Connor Delaney
AP US
9/16/08
Chapter 24: The 1920’s (pg 678-705)
I. New Economic Order
A. A Decade of Prosperity
1. Economy went into a recovery starting in 1922
2. Unemployment falls to 3%; GDP grows 43% in the next 7 years
3. Boom in electrical goods- over 60% of homes had electricity
4. Henry Ford leads automobile industry with Model T, until General
Motors introduces the Chevrolet
5. Capitalist expansion and overseas production increased
B. New Modes of Producing, Managing, and Selling
1. Ford develops assembly line—industry productivity increases
2. Bureaucratic management styles arose and companies formed
specialized divisions of labor
3. Biggest aspect of business boom was in advertizing growth
C. Women in the New Economic Era
1. Even with the large job market increase, the proportion of women in the
market stayed about the same
2. Faced wage discrimination in the work place
3. Number of women attending college slowly started to increase from
1920-1930
D. Workers in the Business Age
1. Number of labor unions decrease as the workers’ wages increase
2. Management hostility weakens organized labor
E. Ailing Agriculture
1. Hard times after wartime prosperity
2. Farm income fell by 60% from 1919-1921
3. President Coolidge vetoed a bill that proposed the government to buy
back farmers’ surpluses annually, which turned farmers against the
Democratic Party
II. Republicans in Power
A. The Harding and Coolidge Years
1. 1920-Warren Harding is elected as president
2. 1923- Harding dies of a heart attack, rumors of criminal activity
surrounds his administration
3. A series of scandals involving stealing Veterans’ Bureau funds became
known as the “Teapot Dome”
4. Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, becomes the new president
5. Coolidge rejects request to aid Mississippi flood victims, vetoes bill that
would benefit farmers, and overturns law that taxes products of child
labor
B. Retreat from Internationalism
1. Harding’s most notable achievement was the Washington Naval Arms
Conference
2. Conference accomplished ratio of ships among world’s naval powers,
U.S. and Japan respect each other’s territory in Pacific
3. U.S. and France create Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing aggression and
attempting to avoid war, but it did nothing to prevent WWII
C. Progressive Stirring, Democratic Divisions
1. Conference for Progressive Political Action (CPPA) is formed in 1922
2. Nomination of Robert La Follett for progressive party takes away
Democratic votes
3. Democratic Party is split between urban and rural
D. Women and Politics in the 1920s: A Dream Deferred
1.1920- Nineteenth Amendment allows women to vote, there was hope
this would transform politics
2. Amendment had very little impact as women’s votes were scattered
across the parties
3. Women leaders, Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt, helped
command the peace movement
4. Supreme Court denied laws proposed by women’s groups (child-labor
laws and women’s protective laws)
III. Mass Society, Mass Culture
A. Cities, Cars, Consumer Goods
1. For the first time the urban population outnumbers the rural in 1920
2. Less housework for women with the increased technology of washing
machines, stoves, refrigerators, etc
3. Food preparation technology and supermarkets made foods available all
year round
4. More families owned automobiles-vacations, freedom for younger
generation, diminished isolation of rural life
5. With more cars, suburbs became popular, but remained mostly for the
rich because of the high price of cars
B. Soaring Energy Consumption and a Threatened Environment
1. Growth in electrical products and motorized vehicles hurt the
environment and decreased the availability of natural resources
2. Domestic oil production rises by 250% in 1920s
3. Power plants and automobile factories polluted the air
4. Protestors such as the Sierra Club and Audubon Society worked to
preserve wilderness and wildlife
5. Americans felt they had little time for environmental issues and didn’t
realize the trouble these problems would cause 2 generations later
C. Routinized Work, Mass-Produced Pleasure
1. New assembly line work made work more routine-individuality was
discouraged, labor was repetitive
2. With the change in work and more disposable income, leisure time
activities increase
3. Mass circulation of magazines begins, books sold in department stores
4. Radio era begins Nov 2, 1920 when WEAF broadcasts from New York
5. In 1926, 3 corporations form the first radio network (NBC) -- CBS
follows in 1927
6. The Jazz Singer is first movie seen with sound in 1927
7. Standardized mass culture influenced society, but certain areas and
groups remained very diverse
D. Fads, Celebrities, and Heroes
1. Fads and media promoted events entertained America in the 1920s
2. Celebrities in sports- Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey
3. Charles Lindbergh becomes hero as he flies solo across the Atlantic
4. Mass media helps form a national culture and new viewpoints
IV.
