Social Changes of the 1920's
A decade of prosperity inspired many Americans to care less about politics and more about
having fun, as a variety of cultural amusements came into fashion. The automobile, radios, movies, major
league sports, new dance steps, and a fast paced music called Jazz gave the name to this period,
The Roaring Twenties.
1. Consumerism
A. The Model-T Ford - mass production assembly line production) of Henry Ford's auto allowed
those with average incomes to afford an automobile. (1910-$980 by 1929-$290)
1.. effects of the auto industry.
1916
1929
Wages (hourly)
40 cents
57 cents
Cost (Automobile)
$400.00
$290.00
Production
1.5 million (1919)
4.7 million
*In 1914 Ford plants paid workers $5.00 a day—double of what any other worker received.
Impact: The auto industry stimulated the growth of other industries such as rubber, oil, gas, steel, roadside
hotels and restaurants. In addition campgrounds, gas stations, and the trucking industry. In 1929 the
nation spent nearly $2billion building and maintaining roads and buildings. This inspired the growth of
suburbs, transportation, and recreation. New problem arose as drunk driving, fatal accidents, parking
problems on city streets, and air pollution.
2. Installment Buying
= increased demand
Impact: Banks and manufacturers encouraged buying on credit so they did not have to drop their prices.
The creation of second hand markets made products available to all Americans.
3. Advertising – N.W. Ayers, J.W. Thompson , + F.W. Taylor used scientific analysis theory.
B. Movies (1920’s) By 1930 100,000’s of people saw films. This help to establish production
companies such as Paramount and United Artists in 1919.
1. Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, D.W. Griffith
2. Hollywood, California becomes the movie capital---comedies, Westerns, & romances
3. 1927 – first talking movie—Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer”
Impact: Mass media (movies, magazine, radio, & newspapers such as Time, Newsweek, Readers Digest
and the New Yorker) created a common Popular Culture- Americans everywhere developed the sense of
belonging to a common national culture. Movie houses were a respectable place for women to patronage.
Immigrant women learned American style of dress and American culture.
C. Women’s Liberation “New Era” Fueled after World War I.
1. 19th Amendment (1920) Womens suffrage.
2. Alice Paul- National Womens Party
3. Jeanette Rankin (Montana, 1916) 1st women elected to the House of Representatives
4. Margaret Sanger – movement for birth control. Established Planned Parenthood.
5. Flappers –women of high school and college age who experimented by:
a. Raising hemlines above their knees
b. Smoke, drank, and wore make-up
c. Short haircuts “bobbed”
d. Mostly lower and working class women.
Impact: After winning the right to vote women turn their attention to equal rights. However; only 35% of
women voters went to the polls. Their votes did not have a major impact on politics. By 1928 there were
145 women in 38 state legislatures. In 1921 the Sheppard-Towner Act was passed which provided funds for
women’s’ health and prenatal care and demonstrated the governments attempt of directing women to their
nurturing roles.
D. The “Self Made Man”-Success through hard work epitomized by Theodore Roosevelt.
1. Folk Heroes- Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh
a. Triumph of modern technology & industrial society
b. Successful w/o the benefit of a formal education
c. Successful through their own efforts
Impact: The auto industry employs 1 out of every 6 workers.
E. The Disenchanted “The Lost Generation”
1. Disenchanted w/ the modern consumerism, materialism, & immoral
a. Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, H.L. Menkin and
b. F.Scott Fitzgerald- criticized wealthy society ex. The Great Gatsby” (1925)
2. Fled to Paris and est. cultural base in Greenwich Village, NYC
In Contrast: The Harlem Renaissance – period of remarkable creativity where a number of
African American rose to fame as writers, performers, & musicians. (Poets-James Weldon
Johnson, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Actor-Paul Robeson, Singer-Josephine Baker).
