The Roaring 20’s
In what ways did economic
conditions and developments in
the arts and entertainment help
create the reputation of the
1920’s as the “Roaring
Twenties?”
Election of Warren G Harding and a “Return to
Normalcy”
Sec of State – Charles Evans Hughes
Sec of Commerce – Hoover
Sec of Treasury – Andrew Mellon
Chief Justice – Taft
Harding dies September 2, 1923 – VP Calvin Coolidge
Isolationism, Red Scare & KKK
Red Scare & Labor Unrest – Palmer
Raids (1919 Boston Police Strike &
1920 Great Steel Strike 350,000
workers)
Sacco & Vanzetti – 1921 – 1927
(exonerated by M. Dukakis)
KKK – Knights of the Invisible
Empire
Isolationism & Nativism
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
Immigration Act of 1924
Attorney General Palmer
associated labor unions
with Communism –
started the FBI and
deported 294
“Communists”
8 bombs in 8 cities in one
minute = bombed
Palmer’s home (3-1920)
Nativism & Immigration
Emergency Quota Act of 1921 – set limit @ 3% of
immigration population from each country from 1910 census
(10,000 Greeks X .03 = 300)
Immigration Act of 1924 – set limit @ 2% of immigrant
population from each country from 1890 census (2000
Greeks X .02 = 40) Japanese completed excluded
*Purpose – to slow down flood of S&E Europeans
(lifted in 1965)
Prohibition and the Law that wasn’t…
18th Amendment – 1919, (repealed 1935 by 21st
– Wickersham Report proved law was
unenforceable)
Enforced by the Volstead Act
Speakeasies
Bootleggers
Al Capone & racketeers
The Scopes Monkey Trial
1925 – ACLU asked Scopes to teach Evolution in TN
(against the law), hoping he would be jailed. Wanted to
test the constitutionality of the law.
Prosecution – Wm. Jennings Bryan (won, but died 5
days later due to stroke)
Defense – Clarence Darrow
Found Guilty and fined $100.00
Religious Conflict –
Fundamentalists Vs.
Modernists
Buying on Credit! & Entertainment
•Bruce Barton – Greatest adman of all time…..
•Sex sells everything
•Sports Heroes
Gertrude
Ederle
Jim Thorpe
Babe Ruth
Jack
Dempsey
Advertising becomes a $350 billion industry
Bobby Jones
Henry Ford and his “Tin Lizzy”
$260 = 1-2 months salary for average worker
1930 = 20 million cars – 1 per family (662,000 miles of highway)
Negative Effects of cars – time
spent at home decreased, people
emigrated from less desirable
states, deaths, crime, pollution
1 car every 93 minutes (12 weeks before)
Ford made $25,000 a day ($312,000 for today)
Into the Wild blue yonder…..
Wright Brother – Kitty Hawk – 12/17/1903
(12 seconds, 120 feet)
Airmail – 1920 (1st transcontinental)
Charles Lindbergh – 1927 (NY to Paris)
Pan – Am Airlines
Marconi and the Radio
1920 KDKA – Pittsburgh, by 1930 800 Stations – NBC,
CBS
Amos N Andy
Clara Bow – Hollywood’s “It” Girl!
The Nickelodeons
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
The Birth of A Nation (1915)
Jazz Singer (1927)
By 1929 – 80 million tickets a week
The Cultural Revolution
Flappers
Jazz
Harlem Renaissance
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself
is free.
(America never was America to
me.)
Let America be the dream the
dreamers dreamed-Let it be that great strong land of
“The Lost Generation”
1920’s Prosperity & The Stock
Market
Buying on Margin
Real Estate Speculation – 1925
National Debt = $23 billion by 1921
Businesses accept government
regulation, gov’t is pro-business
Tax Reform (Andrew Mellon)
Reduced from 1921-26
Excise taxes, estate taxes,
income taxes.
Put burden on Middle Class!