American Life in the
“Roaring Twenties”
Chapter 31
AP
How and why did America turn
toward domestic isolation and social
conservatisim in the 1920s?
What caused increased labor
unrest?
 1919-3,600
strikes
 Labor gains of the war wiped out
 Spiraling inflation
 Difficult working conditions
 Lay-offs
Strikes of 1919
 Seattle
General Strike
 Boston Police Strike
 U.S. Steel Strike
 How did the American people
view these strikes?
Calvin Coolidge – Gov. of
Massachusetts
“There is no
right to strike
against the
public safety
by anybody,
anywhere,
anytime.”
The Russian Revolution
March, 1917 Czar overthrown by
Alexander Kerensky
 Kerensky kept Russia in war
 Bolsheviks led by Lenin promised
“Bread, land, and peace”
 Nov. 1917 – Bolsheviks (Reds) in
control
 March, 1917 Russia left the war – Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk

The Romanov Family
How did the Allies respond to
Russian departure from the war?
 Angry
Didn’t
like Bolshevism
German’s would reinforce W. Front
 Wanted to help counterrevolutionaries (Whites) when Civil
War broke out
 Wanted to reclaim military supplies
sent during WWI to fight Germany
Wilson’s response?
 Supported
March revolution but
not the November
 Refused to recognize the Reds
 Wanted to stay out of the civil war
at first
 15,000
troops sent to N. and E.
Russia
 Result: widened the gulf between
West and Russia
 March, 1919 – Communists called
for world rev.
What was the Red Scare?
 Anti-communist
hysteria
 Strikes, anti-war agitation, racial
disturbances
 1919 – mail bombs
 Bombings in cities
 Government officials convinced of
communist threat
Who was A. Mitchell Palmer?




Attorney General
Believed in
communist threat
Invoked Alien Act of
1918 to deport any
immigrant found to
be a member of a
rev. org.
Justice
Department…
Palmer Raids?
Palmer raids – 11 cities –
arrested several hundred
members of IWW – 249 deported
on U.S.S. Buford – Emma
Goldman
 1920 – 6,000 people in 33 cities
arrested – 600 deported
 1919
USS Buford- “The Soviet Ark”
How did the Red Scare end?
 NY
State Assembly refused to
seat 5 elected Socialist Party
members
 Victor Berger refused seat in
Congress…
 Palmer discredited – predictions
exaggerated
Legacy of the Red Scare
 Violations
of constitutional rights
 Deportations of innocent people
 Fuel for nativism and intolerance
 “Red – baiting” - keep unions out
 Contributed to weakening women’s
movement
 Hostility to new and progressive ideas
What caused the resurgence of the
KKK?
Nativist mass movement
 The Birth of a Nation
 Secret rituals
 Hiram Evans recruiting campaign
 Advocated “100% Americanism” and
“white supremacy”
 Defenders of small town Protestant Am.
 1924 – 3 million members

Who became the targets of the new
Klan?
Birth control
 Violators of prohibition
 Darwinism
 Roman Catholic Church
 African Americans
 Jews
 immigrants

What led to the demise of the
KKK?
Stephenson incident – broke
prohibition, immoral, disgraced
 Evidence of corruption
 Success of immigration restriction
 Less concern over Bolshevism
 Economic prosperity

Why did the government limit
immigration?
 1900
-1920 10.5 million came from
Southern and Eastern Europe
 2X as many came from S. and E. as
came from N. and W.
 Catholic and Jewish
 Lived in poor – isolated
neighborhoods of the cities
What forces came together to
create opposition to immigration?
– anti-Catholic American
Protective Assoc.
 Immigration Restriction League
 Eugenics – Madison Grant
 War
 Red Scare
 Post-war depression
 AFL
 1890s
What restrictions were placed on
immigration?
 Immigration
Act of 1921…
 Johnson –Reed Immigration Act of
1924…
 Did not apply to w. hemisphere
 Reversed previous policy of
allowing free immigration
The case of Sacco and Vanzetti