F. Prohibition 18th amendment(1919)
1. Movement led by middle class progressives and the Temperance Movement
a. Carrie Nation
Impact: Prohibition gave rise to Bootleggers and Organized Crime in NYC & Chicago
Bootleggers – those who made a business of supplying illegal beverages by smuggling whiskey from the
Caribbean and Canada. Others operated stills that made alcohol from corn, grain, and potatoes. In the old
days bootleggers were merely drinkers who hid flasks of liquor in the leg of their boot. Speakeasiesillegal bars that flourished in the cities. Entrance was restricted. A heavy gate usually blocked the door, to
be opened up only when the customer showed a membership card or was recognized by the guard.
a. Al Capone “Scar face” worth $60 m eventually arrested for tax evasion. Capone bought
cooperation from judges, police, and city officials, thus escaping jail. There were over 157
bombs set off by racketeers in Chicago. The FBI headed by J. Edgar Hoover with 1500 agents
were assembled to combat bootleggers.
2. Repealed in 1933
In Favor of Repeal== “I will concede that the saloon was odious (offensive), but now we have delicatessen
stores, pool rooms, private parlors, and 57 other varieties of speakeasies selling liquor and flourishing.”—
Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of N.Y., 1926
Against Repeal== “Instead of lower our standards, we urge that the law be strengthened…The closing of
the open saloon…has resulted in better national health, children are born under better conditions, homes
are better, and the mother is delivered from the fear of a drunken husband” –Ella A. Boole, President of the
National Women’s Christian Temperance Movement.
G. Nativism
Fueled by immigration and social Darwinism.
1. Red Scare = Sedition Act = Palmer Raids
2. Communism hostile to American beliefs & values such as capitalism, private
ownership of land & businesses, and 1st amendment freedoms. (Communism- belief
that govt. should own all land and property, a single political party, lack of individual
rights, Comintern-declaration by Lenin to aid any communist group looking to
overthrow their existing nations government.
3. Xenophobia –emotion ridden anti-foreign feeling.
4. Sacco-Vanzetti Case – “liberals” blame anti-foreign prejudices of many Americans
5. Rise of the KKK a. President Grant almost eliminated the KKK after the Civil War.
b. Revived by Colonel William J. Simmons at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
c. 1922—100,000 members mostly in South by 1924---4 million nationwide
d. No longer Southern organization nationwide because of the Great Migration.
e. Crimes against African American, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and others.
f. D.W. Griffith’s silent movie “Birth of a Nation” glorified the KKK.
g. By 1927 klan activity diminished and died out by World War II.
Impact: Thousands of illegal aliens were deported, race riots occurred in northern cities, and the
Congress passed restrictive immigration laws (Quota Immigration Laws- restricted flow from southern and
eastern Europe increased the flow from north and west Europe.)
(1921-Quota system 3%
1924-National Origins Act—2% + no Asians)
H. Religious Fundamentalism
“Clash of Culture”
1. Tradition vs. Science
Influences: a. Science and technology were taking a larger role in everyday life and thought.
b. War and the widespread problems of modern society were causing more people to question
whether God existed or took an active role in human affairs.
c. Some scholars were saying that the Bible was a document written by humans and contained
contradictions and even historical inaccuracies.
In Response
Religious traditionalists published a series of 12 pamphlets called “The Fundamentals” = Fundamentalism.
a. The Bible was inspired by God and cannot contain contradictions or errors.
b. The Bible is literally true.
2. “The Scopes (Monkey) Trial” (1925)
Tennessee-Butler Act = no teaching theory of evolution because it promoted atheism.
ACLU, started by Jane Addams and Helen Keller defended teachers because it violated free
speech.
c. Science teacher, John J. Scopes lawyers challenged Act as unconstitutional.
Fundamentalists
Evolutionists
(1860—1925) Wm. Jennings Bryan
Clarence Darrow
*Populists Part Pres. Candidate
*famous for previously defending Eugene V. Debs
a. Trial- July, 1925 in sweltering was highly publicized.
b. Darrow put Bryan on the stand to testify as an expert on the Bible. Bryan admitted that even he
did not interpret all of the Bible literally.
c. Bryan seen as a martyr for fundamentalism because a few days after the grueling trial, he died.
d. Scopes readily admitted he had taught the subject and the jury found him guilty—fined $100.00
*Tennessee Supreme Court later overruled on a technicality and recommended the law be
repealed by the legislature. It remained in force until 1967, however no other teachers were
prosecuted.
Impact: It tested academic freedom. Fundamentalists was seen as too radical for Protestant mainstream
a.
b.