Cultural Ferment and Creativity
A. The Jazz Age and the Postwar Crisis of Values
1. Postwar crisis of values often led to improper behavior
2. Freedom allows college students to throw parties, drink, and dance at
clubs
3. Casual dating started, instead of the “courting” where there was always
an intention of marriage
4. Fashion became more revealing and people started smoking cigarettes
5. Scott Fitzgerald writes two popular books in This Side of Paradise and
The Great Gatsby
B. Alienated Writers
1. Writers were inspired by the “cultural turbulence” of the 1920s
2. Some writers, including Ernest Hemingway, spent time in France
3. World War I influenced the generation of writers
4. Movement of black culture in the urban North became known as the
Harlem Renaissance-music, poems, novels, art
C. Achievements in Architecture, Painting, and Music
1. Architectural activity increased in the 1920s as there were 377 buildings
over 70 stories tall by 1930
2. Artists were inspired by America itself for their work as they created
their view of the nation around them
3. Most popular music in the 1920s was Jazz, especially in New Orleans
4. Famous artists of 20s: John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe
Famous musicians: George Gershwin, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington
D. Advances in Science and Medicine
1. First long range television transmission in 1927 (NY to Washington)
2. Medical advances- neurosurgery, vitamin D, x-rays
Treatments for diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and influenza
3. Physicist Robert Goddard publishes article studying rockets and
launches small liquid-fuel rocket
V.
A Society in Conflict
A. Immigration Restriction, Hispanic Newcomers
1. After the war people wanted America to have culturally identical
people—immigration is restricted
2. Laws placed restrictions on Asian and European immigrants, but none
on the Western Hemisphere- immigrants from Latin America and French
Canada increased dramatically
3. Mexican-Americans faced discrimination and pressure to abandon their
language, traditions, and beliefs
4. Over 2 million Mexican-born people lived in the U.S. by 1930
B. The Sacco-Vanzetti Case
1. Robbers shot and killed an employee and guard of a shoe factory, police
charge 2 Italian immigrants with murder
2. Jury finds them guilty even with circumstantial evidence and they die in
the electric chair in 1927
3. Sacco and Vanzetti (the robbers) were anarchists and faced a
Republican judge—case showed the division of society as conservatives
insisted the defendants die and liberals and socialists rally around the
convicted men
C. The Ku Klux Klan
1. The original Klan faded by the 1870s, but 2 entrepreneurs organized a
revival in 1920 charging for membership fees, robes, and masks
2. Klan spread throughout the Midwest and across the country
3. Called for “100% Americanism”
4. Klan faded suddenly as their politically influential leader was sent to
prison
D. The Garvey Movement
1. Marcus Garvey led Universal Negro Improvement Association
2. 80,000 blacks joined UNIA
3. Garvey was convicted of fraud and the organization fell apart as he was
imprisoned and then deported
E. Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial
1. Fundamentalists- every word in the Bible is exactly correct
2. Angered by the theory of evolution and got several states to prohibit
teaching it in schools
3. When Tennessee outlawed its teaching a young high school biology
teacher, John Scopes, continued to teach the theory and was arrested
4. Jury found scopes guilty, but Fundamentalists diminished
F. Prohibition
1. In January of 1920 the 18th Amendment took effect as the selling,
manufacturing, and transporting of alcohol is banned
2. Youths rejected the regulation and continued and even increased the
drinking of alcohol
3. Gangs and crime increased as people fought to control the liquor
business
4. Became a battle of cultural wars
5. In 1933 the 18th Amendment was repealed
VI.
Hoover at the Helm
A. The Election of 1928
1. Al Smith the governor of New York won the Democratic nomination
and Herbert Hoover won the Republican
2. Decisive factor was prosperity- republicans felt that Smith would ruin
the booming economy that Republicans felt they had created
3. Hoover won the election with 58% of the vote
B. Herbert Hoover’s Social Thought
1. Hoover disapproved cutthroat capitalist competition
2. Believed that cooperative economy that depends on the voluntary action
of capitalist leaders would succeed
3. Opposed government intervention
4. Urged higher wages to increase purchasing power of consumers