Italians and
anarchists
Arrested for robbery
and murder
Circumstantial
evidence
Judge was
prejudiced
Convicted public
outcry
What happened to the long
campaign to prohibit liquor?
18th Amendment…
 Supporters
Women’s temperance groups
Middle class progressives
Rural Protestants
 “noble experiment”
 Volstead Act – 1919…

How well was Prohibition enforced?
Act – 1919…
 Widespread lawbreaking…
 Law enforcement bribed…
 Boost to violent organized crime…
 21st Amendment….
 Success?
 Volstead
A moonshiner and his still-1930
Speakeasy

The Boozejoint – a speakeasy in
Chicago
Federal officials with confiscated
beer and distilling equipment
Al Capone
What was the nature of the
fundamentalist revival of the
1920s?
Reaction to the Social Gospel…
 Refocus on religious practices
 Literal reading of the Bible
 Rejection of modern science as
inconsistent with the word of God
 Target Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

How did science conflict with
religion?
Darwin’s theory of evolution…
 By 1925 – 20 states had passed antievolution laws
 Tennessee passed a law against the
teaching of evolution
 The American Civil Liberties Union
offered to defend any teacher who
taught evolution

The Scopes Trial
John Scopes taught Darwin’s theory to
his biology class
 Clarence Darrow – ACLU lawyer
 William Jennings Bryan – special
prosecutor and an “expert on the
Bible”
 Scopes guilty – fined $100
 Tennessee threw out the conviction on
a technicality

John
Scopes
The Evolution of Man
Clarence
Darrow
Wm.
Jennings
Bryan
Clarence Darrow & Wm J. Bryan
What propelled the Second
Industrial Revolution?
 Increased
industrial output …
 Electricity….
 Machinery/assembly line….
 Producer-durable consumerdurable….
 Building boom…
How did the modern corporation
change?
Professional managers…
 Scientific management and behavioral
psychology…
 Success:

 Integration
of production and distribution
 Product diversification
 Expansion of industrial research
What was the effect of corporate
consolidation?
Oligopoly…
 200 corporations 1/2 nation’s corporate
wealth
 Mergers – 8,000 from 1920 to 28
 Chain stores and franchises
 Creating uniformity

How did the concept of welfare
capitalism impact American labor?
Challenged power of unions and appeal of
collective bargaining
 Stock-purchase plans
 Insurance policies
 Improved safety, medical services, etc.
 Create worker loyalty to company
 The American Plan

What was the American Plan and
how did it effect labor unions?
Designed to discredit unions as unAmerican
 Open shop…
 Company unions…
 Drop in union membership…
 No effort to enlist unskilled workers
 Government sympathetic to business

How did the automobile impact
America?
Greatest impact on America…
 Rise of consumer durables
 85% of world’s autos made in U.S.
 9% of all wages were in auto
manufacturing – most productive industry
 Ripple effect …
 Social changes…

How did Henry Ford impact
industrialization?





Assembly line…
Fordism…
$5 day – 8 hours…
Reduced price of
cars….
15 million Model Ts
The assembly line at Ford’s
How did the automobile impact
demographic changes?
Census of 1920?
 Growth of big cities…
 Continuation of the Great Migration…
 Suburbs…

Mass Society, Mass Culture
Objective…
Identify the social and
cultural forces
promoting a
standardized society.
How do movies affect the popular
culture?
Nickelodeons….
 Hollywood large studios
 Jazz Singer…
 Star system…
 “liberated social themes” – youth,
athleticism, and consumerism

Gloria Swanson and Rudolph
Valentino
How did radio broadcasting begin?
KDKA – Pittsburgh…
 1920 Presidential election returns
 Service for selling left over radio sets from
WWI
 1923 – 600 radio stations – 600,000 radios

How did radio broadcasting effect
popular culture?
Programming…
 Link for rural America to the larger market
 Commercial radio – advertisers…
 Created a national community of
listeners…
 By 1930 – 12 million homes received
broadcasts – 40% of American families

The development of the advertising
industry?
Reflected and drove the consumer
economy
 Model –CPI in WWI – sold war to
American people
 Use modern communication media to
convince people to buy goods and
services
 Advertising jumped from $1.4 to $3 billion
industry in 10 years

How did advertising change?

