1920 - 1929
Major Themes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Second industrial revolution transforms economy
The promise (and limits) of prosperity in the 1920s
New mass media and culture emerges
Republican Party dominates
Political and cultural trends
Rise and fall of KKK
Immigration Issues
Role of Evolution
Warren G (Harding)
• Won the election of 1920 on a slogan: “A return to
normalcy”
• Republican- (Wilson was only Democratic President
between 1892 and 1932- FDR)
• People had grown tired of Wilson international
entanglements and domestic policy
• Normalcy, under the Harding administration, meant a
government that was pro-business, anti-tax, and antiregulation.
• Harding's Treasury Secretary, financier Andrew Mellon,
cut income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans
from 73% to 25%.
The Second Industrial Revolution
• Due to technology, manufacturing was able to increase the
industrial output without expanding the workforce
• Electricity replaces steam as main source
• Factories became more reliant on mass produced items
(Assembly Line)
• Construction expanded, especially homes since back log
from WW I
The Modern Corporation
• 1920s marked the emergence of the Modern
Corporation
• Shift control from away from owners of corporate stocks
to everyday business leaders (CFO)
• Examples: Alfred Sloan @ GM and Owen Young @
Radio Corporation
• Emergence of salary executives, managers, & engineers ran
companies without having stick themselves
• Corporations were in THREE main areas: Integration of
production and distribution, product diversification,
and industrial research
• By 1929, the 200 largest corporations had nearly ½
nation’s wealth. Oligopolies became the norm
Welfare Capitalism
• Favor shown unions during WWI worried corporations
• Corporations worked to improve worker well-being and
morale in what became known as Welfare Capitalism to
prevent more workers from complaining or going to
Unions (Examples: Insurance, Savings, Homes, etc.)
• Despite these attempts, common complaints remained:
seasonal unemployment, low wages, long hours, and
unhealthy factory conditions
• Open Shops- To combat unions, many companies
made it so workers did NOT have to join unions to
get benefits. It was thought less people would join
and pay dues, and eventually the unions would fail
Unions Lose Ground
• Open shop cut gains made in a union shop (where new
employees had to join an existing unions) or closed
shops- where companies only hired union workers
• 1920s- Union membership declined ( 5million in ‘20 to
3.5 million in ‘26)
• William Green (replaced Gompers of the AFL) did not
seek to incorporate workers in mass production fields
into union.
• Government revert back to pro-business and
Supreme Court consisting upholding injunctions to
prevent strikes, picketing, and other union activities
Knights of Labor of America Preamble
•
•
•
•
•
TO THE PUBLIC:
The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporations,
unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the
toiling masses.
It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, that a check be placed
upon unjust accumulation, and the power for evil of aggregated wealth.
This much-desired object can be accomplished only by the united efforts of those who
obey the divine injunction, "In the sweat of they face shalt thou eat bread."
Therefore we have formed the Order of Knights of Labor, for the purpose of organizing
and directing the power of the industrial masses, not as a political party, for it is more in it are crystallized sentiments and measures for the benefit of the whole people, but it
should be borne in mind, when exercising the right of suffrage, that most of the objects
herein set forth can only be obtained through legislation, and that it is the duty of all to
assist in nominating and supporting with their votes only such candidates as will pledge
their support to those measures, regardless of party. But no one shall, however, be
compelled to vote with the majority, and calling upon all who believe in securing "the
greatest good to the greatest number," to join and assist us, we declare to the world that
are our aims are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
To make individual and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and National greatness.
To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they create, sufficient leisure in which to develop their intellectual, moral, and social faculties: all of the
benefits, recreation and pleasures of association; in a word, to enable them to share in the gains and honors of advancing civilization.
In order to secure these results, we demand at the hands of the State:
The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Statistics, that we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral and financial condition of the laboring masses.
That the public lands, the heritage of the people, be reserved for actual settlers; not another acre for railroads or speculators, and that all lands now held for speculative
purposes be taxed to their full value.
The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays and discriminations in the administration of
justice.
The adoption of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining and manufacturing, building industries, and for indemnification to those
engaged therein for injuries received through lack of necessary safeguards.
