Chapter 24 – The Jazz Age (1920-1929)
Section One - Time of Turmoil
Fear of Radicalism
 US citizens fearful of foreigners and foreign ideas as
a result of WWI
 US particularly afraid of communism – the movement
that took over Russia
 Capitalism – economic system based on private property
and free enterprise with little or no government
interference
 Communism – idea that all things should be publicly
owned and controlled by the government (goal is to be
rid of classes and all are equal)
 Anarchists fan fears by using a series of bombings in
cities like NY and Seattle in 1919
Red Scare
 US goes after people thought to be communists
 Palmer Raids – Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and
deputy J. Edgar Hoover order arrest of 10,000
suspected Communists and anarchists
 Government was looking for bombs and/or dynamite but
did not find any. Most are released for lack of
evidence, while just a few hundred deported.
Sacco and Vanzetti
 Nicola Sacco and Bartlolmeo Vanzetti were immigrants
and anarchists accused of killing to men in
Massachusetts. They were sentenced to death with very
little evidence. Shows US panic and fear of immigrant
radicals.
Labor Issues
 Inflation is driving up prices, so many workers go on
strike to get pay increases to keep up with cost of
living – Blamed communists and anarchists
 350,000 steel workers strike in 1919 for an 8 hour
day. Riot breaks out in Gary, IN (a steel town) and 18
are killed. Company blames “Red agitators”
(Communists)
 Boston police all fired by Mass. Governor Calvin
Coolidge when they went on strike
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Distrust of unions led to sharp drop in membership and
power
Racial Unrest
 White Northerners resented Blacks who came to
factories during the Great Migration
 Racial tensions lead to violence in 1919
 In the South, more than 70 Blacks were lynched
 Chicago Race Riot of 1919 - race riot broke out after
whites stoned a Black youth for swimming in a “whites
only” area. Fighting went on for two weeks, resulting
in 15 dead whites, 23 dead blacks, and over 500
injured.
 Marcus Garvey – many blacks turned to this “Back-toAfrica” leader who was opposed to integration.
 UNIA - Garvey starts Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA) in 1914 to promote black pride and
help blacks start businesses
Section Two – Desire for Normalcy
Harding and Coolidge
 Warren G. Harding runs for President in 1920 with
campaign promising “Return to Normalcy.” Never really
stated what this meant, but Americans liked the sound
of it after WWI
 Republicans Harding and VP Coolidge are elected in a
landslide
 Harding chooses smart but corrupt friends to be
involved in his government. They are involved in many
corrupt deals.
 Teapot Dome Scandal – Sec of Interior Albert Fall
secretly leases land to oil companies in exchange for
$400,000 cash
 Harding feels responsible, has a heart attack, and
dies in 1923
“Silent Cal” Coolidge takes over
 Republican Coolidge becomes president and sweeps
Harding “Ohio Gang” out
 Calvin Coolidge talks very little, earning the
nickname “Silent Cal”
 Pro-business – free enterprise (laissez-faire), raises
tariffs, lowers taxes on businesses and wealthy, and
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overturns laws against child labor and wages for
women.
Coolidge is easily reelected in 1924,
First of modern Republicans – pro-business, antigovernment
Foreign Policy
 Isolationism - Harding and Coolidge both promised to
keep US out of League of Nations
 Kellogg - Briand Pact (1928) – US joins 14 other
countries in outlawing war. While 48 nations
eventually signed on, it was unenforceable.
 True to Roosevelt Corollary, US had troops in
Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Coolidge pulled
them out.
 Coolidge negotiates a peaceful solution to issues with
Mexico rather than sending troops.
Section Three – A Booming Economy
Growth in the 1920s
 Business boomed in the 1920s
 Gross National Product (GNP) – the total value of all
goods and services in a country. In 1922, the US GNP
was $70 billion. By 1929 it was $100 billion.
 As electricity replaced steam, production increased
and costs decreased.
 Scientific Management – people began to study methods
to make things more efficiently and cheaper
 Mass Production – production of large numbers of
identical goods becomes more widespread because of the
use of the assembly line
Consumer Economy
 In the 1920s, 60% of homes have electricity. This
leads to purchase of electric appliances such as
refrigerators, stoves, vacuums, and radios
 Advertising pushes consumers to purchase more products
 Installment buying – customers were permitted to buy
expensive products and pay for them over time (usually
monthly). This creates debt, but allows for purchase
of goods you couldn’t otherwise afford.
Automobile Age
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4 million Americans work for auto industry or related
fields
Detroit, Michigan - becomes automobile capital of the
world with Fords and GM cars both being built there
$5 day – Ford decides to pay its workers a very high
rate in 1914 in order to get loyal, hard workers.
While Ford Model Ts were always the same, GM and other
companies cut into Ford’s sales by creating new models
each year that convinced customers to replace old
models more frequently
More cars = more roads. More roads mean more
restaurants, hotels and gas stations. Businesses
along major routes did very well.
Car boom increased production for steel, glass and
rubber.
