The Roaring
Twenties
The Republican Presidents
Warren Harding 1921-1923:
• Refused to join the League Nations, enacted high tariffs,
lowered taxes, and restricted immigration
• Supported anti-lynching bill
• Pursued arms reduction by sponsoring the Washington
Naval Conference and supporting US membership in the
World Court
• Appointed friends to the Cabinet
Teapot Dome Scandal – Secretary of Interior, leased oilrich government land at Teapot Dome, Wyoming in
exchange for personal bribes.
Charles Forbes – stole millions from the construction of
hospitals for returning war veterans.
The Republican Presidents
Calvin Coolidge 1923 - 1929:
• Continued Harding’s pro-business policies
• Nickname was Silent Cal
• His laissez-faire approach to the economy as
encouraging the over-speculation that may
have resulted in the crash of 1929
The Republican Presidents
Herbert Hoover 1929 – 1933:
• Skilled engineer and self-made millionaire
• Oversaw U.S. food production during the war
• “Rugged Individualism” – equal opportunities,
free education, and a will to succeed
• Too much government interference would
undermine the nation’s prosperity
Reason for Prosperity of 1920s
Rise of the Automobile
• Henry Ford - assembly line making
automobile cheaper
• Standardize parts
• Gave people greater mobility
• Stimulated the economy with auto-related
industries
Reason for Prosperity of 1920s
Age of Mass Consumption
• Buying on Credit – buyer had to pay small
down payment, take the item home, then pay
the rest off in small monthly payments with
interest
• Advertising – stimulated demand for products
Reason for Prosperity of 1920s
Rise of other New Industries
• Improvements in transmitting electricity
• Trans-Atlantic telephone service
• Household appliances - vacuum cleaners,
refrigerators, toasters, etc
• Radio and motion pictures became widespread
• Start of Navy’s 1st aircraft - Glenn Curtiss - early
aviation pioneer - 1st sea plane
Reason for Prosperity of 1920s
Speculation Boom
• Purchase of any item, not for personal use,
but in the hope of selling it later at a higher
price
Reason for Prosperity of 1920s
Uneven Prosperity
• 0.1% of Americans had a combined income
equal to that of the bottom 42%. They also
controlled 1/3 of all savings, while more the ¾
of Americans had no savings at all.
Cultural Values of the 1920s
Prohibition
• Frances Willard most outspoken voice the
Temperance Movement
• 18th Amendment banned the sale, making, and
transporting of alcohol
• Led to a growth of lawlessness and a rise of
organized crime
• 21st Amendment repealed the 18th
Cultural Values of the 1920s
The Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925
• Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching
of evolution
• William Jennings Bryan was the special
prosecutor
• Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes, who
was arrested
• Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution,
but his $1 fine was later set aside
Cultural Values of the 1920s
New Restrictions on Immigration
• Immigration Acts of 1921, 1924, and 1929
basically designed to keep immigrants from
Southern and Eastern Europe.
• These laws established quotas for each separate
nationality based on America’s existing ethnic
composition
• Under this system Northern and Western
Europeans were allowed in great numbers,
Eastern and Southern Europeans were severely
limited, and Asians were barred altogether
Cultural Values of the 1920s
Eugenics
• Leading supporter - Charles Davenport
• Pseudo-scientific belief that the human race
could be improved by breeding. It was
supposed that superior parents would have
even better children. It was closely tied to
Social Darwinism.
Emergence of New Values in 1920s
Women
• started to smoke and drink in public, rejected
restrictive clothing and adopted the new look called
the “flapper”
• Flappers wore short dresses that revealed body
shape, hair was short, and wore lots of make up
Emergence of New Values in 1920s
Tin Pan Alley
• a section of New York City, was the area where
song-writing and musical ideas mixed together
to form American popular music.
• Vaudeville show became the most popular
form of stage entertainment.
• Famous songwriters - Irving Berlin, Cole
Porter, Scott Joplin and George and Ira
Gershwin
Emergence of New Values in 1920s
The Lost Generation
• Rejected the desire for material wealth, they
believed they did not fit in after the horrors and
brutality of WWI
• Famous authors –
– Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also
Rises
– Sinclair Lewis (1st American to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature) – Main Street , Babbitt
– F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby
Emergence of New Values in 1920s
The Harlem Renaissance
• General awakening of African-American
culture sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age
• Poets and writers – Langston Hughes, Alain
Locke, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston
• Marcus Garvey, political activist, Back-toAfrica Movement
Emergence of New Values in 1920s
Popular New Heroes
• Babe Ruth - baseball
• Jack Dempsey - boxing
• Charles Lindbergh – 1st person to fly across the
Atlantic Ocean in 1927 in “The Spirit of St.
Louis”. It took 33 hours
Key Individuals
• Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti –
convicted and executed of a robbery in part
because of the hysteria against foreigners
• Henry Ford – early auto manufacturer who
pioneered new production techniques
• Glenn Curtiss – Aviation pioneer who
developed airplanes that landed on water
• Clarence Darrow – Represented Scopes at the
“Monkey Trial” on evolution on 1925
Key Individuals
• William Jennings Bryan – helped prosecute John
Scopes at the “Monkey Trial”
• Langston Hughes – African American poet and
writer during Harlem Renaissance
• Marcus Garvey – believed in black-owned
businesses; led Back-to-Africa Movement
• Charles Lindbergh – 1st person to fly solo across
the Atlantic Ocean; became an international hero
• F. Scott Fitzgerald – his works, like The Great
Gatsby, captured the spirit of the Jazz Age