The recognition, by incorporation, of trades' unions, orders and such other associations as may be organized by the working masses to improve their condition and
protect their rights.
The enactment of laws to compel corporations to pay their employees weekly, in lawful money, for the labor of the preceding week, and giving mechanics and laborers
a first lien upon the product of their labor to the extend of their full wages.
The abolition of the contract system on National, State and Municipal works.
The enactment of laws providing for arbitration between employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the arbitrators.
The prohibition by law of the employment of children under 15 years of age in workshops, mines and factories.
To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor.
That a graduated income tax be levied.
And we demand at the hands of Congress:
The establishment of a National monetary system, in which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue direct to the people, without the intervention of banks;
that all the National issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private; and that the Government shall not guarantee or recognize any private
banks, or create any banking corporations.
That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit or notes shall never be issued by the Government, but that, when need arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal
tender, non-interest-bearing money.
That the importation of foreign labor under contract be prohibited.
That, in connection wit the post-office, the Government shall organize financial exchanges, safe deposits and facilities for deposit of the savings of the people in small
sums.
That the Government shall obtain possession, by purchase, under the right of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, telephones and railroads, and that hereafter no charter or
license be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any means of transporting intelligence, passengers or freight.
And while making the foregoing demands upon the State and National Government, we will endeavor to associate our own labors.
To establish co-operative institutions such as will tend to supersede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system.
To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work.
To shorten the hours of labor by a general refusal to work for more than eight hours.
To persuade employers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise between them and their employees, in order that the bonds of sympathy between them may
be strengthened and that strikes may be rendered unnecessary.
American Federation of Labor
Declaration of Principles
•
“Whereas a struggle is going on in the nations of the civilized world, between the
oppressors and oppressed of all countries, a struggle between capital and labor
which must grow in intensity from year to year and work disastrous results to the
toiling millions of all nations, if not combined for mutual protection and benefits.
The history of the wage workers of all countries is but the history of constant
struggle and misery, engendered by ignorance and disunion, whereas the history of
the non-producers of all countries proves that a minority thoroughly organized may
work wonders for good or evil. It behooves the representatives of the workers of
North America in congress assembled, to adopt such measures and disseminate
such principles among the people of our country as will unite them for all time to
come, to secure the recognition of the rights to which they are justly entitled. The
various trades have been affected by the introduction of machinery, the subdivision
of labor, the use of women's and children's labor and the lack of an apprentice
system, so that the skilled trades are rapidly sinking to the level of pauper labor. To
protect the skilled labor of America from being reduced to beggary and to sustain
the standard of American workmanship and skill, the trades unions of America
have been established.”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Preamble to the Constitution of the
IWW
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of
production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever
growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another
set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to
mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its
members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus
making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword,
"Abolition of the wage system."
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday
struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are
forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
Vroom Vroom Beep Beep: The Auto
Age
The Auto Age
• “Roaring” Twenties
• Arguably (actually, little arguing), the
automobile HAD THE GREATEST
IMPACT on the lives of Americans of the
1920s (and probably of all time)
• 1920s- U.S. made 85% of all the world’s cars
Henry Ford
• Pioneer to the industry
• Mastered (didn’t invent) ASSEMBLY LINE
• Paid workers $5/8 hr workday (double the
going rate) and forbade union
membership
• 2/3 of his workers were immigrants
(Eastern & Southern Europe) and employed
5,000 African Americans- more than any
other large American company
General Motors
• By 1927- Ford had sold 15 million MODEL T
(“You can have it in any color as long as its
black”), but was facing tough competition
from GM
• GM had divided line: Cadillac= Wealthy,
Chevrolet= Least Expensive
• Business structure became model for other
businesses
Auto Boom
• Autos provided a boom in other areas:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Steel
Rubber
Gas / Oil
Suburbs
Motels
Billboards
Diners
Cities and the ‘Burbs
• 1920 Census - Urban population was bigger
than rural for 1st time in US History
• Cities promised more jobs, cultural richness,
and personal freedoms
• Suburbs- Grew at twice the rate of their
core cities
– Real Estate- Grosse Point (Detroit) &
Elmwood Park (Chicago) grew 700% in 10
years
– Car suburbs were less dense than suburbs
along mass transit
NOT ALL Benefitted: The Farmers
•
•
•
•
1920s: ¼ of US population were in agriculture
1914-19: Golden Age for farmers: WHY?
