1920s
New Attitudes vs. Fundamentalists
3/28/11
Nativism resurges
• Immigrants and
demobilized military
men and women
competed for the same
jobs during high
unemployment and an
increased cost of living.
• Sacco and Vanzetti case
• The idea of eugenicsinequalities were
inherited.
Nativism Resurges
• The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) led the movement to
restrict immigration.
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African Americans
Catholics
Jews
Immigrants
• By 1924, the KKK had almost 4 million members
• Eventually scandals led to the decline of the Klan
by the late 1920s
Controlling Immigration
• Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act
– Limited immigration to 3% of the pop. already living in the
US
– Heavy discrimination against southern and eastern Euros.
• The National Origins Act of 1924
– Made immigration restriction permanent.
– Lowered to 2%
• Immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 reduced the labor
pool in the US.
– Mexican immigrants began pouring into the US between
1914 and the end of the 1920s after the Mex. Revolution.
The New Morality
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Challenged traditional ideas
Glorified youth
Glorified personal freedom
Marriage, work, and pleasure affected the way
people lived
The New Morality- Women
• Women broke
from families
• Entered the
workforce
• Earned their own
living
• Attended college
• Advances in
science, law,
medicine, and
literature.
The New Morality- Women
• Fashion drastically
changed
• The Flapper
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Young
Dramatic
Stylish
unconventional
The Fundamentalist Movement
• Some feared the new morality
– From rural towns
– Religious movement called Fundamentalism
– Feared social decline
The Fundamentalist Movement
• Rejected Darwin’s
theory of
evolution
• 1925 Tennessee
passed the Butler
Act made it illegal
to teach evolution
instead of
creation.
The Fundamentalist Movement
• Came to a head at the
Scopes Trial
– Biology teacher tested
Butler
– Arrested, put on trial
– Found guilty, later
overturned
– Many fundamentalists
retired from activism
– http://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=hV840sE
iqYY
Prohibition
• Which amendment?
• 18th- ratified in 1919
• Volstead Act made the
enforcement of Pro. The
responsibility of the US
Treasury Dept.
• Speakeasies- secret bars
• Crime became big
business
• 1933- 21st brought an end
to pro.
• http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=DLulkV8ZWIo
Arts and Literature
• began challenging
traditional ideas
• began to search for
meaning in the world.
• The artistic and
unconventional, or
Bohemian, lifestyle of
Manhattan’s Greenwich
Village and Chicago’s
South Side attracted
artists and writers.
Art and Literature
• European influence
• Artist chose to express themselves in very
diverse way
– Art deco, precisionism, surrealism, expressionism
Art and Literature
• Writing styles changed
– Poet Carl Sandburg used common speech to
glorify the Midwest
– Playwright Eugene O’Neill’s work focused on a
search for meaning
Popular Culture
• The economic prosperity of the 1920s allowed
many Americans leisure time
• Radio, movies, and newspapers gave rise to a
new interest in sports.
– Babe Ruth
– Jack Dempsey
• First “talking” picture – The Jazz Singer
• Mass media helped unify the nation and
spread new ideas and attitudes
The Harlem Renaissance
• “The Great Migration” occurred when
hundreds of thousands of A.A. moved from
the rural South to the industrial cities of the
North.
• NYC’s Harlem- A.A. created environments that
stimulated artistic development, racial pride, a
sense of community, and political organization
which led to a massive creative outpouring of
arts.
The Harlem Renaissance
• Claude McKay- 1st important writer
• Langston Hughes- became the leading voice of
the A.A. experience in the US
• Louis Armstrong- jazz
• Cotton Club- nightspot
– Duke Ellington- musician
• Bessie Smith- singer
The Rise of New Industries
• Mass production increased the supply of
goods and decreased costs.
• Assembly line- $850 > $490 > $295
• Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic
flight which gained support for commercial
flight.
• NBC and CBS established permanent radio
stations.
The Consumer Society
• New roles as consumers
• More people bought on credit or installment
plans
• More professional managers and engineers.
Expanded the middle class
The Farm Crisis
• Farmers did not share in the prosperity of the
1920s.
• Prices and demand dropped while farmers’
costs increased.
• President Coolidge vetoed a bill to aid farmers
twice.
• Farmers remained in recession throughout the
1920s.