Chapters 12 and 13: The Roaring Life of the 1920s
Section 1: Changing Ways of Life
-Americans experience cultural conflicts as customs in values changed in the 1920s.
*18th Amendment- (January 1920) banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of
alcohol.
-Laws against it were unenforceable.
Rural and Urban Differences
At the New Urban Scene- discrimination laws in the rural South “pushed” migration to
urban areas
-city population increased and became very overcrowded, this caused many problems.
The Prohibition Experiment
*Prohibition- the banning of the manufacture, sale, and possession of alcoholic
beverages.
-Reformers had long considered liquor a prime cause of corruption.
-Thought that it lead to crime, wife and child abuse accidents on the job, and other
serious social problems.
-Reformers were mainly from rural South and West areas of native-born Protestants.
*The Volstead Act- established a Prohibition Bureau in the treasury department in 1919.
It was underfunded and enforcement was hard.
Speakeasies and Bootleggers
-To obtain liquor illegally, drinkers went underground to hidden saloons and nightclubs
known as *Speakeasies- so-called because when inside, one spoke quietly, or easily to
avoid detection.
*Bootleggers- named for smugglers practice of carrying liquor in the legs of boots, who
smuggled it in from Canada, Cuba, and the West Indies.
-Chicago became notorious as the home of *Al Capone- a gangster who’s bootlegging
empire made over $60 million a year.
-He took control of the liquor business by killing off his competition.
*21st Amendment- 1933- repealed Prohibition.
Science and Religion Clash
-The battle raged between fundamentalist religious groups and secular thinkers over the
validity of certain scientific discoveries.
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American Fundamentalism
-(Protestant Movement) a literal, or nonsymbolic, interpretation of the Bible.
-They were skeptical of some scientific discoveries and theories; they argued that allimportant knowledge could be found in the Bible.
-No evolution- no way humans came from apes.
*The Scopes Trial
-March 1925- Tennessee passed the nation’s first law that made it a crime to teach
evolution.
-Immediately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) promised to defend any
teacher who would challenge the law.
*John T. Scopes- a biology teacher in Tennessee read a passage from a book called
Civic Biology. (p.644)
-He was arrested and the ACLU hired *Clarence Darrow- the most famous trial lawyer of
the day, to defend him.
*William Jennings Bryan- the three-time Democratic candidate for president and a
devout fundamentalist was the prosecutor.
-The trial became so big that it was moved to an outside platform.
-Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.
Section 2: The Twenties Women
-American women pursued new lifestyles and assumed new jobs in different roles in
society during the 1920s – gained international recognition in the arts.
Young Women Change the Rules
*Flapper- an emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and the urban
attitudes of the day.
-Attitudes towards marriage were viewed as a more equal partnership- but the
housework and taking care of the children were still a woman’s job.
-Casual dating became increasingly accepted.
*Double Standard- a set of principles granting greater sexual freedom to men than to
women- required women to observe stricter standards of behavior than man did.
Women Shed Old Roles at a Home and at Work
New Work Opportunities- “women’s professions” teacher, nurse, librarian, and all sorts
of clerical workers.
-Always earned less than men did.
Changing the Family- birthrate had been declining for several decades and even faster
in the 1920s.
-Partly due to the wider availability of birth control information.
*Margaret Sanger- first birth-control clinic established in 1916- founded the American
birth control league in 1921.
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-Family structure typically remained the same with women subordinate to husband at
home
- Many housewives focused their attention on their homes, husbands, children, and
pastimes.
Section 3: Education and Popular Culture
-The mass media, movies, and spectator sports played important roles in creating the
popular culture that many artists and writers criticized.
Schools and the Mass Media Shape Culture
-School enrollments increased.
-Taxes to finance schools increased as well.
-Newspaper and magazine circulation rose.
-Radio comes of age- hearing the news as it happened.
-Number of children in school increased.
America Chases New Heroes and Old Dreams
-New leisure pastimes.
-Babe Ruth
-Pioneers in aviation- Charles A. Lindbergh - made the first solo flight across the
Atlantic.
-Glenn Curtiss – made first officially-recognized, pre-announced and publicly-observed
flight in America
-Amelia Earhart
Entertainment and Arts
-Talking movies, plays, concert, painters, and writers.
*George Gershwin- a composer who emerge traditional elements with American jazz.
*George O’Keefe- a painter who produced intensely colored canvases that captured the
grandeur of New York.
*Sinclair Lewis- a writer who was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
He was among the eras most outspoken critics.
*F. Scott Fitzgerald- was a writer who coined the term “Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s.
*Edna St. Vincent Millay- wrote poems celebrating youth and a life of independence and
freedom from traditional constraints.
*Ernest Hemingway- wounded in World War I, became the best known expatriate author
often criticized the glorification of war.
Section 4: The Harlem Renaissance
-African-American ideas, politics, art, literature, and music flourished in Harlem and
elsewhere in the US.
*Zora Neale Hurston- ended up in New York where she struggled to the top of the
African American Literacy Society.
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African-American Voices in the 1920s
The Move North- 1910-1920 Great Migration
-Tensions grew in northern cities as the massive influx came in.
-Summer of 1919- approximately 25 urban race riots.
African-American Goals: NAACP- urged people to protest racial violence.
*James Weldon Johnson- poet, lawyer, and NAACP executive secretary- the
organization fought for legislation to protect their rights.
*Marcus Garvey- an immigrant from Jamaica, believed that African-Americans should
build a separate society.
-This aroused the hopes of many.
-1914- he founded the Universal Negro improvement Association (UNIA).
-Opened offices in urban ghettos in NYC in order to recruit followers.
-Also promoted African-American businesses.
-He also encouraged his followers to return to Africa, help the native people there throw
off white colonial oppressors, and build a mighty nation.
-Support declined in the mid-1920’s when he was jailed for the mail fraud.
The Harlem Renaissance Flowers in New York
-In the 1920s, Harlem became the world’s largest black urban community.
*The Harlem Renaissance- a literary and artistic movement celebrating AfricanAmerican culture.
-Led by well educated middle-class African-Americans who expressed a new pride in
African-American experience.
*Claude McKay- a novelist poet, and Jamaican immigrant, was a major figure whose
militant versus urged African-Americans to resist prejudiced and discrimination.
*Langston Hughes- was the movement’s best-known poet.
-During the 1920s, African-Americans in the performing arts won large followings.
*Paul Robeson- son of a slave-became a major dramatic actor. Widely acclaimed for his
role in Shakespeare’s Othello.
-He struggled with racism and supported the Soviet Union and the Communist Party.
*Louis Armstrong- jazz was born in the early 20th century.
-He was a trumpet player in the Creole Jazz Band, then joined the Fletcher Hendersons
Band.
-He went on to become perhaps the most important and influential musician in the
history of jazz.
*Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington- a jazz pianist and composer, led his 10 piece
orchestra at the Cotton Club.
-“Scat”- or improvised jazz singing using sound instead of words was introduced.
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*Bessie Smith- a female blues singer, was perhaps the most outstanding performer of
the decade.
-1927- became the highest-paid black artist in the world.
-The Harlem Renaissance represented a portion of the great social and cultural changes
that swept America in the 1920s.
- Most of the social changed were lasting, but the economic boom was short-lived.
Section 5: It All Comes Crashing Down
-People save their money in banks
-Banks profit by investing the depositor’s money
-Stock Market crashes
-People try desperately to recover their money from the banks
-Banks don’t have readily available money and close their doors
-People lose their savings and end up in poverty
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