WW I- Feed our troops and Europe suffering
To cash in, more crops were planted >>
Worldwide Surplus >> Lower Prices (both crops
and land) >> Economic Hardship >>
FARMERS WILL HIT DEPRESSION FIRST
The King is Back
• Cotton prices dropped (1920- $.37/lb Mid 1920- $.14/lb) so
planted more and became more dependant
• South’s inability (refusal) to diversify crops continued the
downward trend and put it further behind
• Hog and cattle prices also fell
• Summary: Green Acres is AIN’T the place, Farm livin is for
fools
• SILVER LINING: Textile Industry Consolidated and
Shifted: Textile manufacturers in New England (Lowell Mills)
shifted to Piedmont Area of North and South Carolina
because women clothing used less fabric and competition
from other fibers (rayon) meant manufacturers wanted closer
to source
McNary-Haugen Bills
• Series of complicated bills that attempted to
fix the problems
• Borrowed from the old Populist ideas:
Government would buy surplus and either
store them or sell on world market
• The result was suppose to be a higher
domestic prices
• Calvin Coolidge (President #30) Vetoed
Coal Miners and Railroad
• Other sectors of the economy failed to benefit
• Coal Miners as gas (oil based products)
became more important
• Once mighty and great RAILROAD industry
slowed as the result of cars
New Mass Culture
• “Roaring” Twenties: Captures explosion of
images and sound
• Movies and radios exploded in popularity
which led to advertising boom= Shift from
what we needed to what we wanted
• Movies moved from silent (Example: “Birth of
a Nation (1915)” by D.W. Griffith )to
“Talkies” such as “The Jazz Singer” (1927)
• Newspapers will also consolidate: Hearst
& Gannett were two major ones
Mass Media and the Jazz Age
• The founding of
Hollywood
– Drew film makers to the area
in 1900.
– Variety of landscapes
(mountains, desert, ocean)
– Warm climate
– Lighting was better
– Large work force from LA.
Advertising
• A thriving advertising industry both
reflected and encouraged the growing
importance of consumer goods in
American life
• Committee on Public Information from
WW I helped to make advertisers appear to
be “better” and more “trustworthy”
• Market research began to be used
• Household names: Kleenex
Phonograph and Radio
• Radios begin to give Americans a
“common experience”
• Increased success of ads
• Phonograph now used better records
Sports and Celebrity
• Professional sports experienced a boom in
the 1920s
– “Black Sox” Scandal in 1920
– George Herman “Babe” Ruth: 1914-35
• Added again by newspapers, radios,
magazines, and newsreels- Again a common
experience
• Movie stars, radio personalities, musicians, and
athletes became the new elite
Charles Lindberg
• Became an American Hero
• First person to fly solo across the Atlantic
Ocean
• May 20-21, 1927
• Was aboard The Spirit of St. Louis
• Will later lose prestige because of his Nazi
sympathizing
• Son will be kidnapped & killed
Amelia Earhart
• 1928 – first woman to
cross the Atlantic in a
plane.
• 1932 – first woman to fly
solo across the Atlantic.
• First to fly from Hawaii to
California.
• Professor at Purdue
• Disappeared in 1937 while
attempting to be first
circumnavigate world
A New Morality: The Flapper
• A 1920s term used to describe a new type of young womanrebellious, energetic, fun-loving, and bold often with bobbed
hair
• Women started to do “un-lady like” activities- For example- drinking
alcohol and smoking
• Dress more provocatively
• Despite the “Flapper” being associated to the 1920s, was not as
commonplace as is often thought
• Activities such as sensuality, sexual experimentation (including
homosexuality), drinking, heavy make-up was already there in subcultures, but will start making it slowly into more middle class mainstream
• Margaret Sanger- Continued campaign for birth
control and did so vigorously through the 1920s
Resistance to Modernity
• A large percentage of Americans still
resisted the cultural changes that were
occurring throughout the U.S. but
especially the cities
• Deep and persistent tensions continued in
terms of ethnic, racial, and geographical
overtones dominated the politics
• Red Scare increased anti-radicalism (which will
also hurt Unions)
Resistance to Modernity: Prohibition
• 18th Amendment: Prohibition: Outlawed the
manufacture and sell of alcohol and took
effect in Jan. 1920
• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
• Part of a long campaigned that connect
alcohol with the degradation of working class
families and the worst evils of urban politics
• Volstead Act of 1919: Was designed to help
enforce Prohibition, but overwhelmed
Bootleggers and Speakeasies
• Bootleggers: Those that illegal transported
alcoholic beverages
• Speakeasies: Secret taverns and bars that
served alcohol during the prohibition (often
time they would front as legit businesses)
Organized Crime
• The profits available from bootlegging was
astronomical compared to previous
“organized crime” favorites: Gambling,
Prostitution, and Robbery
• Organized Crime followed similar model
that corporations had: Smaller operations
gave way to larger and more complex
operations.
