Postwar Havoc
The Main Idea
Although the end of World War I brought peace, it did not ease the
minds of many Americans, who found much to fear in postwar
years.
Reading Focus
• What were the causes and effects of the first Red Scare?
• How did labor strife grow during the postwar years?
• How did the United States limit immigration after World War I?
100 Percent Americanism
•
The end of World War I brought great rejoicing but also many problems.
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–
–
•
•
An influenza epidemic from Europe had spread to the U.S., killing more than
half a million Americans.
Farms and factories that had prospered during war years closed down as
demand for products fell.
Returning soldiers had trouble finding work.
The emotional turmoil had disturbing political effects, as wartime
patriotism turned to hatred of Germans.
These sentiments gave rise to a movement known as 100 Percent
Americanism, which celebrated all things American while attacking all ideas,
and people, it viewed as foreign or anti-American.
The Red Scare
Rise of the Bolsheviks

Americans worried about a new enemy.

The Bolsheviks, a revolutionary group
led by Vladimir I. Lenin, gained control of
Russia during World War I.

Five years later Russia became part of a
new nation called the Soviet Union.

The Bolsheviks wanted communism, a
new social system without economic
classes or private property.

Lenin believed all people should share
equally in society’s wealth.

Soviets called for the overthrow of
capitalism and predicted communism
would inspire workers to rise up and
crush it.
American Reaction

Many Americans were frightened by
communism.

Americans embraced capitalism and
feared a rise of the working class.

The picture of “the Hun,” a German
symbol, Americans focused hatred on
during WWI, was replaced by a new
target: communists, known as Reds.

Communist parties formed in the U.S.
after the war, some advocating violent
overthrow of the government.

