Chapter 31
American Life in the
"Roaring Twenties,”
1919–1929
I. Seeing Red
• Bolshevik Revolution(1919):Russian Communism
– Effects on the United States:
• A small Communist Party emerged
• The big red scare of 1919-1920
– Blamed for some labor strikes
– Crusades against left-wingers / Eastern Europeans
– Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer raids
– Other events during the red scare
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Deportation of radicals to Russia / Soviet Union
Wall Street bombing (38 killed & ~100 wounded)
criminal syndicalism laws passed by states
Elected Socialist New York legislators denied their seats
Sacco and Vanzetti trial
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II. Hooded Hoodlums of the KKK
• A new Ku Klux Klan:
– Antiforeign “nativist” movement
– Extremist, ultraconservative uprising against:
• Diversity and modernity of American culture.
– Most popular in Midwest &Bible Belt South
• Associated with Protestant Fundamentalism
• Things of the KKK:
– “Knights of the Invisible Empire”
– “konclaves,” parades, cross burning
• Collapsed rather suddenly in the 1920s.
– Financial & criminal scandals
– Open intolerance & prejudice fell out of favor
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III. Stemming the Foreign Flood
• Isolationist America had little use for immigrants
– “New Immigrants” from southern / eastern Europe
– Congress passed the “Emergency Quota Act” (1921)
• Newcomers from Europe were restricted to a quota
• Immigration Act of 1924
– The national origins base shifted from 1910 to 1890
– Purpose to keep existing racial composition.
– Japanese / Chinese immigrants not allowed
– Departure in American policy
– Encouraged ethnic enclaves
Immigration limit
later cut to 2%.
“National
origins” quota
based on 1890
census (not
1910)
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Figure 31-1 p704
IV. The Prohibition “Experiment”
• Part of the progressive reform movement
• Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
• Implemented by the Volstead Act
– Popular in the South, unpopular in East & in cities
– Goal to end the cause of many social problems
• Peculiar conditions hampered the enforcement
– Tradition by a majority, many loopholes
– Federal agencies were unstaffed, underfunded
• “Noble experiment” was not entirely a failure
– Bank savings increased
– Absenteeism in industry decreased
– Less alcohol after prohibition ended
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V. The Golden Age of Gangsterism
• Prohibition spawned shocking crimes
• Profits of illegal alcohol led to bribery of police
• Violent wars in big cities between rival gangs
– Chicago- most spectacular example of lawlessness
• Al Capone Public Enemy Number One”
– Gangsters and other profitable and illicit activities
• Prostitution, gambling, narcotics, protection, kidnapping
• Racketeers invaded local labor unions
• Organized crime became big businesses
• 1930 $12 to $18 billion
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VI. Monkey Business in Tennessee
• Required educational in the 1920s
– High school graduation doubled
• Change in educational theory:
– John Dewey (progressive, permissive) “learn by doing”
• “Education for life”, the workbench and blackboard
• Science made advancements:
– Massive health, nutrition, knowledge programs
– “Fundamentalists” unhappy with “evolution”
• “Monkey Trial”
– HS teacher John Scopes in Dayton, Tenn. (1925)
– Trial between Bryan and Darrow
– Results Bryan won but looked foolish
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VII. The Mass-Consumption Economy
• Economic Prosperity of the “roaring” twenties
• The automobile
– Created a shift in the character of the economy
• Advertising
– Increase knowledge & demand for new products
• Sports
– Became big business in the ‘consumption era’
– “Babe” Ruth, Jack Dempsey gained fame/fortune
• Buying on credit
– “Possess today and pay tomorrow” the message
• Refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars and radios—now
– Prosperity based on ‘credit’ was unstable
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VIII. Putting America on Rubber Tires
• Automobile
– New industrial systems
• Assembly-line methods & Mass-production techniques
– Americans adapted the gasoline engine
• Ford and Olds developed the infant automotive industry
• Detroit became the motorcar capital of America
• Scientific Management
• Stopwatch efficiency (Frederick W. Taylor)
– Henry Ford
• Model T (“Tin Lizzie”) -cheap, rugged, and reliable
• Devoted himself to standardization
• The moving assembly line—Fordism
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Figure 31-2 p712
Figure 31-3 p712
IX. The Advent of the Gasoline Age
• Tremendous Impact of the self-propelled carriage
– Dependent on steel, rubber, glass, highway construction
• American standard rose to an enviable level.