AL “Scarface” Capone
–
–
–
–
Chicago / Hideout in French Lick
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
Arrested for tax invasion
Died in prison due to complications of syphilis
Some of the Other Famous
Gangsters
• John Dillinger
• Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gills
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Pretty Boy Floyd
Prohibition Also Gave US:
Immigration
• Sentiments to restrict immigration had been growing since the late
1800s, but reached a peak immediately after WW I
• One reason: The “new immigrant” were mostly Catholic and
Jewish, darker skinned than “old immigrants”: To Americans
they also seemed less willing to ASSIMILATE
• Look at Chart on Page 819
• Immigration Act of 1921- Setting a maximum number of
immigrants at 357,000 and quotas to limit from any one European
county at 3% of their population in the U.S. 1910 Census
• Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924: Revised quota to 2% of
1890 Census levels and limited overall 164,000, and eliminated
those that can’t be citizens- East and South Asia
• Ozawa v. U.S. (1922) and U.S. v. Thind (1923)- Supreme Court
ruled that Japanese & Asian Indians were inassimilable and
racially ineligible for citizenship in the US
•
•
•
•
•
•
The
KKK
Immigration issues were brought up by a resurgent natives movement,
and the KKK was the most effective at spreading this message
Had died out in the 1870s due to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, but
remerged in GA largely in part because of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of
a Nation”
Remerged as a “defender of traditional values of small-town
Protestant America”
Hiram W. Evans- became Imperial Wizard in 1922 and went on a
campaign to expand its membership: “100% Americanism”,
Supported Prohibition, “The faithful maintenance of white
supremacy” including targeting Catholics and Jews (remember
immigrants)
1924- 3 million members and even President Harding had joined in a
ceremony at the White House
Its message was particularly accepted in Midwest and South
Ku Klux Klan
• 1920’s: IN was the main area
of the reemergence of the
Klan
• Anti-Black, Jew, Catholic, and
Immigrant
• Leader D.C. Stephenson
convicted of rape and the
murder of Madge Oberholtzer
• Conviction helped bring end to
stronghold of KKK in Indiana
and throughout the United
States
Red Scare
• BOO!!!
• Intense fear of communism
and other politically radical
ideas
Palmer Raids: November 1919 and
January 1920
• Raids by Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer to round up those that presented a
clear and present danger after a bomb
destroyed his house.
• Communist witch hunt
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and BartolomeoVanzetti
• 1920: Two Italian immigrants accused of murder during a
robbery
• No criminal record, but was active in militant anarchist circles,
labor organizations, and antiwar agitation.
• Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted and executed for murder
despite spotty evidence and an unfair trail,
• Symbolized the animosity towards immigrants
Mexican Immigration
• Although immigration laws had stemmed the flow of
European immigrates into the United States, the 1920s was
dominated by an influx of Mexican immigrants
• Mexican Immigration was not included in the 1921 and
24 laws, had went up substantially after the Mexican
Revolution of 1911
• Estimated 459,000 immigrants entered between 1921-30
• Agriculture of the American Southwest and California
brought most
• These Mexican immigrants are more permanent
• Attempts to limit the immigration was usually blocked by Agricultural interests:
LA Chamber of Commerce: “Mexicans were naturally suited for agriculture due
to their crouching and bending habits…while the whites are physically unable
to adapt himself to them
Fundamentalism
• Set of religious beliefs including traditional
Christian ideas about Jesus Christ, the belief
that the Bible was inspired by God and
doesn’t contain contradictions or errors, and is
literally true
• Main target of these believers was: The
Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin
SCOPES (MONKEY) TRIAL
• 1925 court case argued by Clarence Darrow
and William Jennings Bryan in which the issue
of teaching evolution in the public schools was
addressed.