A Red Scare, or widespread fear of
communism, gripped the nation.
Plots, Laws, and Raids
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Radical communists might have been behind a failed 1919 plot, in which bombs were mailed
to government officials, including U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, a former
Progressive.
Though the communism threat was probably not very great, the government took it
seriously.
New York legislatures voted to bar five legally elected socialists from office and passed a law
making it a crime to call for government revolution.
– The Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional in the 1925 case of Gitlow v. New
York.
Palmer was a key leader in the government’s anti-Communist campaign, attacking radicals in
the Palmer raids and justifying them with wartime laws that gave the government broad
power against suspected radicals.
For aliens, or citizens of other countries living in the U.S., just belonging to certain groups
considered radical could lead to deportation, or being sent back to one’s own country.
In late 1919 Palmer's forces arrested thousands and deported hundreds.
In time, the Red Scare died down, as overseas communism began to fail.
Problems for Laborers
Postwar Difficulties
• During the war, President Wilson sought good relations with workers who
were keeping the troops clothed and equipped.
• Organized labor won many gains, including shorter hours and higher wages,
and labor leaders hoping to build on this were frustrated by several factors.
•Wilson now focused on promoting his postwar peace plan, not labor.
•The sinking postwar demand for factory goods hurt many industries.
•Returning soldiers expected jobs that weren’t there.
•Unhappy workers and strikers were replaced.
•The Red Scare damaged labor’s reputation, making many suspicious of
organized labor.
Labor’s Losses
• The showdown between labor and management in 1919 devastated
organized labor.
• Unions lost members and national political power.
• It took another decade and another national crisis to restore organized
labor’s reputation, status, and bargaining power in the U.S.
Major Strikes, But Not Major Victories
•
•
•
The year 1919 was one of the most explosive times in the history of the American labor
movement.
Some 4 million workers took part in over 3,000 strikes nationwide, and labor lost in nearly
every case.
A few strikes in 1919 hold a place in labor history.
– In Seattle, Washington, labor unrest at the shipyards spread across the city, igniting what
became the nation’s first general strike, or one in which all industries take part.
•
The conflict shut down the city yet failed.
•
The strike discouraged industry in Seattle for years.
– In Boston, the police force went on strike to protest low wages and poor working
conditions.
•
The city descended into chaos, and Governor Calvin Coolidge called in the
militia to end the strike, making him a national hero.
– The United Mine Workers had a “no strikes” pledge during the war, but a strike in 1919
won a large wage increase but not better hours.
– The steel industry also struck in 1919.
Limiting Immigration
•
Competition for jobs was fierce, and combined with the Red Scare, a
backlash against foreigners struck the nation.
•
The rise of nativism, or distrust of foreigners, produced a culture clash
between the country’s earliest immigrants and its newer ones.
•
Many nativists were Protestant Christians whose roots were Northern
and Western European, and they targeted newer arrivals from Southern
and Eastern Europe.
•
Many of the newer arrivals were Catholics and Jews, and nativists argued
that these groups were less willing to become “Americanized.”
•
Labor leaders, along with nativists, pushed for immigration restrictions
because new arrivals were usually willing to work for low wages.
Reactions to Immigration
Government
• A 1921 law established a quota,
or set number, of immigrants to
be allowed into the U.S. from
various nations.
• Then, the National Origins Act of
1924 set quotas for each
country at 2 percent of the
number of people from that
country currently living in the
U.S., clearly to reduce
immigration from certain
countries.
• The act nearly eliminated
immigration from Asian
countries.
The KKK
• Nativism produced a 1920s
revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
• The Klan’s terror group had
originally targeted African
Americans in the South but
began also to target Jews,
Catholics, and radicals.
• The Klan slogan of the 1920s
was “Native white,
Protestant supremacy.”
• The Klan moved from the
South into other parts of the
country.
Sacco and Vanzetti
•
•
•
•
•
•
In the late 1920s a court case in Massachusetts proved nativist and anti-radical
feelings.
Two men named Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for armed
robbery and murder.
The two men were Italian immigrants and also proclaimed anarchists, or radicals
who seek the destruction of government.
The evidence against the two men was weak, but it was apparent that the two
were on trial for their beliefs as much as for the crimes.
Amid great publicity and protests in Europe and South America as well as in the
U.S., the two men were convicted and sentenced to death.
Their 1927 executions were highly controversial, but by then the nation had largely
recovered from the Red Scare and the turmoil of the postwar years.
A New Economic Era
The Main Idea
New products, new industries, and new ways of doing business expanded
the economy in the 1920s, although not everyone shared in the
prosperity.
Washington Takes Action as President
Reading Focus
• What role did the Ford Motor Company and Henry Ford play in
revolutionizing American industry?
• How did both the auto industry and the nation change during the
1920s?
• What were some qualities of the new consumer of the 1920s?
• What were some weak parts of the economy in the 1920s?
Ford Revolutionizes Industry
• The first cars appeared in the U.S. in the 1800s, but only the rich
could buy them, until Henry Ford began selling the Model T in 1908.
• Ford’s vision combined three main ideas.
1. Make cars simple
and identical
instead of doing
highly expensive
custom
manufacturing.
2. Make the
process smooth,
using
interchangeable
parts and
moving belts.
3. Determine how
workers should
move, and at
what speed, to
be the most
productive.
• These ideas formed the first large-scale moving assembly line, a
production system in which the item being built moves along a
conveyor belt to workstations that usually require simple skills.
• By the 1920s Ford made a car every minute, dropping prices so that
by 1929 there were about 22 million cars in America.
• Ford raised his workers’ wages so they could also buy cars, but he
opposed unions, and assembly lines were very boring.
The Effects on Industry
•
•
•
•
The Ford Motor Company dominated auto making for 15 years, but the
entire industry grew when competitors like General Motors and Chrysler
tried to improve on Ford’s formula by offering new designs, starting
competition.
Other industries learned from Ford’s ideas, using assembly-line techniques
to make large quantities of goods at lower costs, raising productivity, or
output, by 60 percent.
The success of businesses led to welfare capitalism, a system in which
companies provide benefits to employees to promote worker satisfaction
and loyalty.
Many companies offered company-paid pensions and recreation programs
hoping employees would accept lower pay, which many did.
Industry Changes Society
Car Effects
•
Demand for steel,
rubber, glass, and
other car materials
soared.
•
Auto repair shops
and filling stations
sprang up.
•
•
Motels and
restaurants arose to
meet travelers’
needs.
Landowners who
found petroleum on
their property
became rich.
Cities and Suburbs
• Detroit, Michigan,
grew when Ford
based his plants
there, and other
automakers
followed.
• Other midwestern
cities, like Akron,
Ohio, boomed by
making car
necessities like
rubber and tires.
• Suburbs, which
started thanks to
trolley lines, grew
with car travel.
Tourism
• Freedom to travel
by car produced a
new tourism
industry.
• Before the auto
boom, Florida
attracted mostly
the wealthy, but
cars brought
tourists by the
thousands.
• Buyers snatched
up land, causing
prices to rise.
• Some Florida
swamps were
drained to put up
housing.
The New Consumer
• During the 1920s, an explosion of new products, experiences, and
forms of communication stimulated the economy.
New Products
• New factories turned out
electrical appliances like
refrigerators and vacuum
cleaners, as more homes were
wired for electricity.
• The radio connected the world,
and by the late 1920s, 4 homes
in 10 had a radio, and families
gathered around it nightly.
• The first passenger airplanes
appeared in the 1920s, and
though they were more
uncomfortable than trains, the
thrill excited many Americans.
Creating Demand
• Advertisers became the
cheerleaders of the new
consumer economy.
• Persuasive advertising
gained a major role in the
economy.
• Advertisers paid for space in
publications, and companies
sponsored radio shows.
• Advertising money made
these shows available to the
public, and ads gave the
products wide exposure.
New Ways To Pay

