1910s
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FACTS about this decade.
Population: 92,407,000
Life Expectancy: Male 48.4 Female: 51.8
Average Salary $750 / year
The Ziegfeld girls earned $75/week.
Unemployed 2,150,000
National Debt: $1.15 billion
Union Membership: 2.1 million Strikes 1,204
Attendance: Movies 30 million per week
Lynchings: 76
Divorce: 1/1000
Vacation: 12 day cruise $60
Whiskey $3.50 / gallon, Milk $.32 / gallon
Speeds make automobile safety an issue
25,000 performers tour 4,000 U.S. theaters
1920s
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106,521,537 people in the United
States
2,132,000 unemployed,
Unemployment 5.2%
Life expectancy: Male 53.6, Female
54.6
343.000 in military (down from
1,172,601 in 1919)
Average annual earnings
$1236; Teacher's salary $970
Dow Jones High 100 Low 67
Illiteracy rate reached a new low of
6% of the population.
Gangland crime included murder,
swindles, racketeering
It took 13 days to reach California
from New York There were 387,000
miles of paved road.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/06/05/national/06HYPERA_GRAPHIC.html
Published 2005
Accessed 3-20-09
Life at home during WWI
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Rationing
Job Opportunities for Women
and African Americans
Suppression of Labor Activity
/ Use of Propaganda
Women’s wartime work
creates support for 19th
Amendment
Anti – German / Foreign
Sentiment lends support for
Prohibition
Progress for women and
prohibitionists, but what
does the “war to make the
world safe for democracy” do
for African Americans?
Election of 1920 – “A return to
normalcy”
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Harding = traditional party politician
Ushers in the Roaring 20s, theoretically more
tranquil, but not really
Harding, Coolidge, Hoover
1921-1933
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Election serves as referendum on War, League,
Wilsonian Idealism
Harding represents retreat from the world,
refocus on “Americanism” – non elites
“a return to normalcy”
“the business of America is business”
The “roaring 20s”
Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance
Consumer Economy / speculative buying
Perceived wealth v. reality
Isolationism
Prohibition / Organized Crime
1929 Crash Start of Depression
Trickle Down Economics
1920s Politics –
3 Main Ideas
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Communism – Anti
Foreigner
Isolationism –
Including AntiImmigration
Prohibition
1924 From the Congressional Record
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Telegram from Mr. Morgan Keaton
Department of Adjutant of the American Legion of
California
May 8, 1924
From: San Francisco
To: Honorable John E. Raker
House of Representatives
Washington, DC
The Legionnaires in California urge you be present
when immigration bill comes up on floor… and whant
you to know that we are standing behind you 100 per
cent in you fight to make this coast a white man’s
country. To defer effective date of ineligible alien
exclusion until March 1925 is to provide open season
for influx of Japanese.
1920s Politics of Isolation and Fear
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Red Scare
Mitchell Palmer
Sacco and Vanzetti
Blacklist
Anti Labor
Normalcy
Fortress America
National Origins Act
of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
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It will be remembered that the quota limit act of May, 1921,
provided that the number of aliens of any nationality admissible to
the United States in any fiscal year should be limited to 3 per cent
of the number of persons of such nationality who were resident in
the United States according to the census of 1910, it being also
provided that not more than 20 per cent of any annual quota could
be admitted in any one month. Under the act of 1924 the number of
each nationality who clay be admitted annually is limited to 2 per
cent of the population of such nationality resident in the United
States according to the census of 1890
Total Immigration
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1920
1925
1935
1948
approx 650,000
approx 150,000
less than 50,000
1st time it rises over 100,000 again
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. . . The ****, therefore, has now come to
speak for the great mass of Americans of the old
pioneer stock. We believe that it does fairly and
faithfully represent them, and our proof lies in
their support. To understand the ****, then, it
is necessary to understand the character and
present mind of the mass of old-stock
Americans. The mass, it must be remembered,
as distinguished from the intellectually
mongrelized "Liberals."
Hiram Wesley Evans “The ****’s Fight for
Americanism” 1926
**** = Ku Klux Klan
The Scopes Trial 1925
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Q—But when you read that Jonah
swallowed the whale—or that the
whale swallowed Jonah—excuse me
please—how do you literally
interpret that?
A—When I read that a big fish
swallowed Jonah—it does not say
whale.
Q—Doesn’t it? Are you sure?
A—That is my recollection of it. A
big fish, and I believe it, and I
believe in a God who can make a
whale and can make a man and
make both what He pleases.
Al Capone
Response to Prohibition – the
“noble experiment”
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•Bootleggers
•Speakeasies
•“Organized” Crime
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Al
Capone
Capone Headline
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October 18, 1931
1920s Life /
Society
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Consumer
Economy
Mass Media,
including films
Radio / Billboard
Advertising
Installment Plans
Stock Market
Inflation
“Lost Generation”
Hemingway /
Fitzgerald
Jazz Age / Roaring
20s
Cars in the 1920s
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1920s Life for African Americans
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Remember –
Plessy v.
Ferguson, Lynching, Rise of KKK,
Ida Wells, Birth of a Nation
Northern Migration
African American
Response
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Cultural Response –
Harlem Renaissance
Political Reaction
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Key Leaders /
Strategies
Often linked with
Reds
1919 Race Riots
1920s – Women
Main Ideas
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Suffrage – 19th
Amendment 1920
Changing Image of
Women
Working Outside the
Home
Ratio of Divorce to
Marriage
 1890
 1900
 1910
 1920
 1930
1:17
1:12
1:11
1:7
1:5
1400000
1200000
1000000
800000
Divorces
600000
Marriages
400000
200000
0
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1920s Women
Specifics
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony
Jane Addams and Florence
Kelley
Margaret Sanger
NAWSA (Carrie Chapman
Catt) v. NWP (Alice Paul)
WWI Factory Jobs
19th Amendment
Flappers, Bob
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"Woman must have her freedom—the
fundamental freedom of choosing
whether or not she shall be a mother
and how many children she will have.
Regardless of what man's attitude may
be, that problem is hers—and before it
can be his, it is hers alone. She goes
through the vale of death alone, each
time a babe is born. As it is the right
neither of man nor the state to coerce
her into this ordeal, so it is her right to
decide whether she will endure it.“
Margaret Sanger: quote on a woman's freedom
of choice
Flappers
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