Religion; suffered decline
 Scopes – Monkey Trial
–Darwin v Creation
–Fundamentalism
SOCIAL VALUES
Fundamentalism
Bible
contained no
contradictions or errors
Supported Bible is literally true
Every story actually took place
as written
SOCIAL VALUES
Scopes
Trial
Evolution vs. Fundamentalist
Tennessee passed
Illegal to teach Evolution
SOCIAL VALUES
John
T. Scopes challenged law
Trial combatants
William Jennings Bryan
Clarence Darrow
SOCIAL CHANGES
Civil
Rights
Riots
25 cities summer of 1919
Chicago hard hit
Rock fight
SOCIAL CHANGES
17
year old African American
was struck and killed while
swimming
Several days of rioting broke
out
SOCIAL CHANGES
Revival
of KKK
Colonel William J. Simmons
revived
Not only in South
Indiana had lad the largest
membership
SOCIAL CHANGES
4
million members
African Americans, Catholics,
Jews, Immigrants, all were
victims
1925 leader of Indiana Klan
Was sent to prison
Youth Culture

Flappers
SPORTS
Baseball
Football
Boxing
Tennis
FAMOUS PEOPLE
Heroes
Lucky
Lindy
First to fly across Atlantic solo
Became National hero
Remained modest thus
increasing popularity
FAMOUS PEOPLE
Amelia
Earhart
 first woman to fly solo across
Atlantic
First successful flight from
Hawaii to California
CULTURAL CREATIVITY
Literature
–Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair
Lewis, Hemingway
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Harlem
Renaissance
–Grew from 50,000 to 200,000 in
16 years
–Literature and music of African
Americans
 NAACP
 James
Weldon Johnson
 Alain Locke The New Negro
–African American Culture
 Langston
Hughes
 Joys and difficulties of being
American and black
College Life
Enrollment
tripled
New target group
Leisure Fun and fads

Dance Marathons
Beauty Contests- Miss America Pageant
 Pole Sitting

Music & Dance
Berlin,
Gershwin, Porter
Jazz: Louie Armstrong,
Duke Ellington
Flappers
Theaters
rose from 500 in
1910 to 22,500 in 1930
Elaborate design ornate
lobbies balconies place to go
125,000 million people in the
United States
Magazines
and Newspapers
More readers less independent
newspapers
Tabloids instead of Hard News
Magazines
Saturday
Evening Post
Readers Digest
Time
Ladies Home Journal
Jazz
Age
African American music of the
south
Radio popularized Jazz
Jazz clubs allowed musicians to
play
Louis
Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Benny Goodman
Charleston became popular
Jazz
sprung Off shoots
George Gershwin
“Rhapsody in Blue”
Combination of symphonic and
jazz
Mass Entertainment
 Bigger
Paychecks/more free time
 RADIO
–800 stations by 1929
–Broadcast church
services,news,music, sporting
events
–advertising
MOVIES
Silent
Film,dramas,
westerns
Showed changes in morality,
sexuality
SPORTS
Professional,
college level
Football Baseball
Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey
Divisions in American Society
Farm
Crisis
Migration to city- fewer
farmers needed
1900- 42% of America on
Farms
1920 – 25% on Farms
Farm Depression
Over-production
Mortgage
payments
½ million lost farms
McNary-Haugen Bill (Govt.
buys surplus and resells
abroad)