In the early 1900s, most Americans paid for items in full when they bought them,
perhaps borrowing money for very large, important, or expensive items like houses,
pianos, or sewing machines.

Borrowing was not considered respectable until the 1920s, when installment
buying, or paying for an item over time in small payments, became popular.

They bought on credit, which is, in effect, borrowing money.

Consumers quickly took to installment buying to purchase new products on the
market.

By the end of the decade, 90 percent of durable goods, or long-lasting goods like cars
and appliances, were bought on credit.
Advertisers encouraged the use of credit, telling consumers they
could “get what they want now” and assuring them that with small
payments they would “barely miss the money.”
Weaknesses in the Economy
• Though the “Roaring Twenties” brought prosperity to many, other
Americans suffered deeply in the postwar period
Farmers
• American farmers who
had good times during
World War I found
demand slowed, and
competition from
Europe reemerged.
• The government tried to
help in 1921 by passing
a tariff making foreign
farm products more
expensive, but it didn’t
help much.
Natural Disasters
• Boll weevil
infestations ruined
cotton crops.
• The Mississippi River
flooded in 1927,
killing thousands and
leaving many
homeless.
• “The Big Blow,” the
strongest hurricane
recorded up to that
time, killed 243
people in Florida.
Land Speculation
• In Florida, the wild
land boom came to
a sudden and
disastrous end.
• Florida sank into an
economic
depression even as
other parts of the
nation enjoyed
prosperity.
American Life Changes
The Main Idea
The United States experienced many social changes during the
1920s.
Reading Focus
• What were the new roles for American women in the 1920s?
• What were the effects of growing urbanization in the United States
in the 1920s?
• In what ways did the 1920s reveal a national conflict over basic
values?
• What was Prohibition, and how did it affect the nation?
New Roles for Women
New Opportunities
• The 19th Amendment allowed
women to vote, and some were
elected to state and local office.
• In general, however, women
voted about as much as the men
in their lives.
• Many women had taken jobs
during World War I but lost them
when men came home.
New Family Roles
• The 1920s brought a shift in
many people’s attitudes
toward men and women’s
relationships.
• The basic rules defining
female behavior were
beginning to change.
• During the 1920s women joined
the workforce in large numbers,
though mostly in the lowestpaying professions.
• American women continued to
have primary responsibility
for caring for the home, and
most still depended on men
for financial support.
• Women attended college in
greater numbers.
• More, however, sought
greater equality.
The Flapper
One popular image that reflects changes for women in the Roaring
Twenties was the flapper, a young woman of the era who defied
traditional ideas of proper dress and behavior.
Flappers
Other Women
• Flappers shocked society by
cutting their hair, raising
hemlines, wearing makeup,
smoking, drinking, and dancing.
• In much of the U.S., women
only read about flappers in
magazines, and many
disapproved of flappers or
wouldn’t dare to be so
reckless.
• The dress style was popular
among young, rebellious girls.
• .The term flapper suggested an
independent, free lifestyle.
• Some older women’s rights
reformers thought flappers
were only interested in fun.
• Flappers mostly lived in cities,
though rural people read about
them in magazines.
• Many did not take flappers
seriously.
The flapper craze took hold mainly in American cities, but in many
ways the flappers represented the rift between cities and rural areas.
Effects of Urbanization

