The 1920s as an Age of Reaction?
Guess where this picture was taken?
The 1920s as an Age of Reaction?
Women of the Ku Klux Klan Marching in Front of the
Broome County Court House
Historical Context: The Twenties
What comes to mind when you think about the 1920s?
 The “New Woman” (Flappers)
 New Styles & Behaviors
 Speakeasies & Bootlegging
 Rapid Economic Expansion
 The Lost Generation
 The Harlem Renaissance
 Political Corruption
The “Roaring Twenties”
Reactions to Rapid Social Change
Nativism
Political Intolerance
Temperance (Prohibition)
Christian Fundamentalism
Racial Tensions
A Temperance Poster
The Twenties Were Also an “Age of Reaction”
Immigration in
the 1920s
What is the main idea
of the cartoon?
What do we call antiimmigrant feelings?
Immigration in the 1920s
How did the Quota Acts affect American
immigration?
Nativism
• Nativism: Anti-immigrant feeling
• Quota Acts (National Origins
Act)… set strict limits on
immigration, especially from
Eastern & Southern Europe
• Based on scientific racism
• Reflected growing nativist & antiradical sentiment by groups like
the KKK
The Second Ku Klux Klan
•Founded at Stone Mountain, GA
1915 by former minister William
Simmons
•Release of film “Birth of a
Nation” in 1915 popularized &
glamorized the KKK
•Targeted not just AfricanAmericans but also Jews, Catholics
and immigrants in general
•By mid-1920s national
membership reportedly reached
4.5 million
The Klan Arrives Broome County
This pamphlet was found on people’s
doorsteps in Binghamton on March
17, 1923.
Question: Who do you think the local
Ku Klux Klan was targeting?
Answer: The Irish and Other
Immigrants (especially Catholics and
Jews)
The Klan Arrives Broome County
•Klan activity in Broome County first
noted on St. Patrick’s Day 1923 when
KKK pamphlets were left on
doorsteps
•20,000 workers (many of whom
were immigrants) in the Triple Cities
during the 1920s, including 12 E-J
factories
•Local KKK was partly a reaction to
this immigration
Binghamton as State Klan Headquarters
•1923 Binghamton chosen as NYS
headquarters for the KKK
•State-wide conventions held,
including cross-burnings and rallies in
Endicott & Whitney Point
•In 1924 George F. Johnson received
anonymous letter from a Klan
member threatening a boycott of EJ
Shoes unless he fired foreign workers
Question: What is currently located at
this site?
Answer: The Martin Luther King Jr.
Promenade
New York State Klan
Headquarters Henry & Wall
Streets, Binghamton
Klan Rally at Stow Flats Fairgrounds
July, 1924
Local Klan Meetings
What criteria
did someone
have to meet in
order to join the
KKK?
What does this
suggest about
how the KKK
understood
themselves?
The Women’s Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU)
-Groups like the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) fought to outlaw
alcohol, prostitution, and other
vices
-In Broome County, the
WCTU appeared to ally with
the local KKK.
Why would they do that?
Religious Revival
• 1920s Marked a Rise in Religious
Fervor
• Question: What is Christian
Fundamentalism?
• Answer: A strict, literal
interpretation of the Bible.
• “Sister” Aimee, Billy Sunday, and
Other Radio Evangelists Reached
Mass Audiences
• What was the topic of Billy Sunday’s
sermon in this clip?
“Sister” Aimee McPherson
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
-High School teacher John
Scopes is tried for teaching
evolution in Tennessee
-Became a debate on
evolution & religious
fundamentalism
Clarence Darrow & William Jennings Bryan
-First major trial to reach a
mass audience as it was
broadcast live on the radio
Putting It All Together…
How did Christian Fundamentalists
embrace aspects of modernism even as they
appeared to struggle against it?
Race Riots
The period between
1919 and 1921 was
marked by violent
race riots in northern
cities.
Why might this have
happened?
Chicago, 1919
The Red Scare
A. Mitchell Palmer,
U.S. Attorney General
-Bombs Sent to Attorney
General A. Mitchell Palmer &
Other Government Officials
-Palmer Raids: 10,000
Suspected Communists &
Anarchists Arrested
-249 Deported to Soviet Union
-Labor Unions like IWW
targeted
“Put Them Out and Keep Them Out,” The
Philadelphia Inquirer (1919)
Sacco & Vanzetti Trial
-Italian Immigrants & Anarchists
-Convicted of Murder w/out Much
Evidence
-Reflects both Nativism & AntiRadicalism
-Controversial Execution
Sacco & Vanzetti
Putting It All Together…
Why would there have been so
much fear of radicalism after 1917?
Hint: What else was happening in
other parts of the world at this time?
Closing Reflection
What label should we use to
characterize the 1920s?
The Jazz Age
The
Age of
Business
?
The Twenties
The
Roaring Twenties
The
Conservative
Decade
The
Age of Reaction