The Roaring 20s: A Clash of
Values
Ch 7.1
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• What is a recession?
• Do economic recessions increase feelings of
Nativism against immigrants?
Monday, March 19, 2012
• Understand the different clashes of values in the
1920s.
Nativism v Immigration
• In the early 1920s economic recession, increased
immigration, racial and cultural tensions led to a
new rise of Nativism.
• Eugenics supported the Nativism movement
and a new Ku Klux Klan (KKK) targeted "unAmerican“ groups like Catholics, Jews.
Sacco and Vanzetti
• Two Italian anarchists immigrants were accused
of murder and found guilty with little evidence.
• An example of prejudice based on political
beliefs and ethnicity.
Controlling Immigration
• The Emergency Quota Act limited
immigration to 3% of the population already in
the US from that country.
• It limited immigration from “undesirable”
places.
• The National Origins Act of 1924 which
further tightens these restrictions targeted at
South and Eastern Europeans and Asians.
Hispanic Immigration
• The Immigration laws excluded limits from
Latin America.
• Many Mexicans and other Latin Americans filled
the labor shortage.
Discussion Questions
• Prohibition-banning/stopping the sale and use
of something.
• Prohibition exists today!
• Come up with a current example of prohibition.
• The goal of prohibition is to get people to stop
using the illegal substance.
• Is prohibition working today?
• If people continue to use something illegally
despite prohibition, where do they get it from?
• “I am like any
other man. All
I do is supply a
demand.”
-Al Capone
Prohibition
• The 18th Amendment made the sale and
manufacture of Alcohol illegal.
• The Volstead Act gave the gov’t the police
powers to enforce prohibition.
• Underground Bars became Speakeasies were
they sold illegal liquor.
The Simpsons!
Homer v 18th Amendment
• In this episode Springfield suffers from a crisis of
conscience because of rampant alcoholism in the
city.
• The religious people in the town begin a prohibition
movement to ban the sale and consumption of
alcohal
• It is then discovered that there has been a
prohibition law in place, its just been ignored and
they demand it be inforced.
• Homer then begins “boot-legging” making booze
illegally.
Homer v 18th Amendment (cont’d)
• Chief Wiggum (the city’s police chief) is fired for
failing to enforce the law.
• He’s replaced by Rex Banner, an agent of the US
Treasury dept who has been given police powers
by the Volstead Act.
• Banner then begins pursuing Homer aka “the
Beer Baron”
• Homer supplies Moe’s Tavern which is now
operating as an underground bar (speakeasy)
with the bootlegged beer.
The Flapper
• A young, dramatic, stylish, and unconventional
women- symbolized women’s changing behavior
in the 1920s.
Discussion Questions
• What is the theory of Evolution?
• Who came up with it?
• What is biblical Creationism?
Science v Religion:
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
• Fundamentalists rejected the theory of
Evolution and believed in biblical
Creationism instead.
• These two beliefs clashed in the Scopes
“Monkey” Trial.