Though the 1920s was a time of great economic opportunities for many, farmers did not
share in the prosperity.

Farming took a hard hit after World War I, when demand for products went down and
many workers moved to industrialized cities.

The 1920 census showed that for the first time ever, more Americans lived in cities than in
rural areas, and three-fourths of all workers worked somewhere other than a farm.

The rise of the automobile helped bring the cities and the country together, and rural
people were now likely to spend time in town and were less isolated.

Education also increased, and by the 1920s many states passed laws requiring children to
attend school, helping force children out of workplaces.
School attendance and enrollment increased as industry grew because
more people could afford to send their children to school, not to work.
Conflicts over Values
•
•
•
Americans lived in larger communities, which produced a shift in values, or a person’s key
beliefs and ideas.
In the 1920s, many people in urban areas had values that differed from those in rural areas.
– Rural America represented the traditional spirit of hard work, self-reliance, religion, and
independence.
– Cities represented changes that threatened those values.
The Ku Klux Klan grew dramatically in the 1920s, and many of its members were people
from rural America who saw their status declining.
– Members of the Klan continued to use violence, targeting African Americans, Catholics,
Jews, and all immigrants.
– In the 1920s, the Klan focused on influencing politics.
– The Klan’s membership was mostly in the South but spread nationwide.
– The Klan’s peak membership was in the millions, many from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.
– Membership declined in the late 1920s because of a series of scandals affecting Klan
leaders.
The Rise of Fundamentalism
Billy Sunday

Changing times caused uncertainty,
turning many to religion for answers.

One key religious figure of the time was
former ballplayer and ordained minister
Billy Sunday.

Sunday condemned radicals and criticized
the changing attitudes of women,
reflecting much of white, rural America’s
ideals.

Sunday’s Christian beliefs were based on a
literal translation of the Bible called
fundamentalism.
Aimee Semple McPherson

Another leading fundamentalist
preacher of the time

Seemed to embrace the kind of
glamour that other fundamentalists
warned about

Her religion, however, was purely
fundamentalist.

She was especially well known for
healing the sick through prayer.
The Scopes Trial

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution holds that inherited characteristics of a population change over
generations, which sometimes results in the rise of a new species.

According to Darwin, the human species may have evolved from an ape-like species that lived long ago.

Fundamentalists think this theory is against the biblical account of how God created humans and that
teaching evolution undermine religious faith.

Fundamentalists worked to pass laws preventing evolution being taught in schools, and several states did,
including Tennessee in 1925.

One group in Tennessee persuaded a young science teacher named John Scopes to violate the law, get
arrested, and go to trial.

Scopes was represented by Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan, three-time candidate for
president, represented the prosecution.

John Scopes was obviously guilty, but the trial was about larger issues.

Scopes was convicted and fined $100, but Darrow never got a chance to appeal because the conviction was
overturned due to a technical violation by the judge.

