The Modern
Era of the 1920s
Unit 7 Ch.23 1920-1929
Business-Government Partnership



Republicans believed that the economy would prosper if business took the
lead
Warren G. Harding became president in 1921 with Calvin Coolidge as his vice
president
Harding assembled a cabinet of progressives, conservatives, and friends
The “Associated” State

Sec. of Commerce Hoover directed the creation of two thousand
trade associations to work with businesses


Hoover wanted to achieve through voluntary cooperation what the
Progressives had tried to legislate
Scandal in the Administration




Charles Forbes (Veterans Bureau) caught selling government and hospital
supplies to private companies
Thomas Miller (Office of Alien Property) took bribes
Albert Fall (Sec. of Interior) arranged to have oil-rich land transferred to his
department and then secretly leased it to his friends in the oil industryTeapot Dome Scandal
Harding died in 1923 as the news was breaking
Election of 1924

Republicans- Calvin Coolidge


Democrats- divided between North and South




Taciturn and moral
John Davis was the compromise Candidate
Progressive party- Robert La Follette
Coolidge won handily
low voter turnout
Women in Politics


Influential as lobbyists
The Women’s Joint Congressional Committee

Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act


First federally funded health-care legislation
Conservatives attacked it as a Communist plot and an attempt to socialize America
Corporate Capitalism

Business Consolidation

Accelerated rapidly during the 1920s in major industries



Chemicals (DuPont), electrical appliances and machinery (Westinghouse and General Electric),
and automobiles (General Motors)
Oligopolies dominated major industries
1920s Economy



1919-inflation, 2 years of recession, 1922-1929 steady growth
Abundance of new consumer products
Agriculture, coal, textiles, and railroads were the “sick industries”
Welfare Capitalism


Labor relations that stressed
management’s responsibility for
employees’ wellbeing.
Large corporations offered
health insurance, pension plans,
and the opportunity to buy
stock

Goals were to create a loyal
workforce and deter unionization
Economic Expansion Abroad


American business spread to Europe, Asia, and south America
Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922)



Raised tariffs on foreign-made goods
Made it difficult European nations to pay their war debts
Dawes Plan (1924)


Reduced German reparations while providing them with loans
Success depended on American loans to Germany and Allied payments to America
Foreign Policy in the 1920s


Combination of isolationism and internationalism
Washington Naval Arms Conference


Placed strict limits on naval expansion to deter excessive spending and limit Japanese
naval power in SEA
Kellogg-Briand Pact

Agreement condemn war for the “solution of international controversies, and to
renounce it as an instrument of national policy.”
National Culture

Consumer Society

New electrical conveniences started to become necessities
instead of luxuries


Modern Advertising


Irons, refrigerators, cooking ranges, and toasters
Hired psychologists to study how to appeal to people’s desires
The Automobile



Paved roads, homes with garages, gas stations, repair shops,
motels, shopping centers, traffic signals
People could live farther from work (urban sprawl) and
vacation far from home
Symbolized freedom and success
Mass Culture

Movies


Jazz


Began in New Orleans and spread to the major cities
Journalism


Early stars included Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, Mary Pickford, and Clara Bow
(who became the icon of flappers)
Mass circulation magazines, tabloid newspapers, Associated Press spread mass culture
Radio

Became the primary form of entertainment for many households
Mass Culture

Leisure


Driving, playing tennis or golf, swimming
Sports

Baseball and boxing were the primary professional sports of the 1920s
Rise of Nativism


Nativism- prejudice against foreign-born people
Immigration Restriction



Emergency Quota Act (1921) and the National Origins Act (1924) severely restricted
immigration from Europe
Immigration from the Western Hemisphere continued
The New Klan


4.5 million members by 1924
Prohibitionists, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Union, anti-immigration, anti-black

Appealed to most American sentiments at the time
Legislating Values

Protestant Fundamentalism


A movement grounded in the literal interpretation of the Bible
The Scopes Trial (1925)




Tennessee science teacher John Scopes was put on trial for teaching about evolution
ACLU provided Clarence Darrow as defense attorney
William Jennings Bryan served as special prosecutor and Bible expert
Scopes was found guilty, but it was overturned by the Tenn. Supreme court
Legislating Values

The “Noble Experiment”





Eighteenth Amendment took effect in 1920
Some urban ethnic groups made their own beer or distilled bathtub gin (bootleggers)
Organized crime increased
Speakeasies sprang up across the country
Twenty-first Amendment in 1933 ended prohibition
Intellectual Crosscurrents

“Lost Generation”

A group of writers and artists who lashed out against war and the pursuit of excess
material wealth


Harlem Renaissance


Championed racial pride among Black Americans
Writers, musicians, and other artists went to Harlem to be part of the experience


Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot , Sinclair Lewis
Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes
Marcus Garvey and UNIA


Universal Negro Improvement Association
Jamaican immigrant who encouraged black separatism and started a back to Africa
movement
Election of 1928


Campaign issues: Prohibition, Protestant Fundamentalism, nativism
Democrat- Alfred Smith





4 terms as governor of New York
Tammany Hall political machine
Irish Catholic
Opponent of prohibition
Republicans- Herbert Hoover



Secretary of Commerce
Food Administration (WWI)
Wins election (only elected office Hoover ever wins)