• Trial will shatter William Jennings Bryan
(What speech did he give?)
Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge
THE STATE, THE ECONOMY,
AND BUSINESS
Harding
• From Ohio
• Political machine of the Republicans kept him
hidden during the election of 1920 because
they feared his shallowness and his intellectual
weaknesses would be exposed
• He even stated “I knew this job would be too
much for me”
Scandals
• Harding surrounded himself with his friends:
“The Ohio Gang” and his administration is
marked by series of scandals
• “This is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with
my enemies …but my damned
friends…White, they’re the ones that keep me
walking the floor nights.”
• Warren Harding dies of a heart attack in
1923
Teapot Dome Scandal
• Involved Interior Secretary Albert Fall
• Got hundred of thousands of dollars in
kickbacks when he secretly leased navy oil
reserves in Teapot Dome, WY and Elk
Hills, CA
• He is the first cabinet member to go to jail
Andrew Mellon
• Served as the Secretary of the Treasury for all three
Republican presidents of the 1920s
• Believed government should be ran the same
conservative principles as a corporation: Trimming
the federal budget, cutting taxes on incomes and
corporate profits, and inheritances: Idea if taxes are
low (especially for the wealthiest) economic growth
will follow.
• Overall, he rolled back most of the progressive taxes
of Woodrow Wilson
Silent Cal
• Became the 30th President of the United States
after the death of Harding
• Believed in the least amount of
government as possible
• “The business of America is business”
• Won re-election in 1924
Robert M. La Follette
• From Wisconsin
• Ran as a Progressive in 1924
• Called on many of the Progressive Platform:
– Government ownership of utilities
– Attacked economic monopolies
The Associative State
• Herbert Hoover was the most influential Republican of the 1920s
(Sec. of Commerce for both Harding and Coolidge)
• Faith in old fashion “individualism”, but also wanted the government to
help
• Associative State: Government would encourage voluntary cooperation
among corporations, consumers, workers, farmers, and small business
community
• Under Hoover, government standardized many products and also
encouraged the creation and expansion of national trade associations: The
idea is to improve efficiency by reducing competition
• Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the trade
associations
The Great War
• The U.S. emerged from WW I as the
strongest economic country: Went from the
biggest debtor nation to the greatest creditor
nation
• During the 1920s, the reparation payments
was the single most divisive issue of
international economics
• Britain and France saw the U.S. as a loan shark,
and the U.S. saw them as ungrateful debtors
Reparations
• In 1922, the U.S. reached an agreement that Britain and France
could take 62 years to pay $11.5 billion
• Eventually, the European economies were so poor, that the
U.S. forgave many of the loans
• Germans believed that their portion ($33 Billion) was so
burdensome that the private economy was so hurt, they
couldn’t repay
• The Dawes Plan, devised by Hoover and Charles Dawes,
that reduced Germany’s debt, stretched out payments,
and arranged American banks to lend Germany money
• This helped Germany make their payments, which in
turn resulted in Britain and France to repay what they
owed
Foreign Policy
• U.S. doesn’t join League of Nation but did get
involved in some areas
• Joined the World Court in 1926
• Kellogg-Briand Pact: 63 nations signed the
Pact of Paris which grandly and naively
renounced war
Commerce
• US worked to expand markets overseas
• Republicans encouraged the government and banks to work
together to increase the foreign markets: They favored friends
(not enemies like the Soviet Union) and not munitions, etc.
• American oil, autos, farm machinery, and electrical equipment
supplied a growing market
• The strategy of maximum freedom for private enterprise,
backed by limited government advice and assistance,
significantly boosted the power and profits of Americans
oversea investors
• Latin America: Aggressive investment fostered
underdeveloped economies, dependent on a few staple
crops (sugar, coffee, cocoa, bananas, etc.)