Focused on psychology
 Needs,
desires, anxieties
Market research and consumer surveys
 Consumption – a positive good
 Ex. Listerine – avoid “halitosis” – profits
went from $100,000 to $4 million 1922-27

Ads in McClure’s Magazine
How did the new media of the
1920s promote sports?
Attendance boomed during the 1920s
 Sports sections…
 Broadcast games
 Athletes achieve celebrity status
 Ex. Babe Ruth

 Endorsements
 Followed
by the media
 Associated with other famous people
Babe
Ruth
“The Sultan
of Swat”
1927- 60 HRs
The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame
Charles Lindbergh
Charles
Lindbergh
Was the media responsible for the
“new morality” of the 1920s?
Notoriety of movies stars, musicians, and
sports figures
 The flapper …
 Sex education…
 Influence of the automobile…
 Advertising…
 The Reality

Flapper
Flappers
How did the women’s movement
split after suffrage?
 NAWSA
 League of Women
Voters
Educate female electorate
Encourage women to run for
office
Support protection laws
 National
Women’s Party 
Alice Paul
Suffrage not enough
Opposed protective
legislation
Represented professional
and business women
Equal Rights
Amendment—
“Men and women shall
have equal rights
throughout the U.S. And
every place subject to its
jurisdiction”
Support for the ERA?
 Alice
Paul and the National
Women’s Party
 Protective legislation prevented
women from getting or keeping
some jobs
 Stressed individualism,
competition, equality, rights
Women Athletes in 1920
Opposed ERA?
League of Woman Voters
 National Consumers League
 Women’s Trade Union League
 Worried about the loss of protective
legislation that benefited poor and
working class women
 Reality of exploitation – concentration
of women in low paying jobs

What gains did women make in
the 1920s?
Professional women
 Greater % of women in white collar jobs
1900 – 18% worked as white collar
1930 – 44% worked as white collar
 Sheppard Towner Act…
 Cable Act….

How did Harlem become a
cultural capital?
Cultural capital of black America
 1920-1930 – 90,000 new arrivals
 200,000 black population
 WWI – Great Migration
 Large middle class population
 Churches, theaters, newspapers,
journals
 Black owned businesses

Harlem…
 African
American intellectuals,
artists, musicians, and writers
 Political and intellectual center
for the “New Negro”
 Develop and celebrate a
distinctive culture
Jazz


Moved from New
Orleans to Chicago
and New York
Joe “King” Oliver
and his Creole Jazz
Band
What were the politics of
Harlem?
 NAACP….
 A.
Philip Randolph…
 Marcus Garvey…
Marcus Garvey
 Universal
Negro Improvement
Association
 Believed African Americans should
build a separate society
 Black Pride
• Promote African
American businesses
• Return to Africa – help
native people throw
off white oppressors
• Convicted of mail
fraud
Marcus Garvey

UNIA
 Oratory
 Mass-meetings
 Parades
 Message

of pride
Legacy
 Black
pride
 Economic
independence
 Reverence for Africa
What was the “Lost
Generation”?
Alienation of intellectuals
 Disillusionment
War
Prohibition
Growing corporate power
Intolerance

Writers – The Age of
Disillusionment
 Sinclair
Lewis
 Ridiculed
Americans for
conformity and
materialism
 Babbitt
 Main Street
F. Scott Fitzgerald




Coined the term “Jazz
Age”
Great Gatsby
Negative side of the
period’s gaiety and
freedom
Wealthy and attractive
people leading
imperiled lives in gilded
surroundings
H.L. Mencken
Savage critic of middle class society
 ridiculed middle class and called it the
“Booboise”
 When asked why he remained in a society
that he found so loathsome, he
responded, “Why do people go to a zoo?”
