THE JAZZ AGE!
A Clash of Values
LEARNING TARGETS

By the end of this lesson you will:
Know how nativists used eugenics and the Emergency
Quota Act to limit immigration.
 Explain how the National Origins Act of 1924 favored
immigrants from some regions of Europe over others.
 Discuss how the automobile played a role in encouraging the
new morality of the 1920s.
 Describe a flapper.
 Identify Al Capone and the activities he participated in.
 Know how fundamentalist felt about Charles Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution and Creationism
 Relate the effects of the Scopes Trial to education today.
 Know the effects of the Volstead Act.
 Discover the activities of speakeasies and bootleggers.
 Know the mandates of the Twenty-First Amendment.

INTRODUCTION
Many Americans clung to traditional values and
took action to preserve them.
 Other Americans embraced new values
associated with a freer lifestyle.
 The Harlem Renaissance gave African Americans
new pride.

NATIVISM RESURGES
The poor economy of 1919-1920 caused Americans to
blame immigrants.
 The Sacco-Vanzetti Case



Italian Immigrant Anarchists
Pseudo-Scientific Racism
A false science called eugenics that deals with improving
hereditary traits
 Enforced by Nativists and helped fuel racism.


Return of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Hired public relations experts
 African Americans, Catholics,
Jews, immigrants, and other groups
that represented “un-Americanism”

CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION




People blamed the poor economy on immigrants
Nativists: “Keep America American”
Big businesses: feared immigrants were radicals
Emergency Quota Act of 1921:
Limited immigration with a quota system
 Only 2% of the number of people in an ethnic group
already living in the U.S. could enter each year


The National Origins Act of 1924


Made the Emergency Quota Act permanent
Hispanic Immigration to the United States
The Emergency Quota and National Origins Acts reduced
the amount of cheap labor in the U.S.
 Record numbers of Mexicans entered the U.S. illegally

THE NEW MORALITY
Views from popular magazines and other media
 Women began joining the workforce
 Cars encouraged independence
 Women in the 1920’s


Fashion
The “bob”
 Silk stockings
 The “flapper”—women with “bob” haircuts who
often drank liquor and dressed/acted immodestly


Margaret Mead started the American Birth
Control League to limit the number of children
families had in order to raise the
standard of living
THE FUNDAMENTALIST MOVEMENT


Fundamentalism: a return to the traditional value system
Fundamentalist Beliefs
Creationism (as opposed to evolutionism)
 Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson


The Scopes Trial

The Butler Act (Tennessee): Outlawed any teaching that denied
“the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the bible”
and taught instead that “man descended from a lower order of
animals”



The ACLU tested the law and asked John T. Scopes, a teacher in
Tennessee, to be arrested for teaching evolution
Scopes was fined $100 but a technicality overturned the verdict
The trial was broadcast over the radio and the lawyer for the
defense, Clarence Darrow, became famous for his crossexaminations which hurt the fundamentalist movement
PROHIBITION

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution (Jan. 1920)

The Volstead Act (National Prohibition Act)
Many people believed it would reduce unemployment, domestic
violence, and poverty.
 Responsibility of the U.S. Treasury Department


Many Americans blatantly ignored the law
Speakeasies: secret bars where alcohol was served
 Bootleggng: illegal production and selling of alcohol
 Increased organized crime and smuggling
 Al Capone was a notorious gangster of the 1920s who produced
and distributed alcohol and killed anyone who got in his way. He
had many police officers, judges, and politicians on his payroll.


The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition in 1933
Victory for supporters of modernism
 Defeat for supporters of traditional values

REVIEW QUESTIONS:
How did nativists use eugenics and the Emergency
Quota Act to limit immigration?
 Describe a flapper.
 How did fundamentalist feel about Charles Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution and Creationism?
 What effects does the Scopes Trial have on education
today.
 What were the effects of the Volstead Act?
 What were the activities of speakeasies and
bootleggers?
 Who was Al Capone and what activities did he
participate in?
 What were the mandates of the Twenty-First
Amendment.

ESSAY QUESTION:

Explain how the National Origins Act of 1924
favored immigrants from some regions of
Europe over others.
ESSAY QUESTION:


Explain how the National Origins Act of 1924
favored immigrants from some regions of
Europe over others.
The law set quotas at 2% of each national group
already residing in the United States in 1890.
Although the law seemed to limit immigrants
from all countries, it actually favored immigrants
from regions already heavily represented in the
U.S. Because more immigrants from
northwestern European countries lived in the
U.S. as of the 1890 census, a larger portion of the
quota would go to new immigrants from this
region than from southern or eastern Europe.
ESSAY QUESTION:

Discuss how the automobile played a role in
encouraging the new morality of the 1920s.
ESSAY QUESTION:


Discuss how the automobile played a role in
encouraging the new morality of the 1920s.
America’s youth loved cars because they made
them more independent and allowed them to
escape the careful watch of their parents. Instead
of socializing with family, many youths used cars
to seek new forms of entertainment with their
friends and to find privacy.
ESSAY QUESTION

Explain the relationship between
Prohibition and the rise in organized crime.
ESSAY QUESTION

Explain the relationship between
Prohibition and the rise in organized crime.

In the 1920s, Americans persisted in blatantly
ignoring Prohibition laws. People flocked to secret
bars called speakeasies where they could buy alcohol.
Organized crime specialized in supplying and often
running these speakeasies, which popped up all over
the country. The great demand for liquor meant that
huge profits could be made. Because making and
selling liquor were illegal, legitimate businesses
could not fill this need. As a result, supplying the
demand for liquor became a billion dollar industry for
gangsters.
ESSAY QUESTION

Describe the changes in women’s lives in the
1920s.
ESSAY QUESTION

Describe the changes in women’s lives in the
1920s.

Although not the typical American woman, the young,
unconventional “flapper” personified women’s quest for
personal freedom in the 1920s. While flappers pursued social
freedoms, other women sought financial independence by
entering the workforce. Many single and working class
women worked simply because they needed the wages for
themselves or for their family, but for some young, single
women, work was a way to break away from parental
authority and establish a personal identity. Work also
provided the wages that allowed women to participate in the
consumer culture. Many women who attended college in the
1920s found support for their emerging sense of
independence. Women’s colleges, in particular, encouraged
their students to pursue careers and to challenge traditional
ideas about the nature of women and their role in society.