Suburbs – as urban areas become congested, cars allow
people to move to less busy suburbs and commute
Those Left Behind
 Not everybody did well in the 1920s
 Farmers struggled with lack of demand after the war
 Railroad workers and coal miners lost business due to
gas powered cars and trucks
 Americans were buying man made materials, leading to a
collapse of the textile and cotton industries
 Laborer’s wages did not increase as quickly as
inflation so that by 1929, 3/4s of families had
incomes below $2500 (about $31,000 today - the
accepted level for a comfortable life)
Section Four – The Roaring Twenties
Social and Cultural Change
 Charles Lindbergh – first to fly across the Atlantic
solo in May, 1927. Lindbergh was thought of as a hero
and a symbol of modern America.
 Women voting – Women began to publicly express
opinions.
 Women to work – women serve as teachers o office
workers. Some move into professional careers
 Most women still served as homemakers and stay-at-home
mothers
 Flappers – young women in their 20s who break the
social norms by cutting hair short, wearing heavy
make-up, wearing short skirts, and drinking and
smoking in public.
controversy.
Flappers were a source of
Movies and Radio
 Mass Media – forms of communication such as newspapers
and radio that could reach millions of people
 Hollywood, California becomes the center of the movie
industry.
 Silent Movies – first movies were black and white and
placed captions on the screen to show actor’s dialogue
 The Jazz Singer (1927) – the first “talkie,” or movie
with sound, The Jazz Singer was a sensation
 Radio brought news and sports into people’s homes.
Radio companies begin to sell commercials on air.
Sports and Fads
 Radio creates sports stars in baseball, boxing, and
football.
 Fads – new activities that are popular for a brief
time. In the 1920s, flag pole sitting and dance
marathons (some lasting up to four days) were popular
Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance
 Jazz – American music form with dynamic rhythms and
improvisation, jazz forms the roots of blues, rock and
roll and hip-hop
 Louis Armstrong (trumpet) , Duke Ellington (writing
and piano) and Bessie Smith (voice) are leading jazz
musicians
 Jazz Age – the 20s are so well represented by this
type of music that this is often called the Jazz Age
 Harlem Renaissance – In Harlem, NY, we see a strong
pride in African-American culture and traditions. This
pride is evident in the Harlem Renaissance – a burst
of Black music, poetry, literature and art out of this
neighborhood.
 Langston Hughes (poetry), Zora Neale Hurston
(literature) and William H. Johnson (art) are major
contributors to this movement
A Clash of Cultures
 New vs. Old - Rise of the urban society causes a clash
with Americans who believe the U.S. should be based on
family, church and tradition.
Prohibition
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Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919) – bans
alcohol manufacture, sale and consumption in the U.S.
Supported in the rural South and Mid-West (called
“drys”), but very unpopular in urban area (“wets”).
Continued demand let to wide-spread law breaking and
the U.S. government only had 1,500 agents to enforce
the law
Speakeasies – illegal bars were alcohol was sold
Many states in the East stopped trying to enforce
Prohibition by the early 1920s.
Organized Crime – because of demand, powerful gangs
were created to sell alcohol to speakeasies. They
were already breaking the law, so they were not very
concerned about using violence. Al Capone of Chicago
made millions from bootlegging (selling alcohol
illegally)
Twenty-First Amendment (1933) – nullifies (eliminates)
the 18th Amendment and alcohol is again permitted
Nativism
 Nativism – belief native-born Americans are superior
to foreigners
 Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – first founded in the 1860s during
Reconstruction this group came back into power in the
1920s.
o The “new” Klan was not only opposed to Blacks,
but Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and anyone else
it thought to be “un-American”
o Used terrorist tactics such as lynching,
whippings, burning of crosses and property
 Anti-Asian ideas – many, especially unions, felt
immigrants would take jobs of native born people.
Especially targeted were Asian immigrants.
 Emergency Quota Act (1921) – similar to the Chinese
Exclusion Act, it put limits on number of immigrant
permitted from each country. It favors nations of
Western and Northern Europe.
 National Origins Act (1924) – Lowers the number of
immigrants permitted and completely excludes Japan.
Countries in the Western Hemisphere were excluded from
this law.
The Scopes Trial (1925)
 Another culture clash – this time it was religion vs.
science
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John Scopes, a Tennessee science teacher, taught
Darwin’s theory of Evolution, which was illegal in TN
schools
TN educators only wanted creationism taught (God put
people on Earth as told in Genesis)
Often called the “Monkey Trial,” lawyer Clarence
Darrow defended Scopes right to teach evolution
against former Granger Presidential candidate William
Jennings Bryan (the lion in the Wizard of Oz)
Scopes ended up being fined $100 but having the TN
Supreme Court overrule the fine.
Election of 1828
 President Coolidge surprises people by deciding not to
run for another full term
 Herbert Hoover becomes the Republican candidate – a
“dry,” Protestant Quaker who had been in the federal
government for quite a while
 Alfred E. Smith is the Democratic candidate – from
NYC, son of immigrants, and the first Catholic to run
on a major party ticket, Smith was a very different
person from Hoover
 This election was similar to the country – a battle
between the past of U.S. (Hoover) and the new, urban
U.S. (Smith)
 Republicans take credit for prosperity of 1920s and
Hoover wins the election
 Election reflects society in the 1920s – rural vs.
urban, nativism vs. immigrants, “wets” vs. “drys,”
Protestant vs. Catholic, traditional vs. modern values