– The petroleum business expanded
• Oil derricks shot up in California, Texas, Oklahoma
– Delivery of perishable foodstuffs accelerated
– Countless new roads
• Motorcars were agents of social change:
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At first a luxury, they rapidly became a necessity
More freedom & equality for women and teenagers
Isolation among the regions began to break down
Consolidation of schools, churches, rural areas
Automobiles fast, convenient, enjoyable, and exciting
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X. Humans Develop Wings
• Orville and Wilbur Wright
– “The miracle at Kitty Hawk” on December 17, 1903
• Airplanes (“flying coffins”)
– Military, mail, and passenger lines
– Charles A. Lindbergh -solo Atlantic flight
• The impact of the ‘airship’ was tremendous
– Gave the ‘American spirit’ another dimension
– Gave birth to a new industry & lifestyle
– Increased tempo of civilization
• Communication, transportation, destruction
– Decreased the ‘size’ of the world
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XI. The Radio Revolution
• Guglielmo Marconi, invented wireless telegraph
– Long-range WWI communication
• Voice-carrying radio (Nov 1920)
– Pittsburgh station KDKA -broadcast election results
– At first local, then national commercial networks
• Led to later achievements
– Transatlantic radio, telephones, television, internet
– Advertising “commercials” expanded radio
– Help unite the nation culturally
• Sports, news, music, comedy, national name brands
• Politicians adjusted to and used the new medium
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XII. Hollywood’s Filmland Fantasies
• The Great Train Robbery (1903) First serial
• Birth of a Nation (1915) First full-length movie
• Hollywood became the world’s movie capital
– Used in World War I, anti-German propaganda:
– The Jazz Singer (1927)—first successful “talkie”
• Movies became more popular
– Color films developed, movie “stars”
• Effects of the new mass media
– Critics, the lowering of community standards
– Ethnic communities & diversity eroded
• Standardization of tastes & language (fewer local dialects)
– Development of “American mainstream”
XIII. The Dynamic Decade
• Many changes in lifestyles and values:
• Americans more rural than urban
• More women employed, Equal Rights Amendment
• “Flapper” symbolized a more independent lifestyle
– Many taboos flew out the window
• They danced to jazz, smoked & drank in public
• Fundamentalists lost ground to the Modernists
• Advertisers exploited sexual allure
• New racial pride in northern black communities:
• Harlem Renaissance (NYC)
– Art, music, writings, perfermances
• Marcus Garvey, Black political leader
– United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
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XIV. Cultural Liberation: Literature
• Modernism - “Lost Generation”
– Questioned past traditions, typical conventions
– H.L. Mencken
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
– Ernest Hemingway
• Non-radical writers
– Carl Sandburg
– Sinclair Lewis
– William Faulkner
• Harlem Renaissance Writers
– Claude McKay
– Langston Hughes
– Zora Neale Hurston
XIV. Cultural Liberation: (con’t)
Performance
• American composers & playwrights contribute
• Jerome Kern
• Oscar Hammerstein
• Eugene O’Neill
• Architecture
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Harlem Renaissance:
– A black cultural renaissance in uptown Harlem
• Jazz artists
–Louis Armstrong
–Eubie Blake
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XV. Wall Street’s Big Bull Market
• Economic conditions of the 1920s
– Consumer spending / confidence high
– Speculation (land, stock) rampant & banks unstable
– Buying stocks “on margin” for quick profit
• Washington didn’t curb money-mad speculators
– 1921 Congress moved toward economic sanity
• Created the Bureau of the Budget
– Helped create an annual budget
– Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon
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Engineered a series of tax reductions from 1921 to 1926
Tax burden shifted from the wealthy to the middle class
Reduced the national debt by $10 billion
Accused of indirectly encouraging the bull market
Calvin Coolidge
Presides over
the “Jazz Age”
Coolidge’s handsoff policies were
sweet music
to big business.
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