The Tennessee law remained in place until the 1960s.
Prohibition

Throughout U.S. history, groups like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
worked to outlaw alcohol, but the drive strengthened in the early 1900s, as
Progressives joined the effort.

Over the years, a number of states passed anti-alcohol laws, and World War I helped
the cause when grain and grapes, which most alcohol is made from, needed to feed
troops.

The fight against alcohol also used bias against immigrants to fuel their cause by
portraying immigrant groups as alcoholics.

Protestant religious groups and fundamentalists also favored a liquor ban because
they thought alcohol contributed to society’s evils and sins, especially in cities.

By 1917 more than half the states had passed a law restricting alcohol.
The Eighteenth Amendment banning alcohol was proposed in 1917 and
ratified in 1919. The Volstead Act enforced the amendment.
Prohibition in Practice
•
Enforcing the new Prohibition law proved to be virtually impossible, as making, transporting,
and selling alcohol was illegal, but drinking it was not.
•
Prohibition gave rise to huge smuggling operations, as alcohol slipped into the country
through states like Michigan on the Canadian border.
•
Newspapers followed the hunt for bootleggers, or liquor smugglers, but government
officials estimated that in 1925 they caught only 5 percent of all the illegal liquor entering the
country.
•
Many people also made their own liquor using homemade equipment, and others got alcohol
from doctors, who could prescribe it as medicine.
•
The illegal liquor business was the foundation of great criminal empires, like Chicago gangster
Al Capone’s crew, who smashed competition, then frightened and bribed police and officials.
•
3,000 Prohibition agents nationwide worked to shut down speakeasies, or illegal bars, and
to capture illegal liquor and stop gangsters.
•
Millions of Americans violated the laws, but it would be many years before Prohibition came
to an end.
The Harlem Renaissance
The Main Idea
Transformations in the African American community contributed to a
blossoming of black culture centered in Harlem, New York.
Reading Focus
• What was the Great Migration, and what problems and
opportunities faced African Americans in the post–World War I era?
• What was Harlem, and how was it affected by the Great Migration?
• Who were the key figures of the Harlem Renaissance?
The Great Migration

Beginning around 1910, Harlem, New York, became a favorite destination for black
Americans migrating from the South.

Southern life was difficult for African Americans, many of whom worked as
sharecroppers or in other low-paying jobs and often faced racial violence.

Many African Americans looked to the North to find freedom and economic
opportunities, and during World War I the demand for equipment and supplies
offered African Americans factory jobs in the North.

African American newspapers spread the word of opportunities in northern cities,
and African Americans streamed into cities such as Chicago and Detroit.

This major relocation of African Americans is known as the Great Migration.
African Americans after World War I
Tensions
Raised Expectations

Many found opportunities in the North
but also racism.


Racial tensions were especially severe
after World War I, when a shortage of
jobs created a rift between whites and
African American workers.
Another factor that added to racial
tensions was the changing expectations
of African Americans.

Many believed they had earned greater
freedom for helping fight for freedom
overseas in World War I.

Unfortunately, not everyone agreed that
their war service had earned them
greater freedom.

In fact, some whites were determined
to strike back against the new African
American attitudes.

This tension created a wave of racial
violence in the summer of 1919.

The deadliest riot occurred in Chicago,
Illinois, when a dispute at a public beach
led to rioting that left 38 people dead and
nearly 300 injured.

Racially motivated riots occurred in about
two dozen other cities in 1919.
Life in Harlem

New York City was one of the northern cities many African Americans moved to
during the Great Migration, and by the early 1920s, about 200,000 African Americans
lived in the city.

Most of these people lived in a neighborhood known as Harlem, which became the
unofficial capital of African American culture and activism in the United States.

A key figure in Harlem’s rise was W.E.B. Du Bois, a well-educated, Massachusetts-born
African American leader.

In 1909 Du Bois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) in New York City.

