The Roaring 20s
The decade that made a difference?
The Roaring 20s
• Era of Rapid change
• Era of Excess
– Tired and scared after WWI
• 1918-1919 Flu epidemic (675,000
Americans die)
– Globally 30 – 50 million
• Change from rural to urban
• What events during the 20s
would shape the 20th
Century?
Moral Issues Started the 20s
• 1920 – Prohibition
– 18th Amendment
• 1920 – Woman’s
Suffrage
– 19th Amendment
Pro-Business Government
• Series of Republican Administrations
– Warren Harding
• Depression at start
• Scandal
– Teapot Dome
» Pres. Harding’s Sec. of Int. Albert fall
transferred ownership of the oil
production, initially earmarked for
Naval purposes, to Sinclair Oil
– Calvin Coolidge
– Herbert Hoover
• “The business of America is
Business”
Industrial Revolution pays-off
• Mechanization/working conditions
improve
– Moving Assembly line
• Labor
– Increase pay, 8 hr. work day, 5 day
work week
• Average person
– Excess Leisure time/expendable
cash
• Easy Money
– Affordable cars allowed movement
to suburbs
– Electricity for ALL
• Not a good era for Unions and
Progressives
Ads of the 20s
What to do?
• People could afford appliances
– Radios
• Entertainment
– Music
• Jazz – Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington
– The Cotton Club
• Harlem Renaissance
– Langston Hughes
– Dance (Charleston)
• Flappers & Vamps
• As hair came up so did skirts
– Period of risk and doing the
unusual
• Barnstorming, stunts
Fashion
Social/Moral Issues
• Scopes Trial
– Creationism vs. Darwinism
(evolution)
– John Scopes, Clarence Darrow
– Williams Jennings Bryan
• Nativism
– 1924 National Origins Act
establishes Quotas
– Rise of KKK
– African-Americans migrate North
• Red Scare
– Palmer Raids
• Fear that the Russian/Soviet
revoltuion would spread to the US
Heroes
• Sports
– Baseball
• Ruth
– Boxing
• Dempsy
– Air Racing
• Doolittle
– Football, golf
tennis
Movies
• Movie houses open all over
– Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph
Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks
– Mary Pickford, Maria Marsh
• 1927 – First Talkie
– Al Jolston “The Jazz Singer”
– 1st English Talkie
• Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Organized Crime
• Prohibition = Illegal Bars
– “Speakeasy”
• Rise of Organized Crime
– Al Capone
– Feb 1929 Valentines Day
Massacre
• Man make fortunes on booze
– Joseph Kennedy
• Rum Running
The Crash
• Oct. 24, 1929
– “Black Thursday”
• What caused the
Crash to turn into a
depression?
• Speculation (44%) of
banks close
• Credit
• Foreign investment
leaves
• Psychology
Issues of the 20s
What a modern decade
Palmer Raids – 1918-1919
• 1917 – Russia fell to the Bolsheviks, the USSR was
created
• The original Red Scare
• Attempt to deport leftist radicals, anarchists and
communists from the United States
– Only about 500 foreign citizens were deported
• According to A. Mitchell Palmer, Wilson’s attorney
General, communism was “eating its way into the
homes of the American workman.”
• Palmer charged that the violence and social ills of
America were the work of communists
Religion
We put the fun back in
fundamentalism!
Religious backlash
• Due to the rise of the
“immorality” of the
flappers (wild
women), jazz music
and dancers
(Charleston),
conservatives looked
to the Bible for
salvation
• The idea that religious
texts should be taken
literally
Scopes Monkey Trial – 1925
• John Scopes, substitute high
school teacher, was accused
of violating Tennessee’s Butler
Act by teaching the theory of
evolution
• Scopes was 24 years old and
was asked by the ACLU
(American Civil Liberties
Union) to be the poster boy
for taking on the Butler Act
• Gained nationwide notoriety
• Circuslike atmosphere
Scopes Monkey Trial
• Defense argued by Clarence Darrow
– The state of Tennessee required that teachers use a textbook titled
Civic Biology which explained and endorsed the theory of evolution.
Thus, according to the ACLU, Scopes was required to teach evolution
– The Butler Act violated the teacher’s academic freedoms
– The Butler Act was essentially designed to benefit a particular religious
group, and was there for unconstitutional
• Prosecution argued by William Jennings Bryan
– The state argued that all the defense’s arguments were neither correct nor
relevant to the case, specifically because the case was simply about
whether or not Scopes had taught the theory of evolution at Rhea County
High School
Scopes Monkey Trial
• Outcome: Scopes found guilty and forced to
pay $100 fine
• Larger issue is the role schools play in bringing
up controversial issues
• Science vs. Religion
Prohibition
America’s great moral experiment
Temperance Cartoons
In the 1850 engraving, "The Drunkard's Home," a cowering family in a squalid home is
subjected to the whims of a brutal patriarch.
By contrast, the 1850 engraving, "The Temperance Home," depicts a scene of
domestic harmony, order, affection, and material comfort.
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Carrie Nation
“Molly Hatchet”
Anti-Immigrant
• Nativism
• Alcohol was an immigrant problem
• Sober immigrant = good American
Anti-Poor
• Disease of the poor/working class
• Sober the poor = Opportunity to climb the
social/economic ladder
Did Consumption Decrease?
Think about it?
• What is more important, the right of the
individual or the rights of the vocal minority?
• Can the government legislate morality?
Economics
The more things change, the more
they stay the same
A Conspicuous Consumption
• The 1920s saw the development of a consumer economy, one
that depends on a large amount of spending by consumers.
• Manufacturers developed installment plans and clever
advertising to encourage consumers to buy on credit.
• As consumption rose so did productivity. A measure of
productivity is the Gross National Product (GNP). The GNP is
the total value of goods and services a country produces
annually.
Industrial Growth and Bypassed by the
Boom
• Some Americans struggled to survive during the 1920s.
• Many unskilled laborers remained poor, and their wages and
working conditions did not improve with the boom.
• Agricultural industries had expanded to meet wartime needs but
later failed to uncover new markets.
• Railroads suffered from shrinking demand, mismanagement,
competition from trucking firms, and labor unions that fought
against layoffs and wage cuts.
Not Enough Cash in the Market
The Start of Deflationary Market
Economy Appears Healthy
• Americans had unusually high confidence in the economy in
the 1920s. People made risky investments based on the
popular notion that everyone ought to be rich.
• Herbert Hoover won the 1928 election, benefiting from the
years of prosperity under previous Republican presidents.
• Under welfare capitalism employers raised wages, provided
paid vacations, health plans, recreation programs, and English
classes for recent immigrants. They even set up “company
unions” to hear the concerns of their workers.
Economic Danger Signs
• The rich got richer = massive income inequality
• Huge corporations rather than small business dominated
industry.
• Many Americans believed that they could count on future
income to cover debt. They bought on installment plans
boasting “easy terms.” Low Interest Rates
• Speculation, the practice of making high-risk investments in
hopes of getting a huge return, and buying on margin, the
practice of allowing investors to purchase a stock for only a
fraction of its price and borrow the rest at high interest rates.
Ponder my students…
• How were the economic issues of the 1920s
similar to those today?