
American popular culture reshaped itself to reflect an urban, industrial, consumeroriented society

Slight depression after the war

War economy=HIGH

After war- o Soldiers come back wanting jobs o Women out of jobs o

Auto industry o Ford---Assembly line, Detroit, Model T o GM--- credit for buying a car

new o 1921- 9 million cars registered o 1929- 16 million o Federal roads built

Radio- mass media- vacuum tube, Voice Transmission o 1922 stations = 500 o 1927 Radio Act set up Federal Radio Commission
 Broadcast licenses

Regulate wavelengths o 1930- ½ of American households own radios

Aeronautics o Navy o Big in the west o Lindbergh

first non stop flight across the Atlantic

Industries Related to auto o Steel o Paint/Chemical—Dow/DuPont o Rubber o Textiles o Construction o Electronics o Glass o Oil o Roads o New Businesses related to cars
 gas stations o Car culture o Suburbs o Motels o Diners o Fast Food o Sex in cars

Electronics

o Irons o Fans o Toasters o Vacuums o Stove o Washing machine o Sewing o Fridge o General Electric/Westinghouse o 70% of country is “electrified” o EDISON = father of electricity

Edison Electric

invented electric chair

DEBT

installment plans

Republican- pro-business policies o Wealth Concentrated upward o Mellon- Secretary of the Treasury= lowered taxes for rich, 1/3 less than
1920 o Weak anti-trust enforcement o 1/3 of country lived in poverty less than $2000 year o 1/5 of country less than $1000 year

Labor Suffers a decline o Union membership 5 million in 1919 o 3.6 million 1923

o Anti-union idea o Employers

try to eliminate need for unions

Paternalistic programs to help workers
 Mechanisms for workers to address grievances

Republican support

don’t like unions o Companies sponsor programs for workers

Life insurance

Profit sharing

Sports teams

Company union

o Farmers o Large Business take over farms

Farm prices go down
 Drive ppl out of business o Over-production of after war cause prices to fall o Continued Rural to Urban Migration- 6 million
 Myth of “Isolationism’ o U.S. Isolationism = just focus on America

No League of Nations

o EXCEPTION:

German reparations for WWI

Private bankers help invested in Germany

Washington – Arms Limitation Conference

limit navy warships
 Reinforce agreement over Pacific possession
 Japan



French
British
United States
 Open Door policy

Pan- American treaty

use peaceful means to settle disputes

to remove American imperialism

Kellogg-Briad Pact

outlaws war
 No enforcement o Internationalism = work with other nations

Wilson, Harding, Coolidge,
Hoover, Lodge, Washington

ARE WE ISOLATED IN THIS PERIOD??


Movies- o Charlie Chaplin - star o Rudolph Valentino- star o 1927 Sound comes to the movies o 1928 Mickey Mouse o 1930 100 million Americans go to movies each week

Time Magazine

National Sports o Babe Ruth - 60 Homeruns

Charles Lindbergh o Spirit of St. Louis o May 20, 1927- First non-stop flight across the Atlantic
o Advertising Emerges o Presentation of products to the public in Effort to stimulate Demand o Brand Loyalty created o Public Relations industry develops
o New Science of genetics o Idea that characteristics can be passed on from one person to their offspring o Feeblemindedness = mental retardation o Sexual Delinquencies o Leads to sterilization o The desire to eliminate unwanted characteristics o 24 States have sterilization laws o 20,000 people sterilized by 1930 o Supreme Court Supported Sterilization in Buck Vs. Bell o Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes o “It is better for al the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring. For crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, Society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”
o Phrase Coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald o Music brought North by Blacks from the South o Fast paced creativity o Improvisation, innovation o Sexuality
o “Lost Generation”

o Term used to describe the bohemian, disillusioned, American expatriates living in Paris after WWI o Lost Generation is a phrase made popular by American author Ernest
Hemingway in his first published novel The Sun Also Rises.
Often it is used to refer to a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe, some after military service in the First World
War. o Figures identified with the "Lost Generation" include authors and poets o F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson,
Waldo Peirce, and John Dos Passos . o F. Scott Fitzgerald o The Great Gatsby – story set in 1920s critical of materialism and corruption o This Side of Paradise - Story set in 1920s o Hemmingway- o The Sun Also Rises- Story of the “Lost Generation” o A Farwell To Arms- story of the love in World War I
o African Americans moved North during the War= the Great Migration o Continues in the 1920s- 1 Million Af Am move North o By
1930 40% of Nation’s Blacks live in North (5million)
(12 million total) o Cultural movement in 1920s New York City, African American community, Renews and celebrates Black Culture o Jazz Music- Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong… o Literature- Langston Hughes, Zora Neal-Hurston
o Marcus Garvey - wanted - racial pride and separateness for African Americans o Founded Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) o Said be proud of your race o Back to Africa Movement o 80-100,000 members o Mail Fraud and laer Deported later o Recall NAACP- W.E.B. DuBois (didn’t like Garvey’s message)

o 19 th Amendment - Women’s right to vote takes affect o Alice Paul - Suffragette, supports an Equal Rights Ammednment for women, not passed o Forms a National Women’s Party , to eliminate discrimination in law of women o “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States.” o Regarding laws, contracts, personal property, Equal Guardianship, Serve on
Juries, and to Jobs (not successful) o Flappers o Chic, young women of the 1920s o Hip, cool, en vogue o Different behavior, appearance, dress

Bobbed hair

Short skirts

Thin shape

Makeup
 Smoking

Drinking

Sexual liberation

Provocative dancing o Really represents GENERATIONAL conflict and change o Margaret Sanger - feminist activist

Advocated birth control

American Birth Control League

Planned Parent Hood o Divorce Rates rise in the 1920s o Women Enter the workforce more o Amelia Earhart the female Lindbergh o Women in college o Women in professions- increases- more doctors lawyers o Women enter Nurturing fields

Teachers, librarians, social workers

Discriminated against

Paid less than men

Promoted less than men o Women and Education
 College Graduates- doubled

Women with Doctorates increases

o Nativism

WASPs resented Catholics, Jews, Speakeasies, Flappers,

Anti-Immigrant

Anti-Alcohol

Anti-Minorities

Anti-Teaching of Evolution o The Ku Klux Klan revives (white robes represented purity)

Becomes a main-stream movement- of American Pride and values

5000 members in 1920

100,000 member in 1922
 4.5 Million members in 1924

Wanted pure Americanism

Anti- Jew

Anti-Catholic

Anti-Foreign influence

Popular in South, Midwest and Small towns and cities o Immigration Restrictions

Opposition to immigration continues and grows

Organized Labor is against free immigration

Too many immigrants = low wages
 Red Scare - helped shape anti-Immigrant attitudes

Racism also

Eugenicist s also said- Southern and Eastern European immigrants were inferior

National Origins Act 1924

Placed permanent restrictions on Immigration
 “The primary reason for the restriction of the Alien stream…is the necessity for purifying and keeping pure the blood of
America.”

Reduced the Quota for Admission to 2% of Americans of o Red Scare that National Origin in1890

No limits on Latin America

Bans immigration from Asia


How does Hoover respond to the Depression?
 How does this reflect his philosophy regarding governments’ role in the economy? o Republican views o Volunteerism—no gov. intervention o No deficit financing o Bank relief o Opposed to unemployment insurance o Bonus army
 “Dust Bowl”
 “Okies”

Woody Guthrie

Buying Stocks on Margin

Bank Failures

Steinbeck—The Grapes of Wrath