Du Bois also served as editor of a magazine called The Crisis, a major outlet for
African American writing and poetry, which helped promote the African American
arts movement.
This movement was known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois
Another famous figure of the era was Marcus Garvey, a Jamaicanborn American who took pride in his African heritage.
Garvey’s Rise
• Formed the Universal Negro
Improvement Association
(UNIA), which promoted selfreliance for African Americans
without white involvement.
• Garvey wanted American blacks
to go back to Africa to create a
new empire.
• Garvey wanted African
Americans to have economic
success. His Black Star Line
promoted trade among Africans
around the world.
• About 2 million mostly poor
African Americans joined UNIA.
Conflict with Du Bois
• Garvey thought the NAACP
discouraged African
American self-confidence,
and that their goal of
breaking down barriers
between races threatened
African racial purity.
• Du Bois and the NAACP were
suspicious of UNIA too, and
The Crisis published an
investigation of UNIA.
• The FBI charged UNIA with
mail fraud, and UNIA
collapsed when Garvey went
to prison and then left the
country upon release.
A Renaissance in Harlem
• Harlem in the 1920s was home to tens of thousands of African Americans, many
from the South, who felt a strong sense of racial pride and identity in this new
place.
• This spirit attracted a historic influx of talented African American writers, thinkers,
musicians, and artists, resulting in the Harlem Renaissance.
Writers
• Little African American
literature was published
before that era.
• Writers like Zora Neale
Hurston and James
Weldon Johnson
wrote of facing white
prejudice.
Poets
• Poets like Claude
McKay and
Langston Hughes
wrote of black
defiance and hope.
• These poets
recorded the
distinctive culture of
Harlem in the 1920s.
Artists
• Black artists won
fame during this
era, often focusing
on the experiences
of African
Americans.
• William H. Johnson,
Aaron Douglas and
Jacob Lawrence
were well known.
Harlem Performers and Musicians
The Harlem Renaissance helped create new opportunities for African
American stage performers, who only began being offered serious
roles on the American stage in the 1920s.
Performers
• Paul Robeson came to New York to
practice law but won fame onstage,
performing in movies and stage
productions like Othello.
• Robeson also played in the
groundbreaking 1921 musical Shuffle
Along, which had an all-black cast.
• Josephine Baker was also in that
show, and she went on to a
remarkable career as a singer and
dancer in the U.S. and in Europe,
where black performers were more
accepted.
Musicians
• Harlem was a vital center for
jazz, a musical blend of several
different forms from the Lower
South with new innovations in
sound.
• Much of jazz was improvised, or
composed on the spot.
• Louis Armstrong was a leading
performer on the Harlem jazz
scene.
• Other performers included
Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway,
and composers Duke Ellington
and Fats Waller.
A New Popular Culture is Born
The Main Idea
New technologies helped produce a new mass culture in the 1920s.
Reading Focus
• How did mass entertainment change in the 1920s?
• Who were the cultural heroes of the 1920s?
• How was the culture of the 1920s reflected in the arts and
literature of the era?
Radio Drives Popular Culture
During the 1920s, the radio went from being a little-known novelty to
being standard equipment in every American home.
Rise of the Radio
• Guglielmo Marconi invented the
radio in the late 1800s, and by
the early 1900s the military and
ships at sea used them.
• In 1920, most Americans still
didn’t own radios, and there was
not any programming.
• In 1920, a radio hobbyist near
Pittsburgh started playing
records over his radio, and
people started listening.
•
•
•
•
•
Radio Station Boom
The growing popularity of
those simple broadcasts
caught the attention of
Westinghouse, a radio
manufacturer.
In October 1920,
Westinghouse started
KDKA, the first radio
station.
By 1922 the U.S. had 570
stations.
Technical improvements in
sound and size helped
popularity.
Americans now had a
shared experience.
Movies
Movies exploded in popularity during the 1920s for several reasons.
New Film Techniques
• In early years movies were
short, simple pieces.
• During World War I, filmmaker
D. W. Griffith produced The
Birth of a Nation, a controversial
film that some consider racist.