Promises Postponed
• The prosperity of the 1920s was unevenly distributed and
enjoyed across America
• Older, progressive reform movements that had pointed
out inequities, faltered in the conservative political
climate
• Women: continued to gain after their success of the vote
• Mexican Immigrants: shot up but economic and social
conditions were difficult
• African Americans: disappointed by their treatment in
the Great War turned to new political and cultural
strategies
Feminism in Transition
• 1920: The National American Woman Suffrage
Association reorganized into the League of Women
Voters: Educated the woman electorate, encouraged
women running for office, improved working conditions
for women
• National Women’s Party (NWP) founded in 1916:
Alice Paul- Downplayed the suffrage because felt
women were still below men, so demanded for a Equal
Rights Amendment (ERA)to the Constitution in 1923
for completely equal rights
• Most women groups (League of Women Voters,
National Consumers’ League, and the Women’s Trade
Union League) opposed the ERA
The “New Negro”
• The Great Migration showed no signs of slowing
in the 1920s
• Harlem (NY) emerged as the demographic
and cultural capital of black America (aided
also by mass immigration from the Caribbean)
• Due to the increase in population and the low
wagers many Harlemites got: tenement conditions
persisted, but an emergence of a “New Negro”works by black writers and intellectuals that called
for blacks to celebrate their culture and heritage
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
• African American literary awakening of the
1920’s, centered in Harlem
• Famous Harlem Renaissance- Marcus Garvey,
James Weldon Johnson- political leader and
author, and Langston Hughes- playwright and
author that wrote about the African
Experience
LANGSTON HUGHES
• African American writer that was active during
the Harlem Renaissance
• His poems and plays became the voice for
African American culture
Marcus Garvey
• African American leader from 1919-1926 who
urged A-As to return to their “motherland”
of Africa; provided early inspiration for the
“black pride” movement
Intellectuals: “A Lost Generation”
• War, Prohibition, growing corporate power, and the deep
currents of cultural intolerance worried many intellectuals: Many
left to go live overseas because they felt alienated by the U.S.
(especially Paris)
• The mass slaughter of WW I provoked revulsion and deep
cynicism about the heroic and moralistic portrayal of war from
the 1800s
• Gertude Stein, an American writer, told Ernest Hemingway that
“All of you young people who served in the war, you are a lost
generation.”
• The phrase “lost generation” describe the writers in the
post war period
Ernest Hemingway
• Famous Author
• Served in WW I at the front as an ambulance
driver
• The search for personal moral codes that
would allow one to endure life with dignity
and authenticity was a the center of
Hemingway’s fiction
• Famous Works: The Sun Also Rises (1926)
and A Farewell to Arms (1929)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Also served in WW I, but not overseas
• Writing focused on vitality of the youth of
the Jazz Age (a term he coined)
• Famous works: This Side of Paradise (1920) and
The Great Gatsby (1925) which focused on
the “glamorous parties of the wealthy,
while evoking the tragic limits of material
success.
JAZZ AGE
• Term used to describe the 1920s because of
the emergence of Jazz
• Became even more common especially in New
Orleans
Louis Armstrong
• Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6,
1971),nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an
American jazz trumpeter and singer from
New Orleans, Louisiana- The birthplace of
Jazz
• “What a Wonderful World” (From the
1960s)
Election of 1928
• Herbert Hoover (R) gets nomination because Coolidge does
not run for re-election
• Al Smith (D) from NY and used to lead Tammany Hall
(NYC political machine): His strong New York accent jarred
many Americans when they heard him on radio was seen
simply as a man from the city
• Hoover wins in landslide: which serves as the referendum on
the Republican Era
• Also demonstrated divide in US: native born vs.
immigrants, small-town vs. cosmopolitan,
fundamentalism vs. modernism, traditional sources of
culture vs. mass media
Election of 1928
HOOVER-(R)
Alfred E. Smith
(D)
Democratic Party Shift
• Although the Democrats had lost (including
five states of the “solid south”), Smith had
done better in big cities of the North and
East than any Democrats in modern times.
He outpolled Hoover in the nations 12
largest cities and carried six, thus pointing
the way to the Democrats’ future
dominance with urban, Northeastern, and
ethnic voters.