Talkies and Cartoons
• Another important
innovation was the
introduction of films with
sound, or “talkies.”
• The film nonetheless introduced
innovative movie techniques and
helped establish film as an art
form and widened its audience.
• In 1927 filmgoers were
amazed by The Jazz Singer,
a hugely successful movie
that incorporated a few lines
of dialogue and helped
change the movie industry
forever.
• Woodrow Wilson, after seeing
the movie, said, “it’s like writing
history with lightning.”
• In 1928, the animated film
Steamboat Willie introduced
Mickey Mouse and cartoons.
By the end of the 1920s, Americans bought 100 million movie tickets a
week, though the entire U.S. population was about 123 million people.
Film Star Heroes
•
The great popularity of movies in the 1920s gave rise to a new kind of celebrity—the
movie star.
•
One of the brightest stars of the 1920s was Charlie Chaplin, a comedian whose
signature character was a tramp in a derby hat and ragged clothes.
•
Rudolph Valentino, a dashing leading man of romantic films, was such a big star that his
unexpected death in 1926 drew tens of thousands of women to the funeral home
where his body lay.
•
Clara Bow was a movie star nicknamed the “It Girl.”
•
Mary Pickford was considered “America’s Sweetheart” and was married to Douglas
Fairbanks Jr., a major star of action films.
•
Their home, called “Pickfair,” was in Hollywood, the center of the motion picture
industry.
Pilot Heroes of the Twenties
Charles Lindbergh
• Charles Lindbergh was a daredevil pilot who practiced his skills as an airline
pilot, a dangerous, life-threatening job at the time.
• Lindbergh heard about a $25,000 prize for the first aviator to fly a nonstop
transatlantic flight, or a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and wanted to win.
• He rejected the idea that he needed a large plane with many engines, and
developed a very light single-engine craft with room for only one pilot.
• On May 21, 1927, Lindbergh succeeded by touching down in Paris, France
after a thirty-three-and-a-half-hour flight from New York.
• Lindbergh earned the name “Lucky Lindy” and became the most beloved
American hero of the time.
Amelia Earhart
• A little over a year after Lindbergh’s flight, Amelia Earhart became the first
woman to fly across the Atlantic, returning to the U.S. as a hero.
• She went on to set numerous speed and distance records as a pilot.
• In 1937 she was most of the way through a record-breaking flight around
the world when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.
Sports Heroes
Radio helped inflame the public passion for sports, and millions of Americans
tuned in to broadcasts of ballgames and prize fights featuring their favorite
athletes.
Helen Wills:
Played powerful tennis, winning 31
major tournaments and two
Olympic gold medals. Her nerves of
steel earned her the nickname
“Little Miss Poker Face.”
Red Grange:
College football player who earned
the nickname the “Galloping Ghost”
for his speed. He turned
professional after college, which
was shocking at the time.
Babe Ruth:
Known as the “Sultan of Swat,”
Ruth was legendary on the baseball
field for his home runs. His legend
lives on today in baseball circles
and popular culture.
Bobby Jones:
Jones won golf’s first Grand Slam,
meaning he won the game’s four
major tournaments, and remains
the only golfer to get a Grand Slam
for matches in one calendar year.
Arts of the 1920s

The great economic and social changes of the 1920s offered novelists a rich source of
materials.

F. Scott Fitzgerald helped create the flapper image, coined the term the “Jazz Age,” and
explored the lives of the wealthy in The Great Gatsby and other novels and stories.

Sinclair Lewis wrote about the emptiness of middle-class life.

Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote poems on topics ranging from celebrations of youth to
leading social causes of the day.

Willa Cather and Edith Wharton produced notable works of literature.

Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos were war veterans and, as part of the so-called
Lost Generation, wrote about war experiences.

Gertrude Stein invented the term Lost Generation, referring to a group of writers who
chose to live in Europe after World War I.

Bruce Barton’s novel compared Jesus to a modern business executive.

George Gershwin was a composer best known for Rhapsody in Blue—which showed the
impact of jazz—as well as popular songs written with his brother Ira.