Christopher Smith
AP US History
Mrs. Norris
6th hour
Sample DBQ Response to demonstrate document integration
Prompt: The 1920s were a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on the
one hand and traditional values and nostalgia on the other. What led to the tension
between old and new AND in what ways was the tension manifested?
The firestorm of the Great War revealed an American society rife with conflict and
opposing values. Americans reacted to the legacy of the war with new political doctrines,
contentious views of religion, and emerging social and artistic trends. Heightened tensions were
demonstrated by how Americans reacted to the legacy of the Great War. Debate over religion,
morality, politics, economics, and art broke along modern and traditional lines. The roaring 20s
manifested these differences in court rooms, national politics, grass roots campaigns, and in the
emerging transportation and media revolutions.
American religion became a major front in the 1920s’ culture wars. Mainstream
Protestantism, Fundamentalism, Catholicism, and Judaism were prominent and controversial.
While traditional Protestants retained control of America’s commanding heights, the influx of
fundamentalism among “old stock” Americans and the importation of Catholicism and Judaism
with “new immigrants” created a volatile mix. New York’s Alfred Smith was unable to win the
presidency in 1928 largely because of his Irish Catholic faith. Preachers such as Billy Sunday
and Aimee Semple MacPherson attracted national audiences through their sophisticated use of
new media outlets such as the radio. Ironically, modernism shaped the religious resurgence in the
1920s. MacPherson’s revivals were known for having “sex appeal” and being a form of
“supernatural whoopee.” (Doc I) Even the fundamentalist movement was shaped by the new
trends in the United States. The presidencies of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover maintained the
practice of traditional Protestantism in the White House, but that did not prevent national
upheaval over the brand of religion propagated by Sunday and MacPherson.
The introduction of the theory of evolution into the high school curriculum awoke the
sleeping giant of fundamentalist Christianity and created tension over the separation of church
and state. Evolution versus creationism became a metaphor for the much larger religious debate
in the United States. The Scopes Monkey trial demonstrated the religious tension of the era.
Creationism was defended by the former populist presidential candidate and former secretary of
state, William Jennings Bryan. Clarence Darrow defended the Science teacher, John T. Scopes.
Bryan and Darrow battled for weeks over their religious interpretations and beliefs. Modernists
challenged the notion that “everything in the bible should be literally interpreted.” Whereas
fundamentalists believed the likes of Darrow were voicing a “slur to the bible.” (Doc C). Their
debate represented a national tension over the variety of religious beliefs existing in the United
States by the 1920s.
Religion also served as a pseudonym to discuss America’s new ethnic diversity. In 1800
the United States was made up of African slaves, Native Americans, and a smattering of
protestant northwestern Europeans. In 1921 Warren G. Harding presided over a nation of
eastern European Jews, Irish, Italian, and Polish Catholics, African American Baptists, and
White Anglo Saxon Protestants. The teeming masses populated America’s cities, but the
governors’ mansions and Congressional seats were still firmly under the control of white Anglo
Saxon males. Congress passed three immigration laws in 1921, 1924, and 1927 to cut off
immigration from undesirable regions. The immigrants Sacco & Vanzetti reinforced this fear of
immigrants. “100% Americans” questioned the loyalty of new immigrants to the country.
Catholics were feared to obey the Pope, instead of the president. Jews were believed to carry
with them the radical ideologies their Russian homeland, as exemplified in the case of Emma
Goldman and Alexander Berkman.
White fears were not assuaged by political domination. The KKK’s presence served to
intimidate blacks, Jews, and Catholics who strove for political representation, or even just urban
integration. Lynchings occurred in almost every state in the 1920s, not just in the traditional
south. The Palmer Raids of 1919 & 1920 set the standard as the zenith of xenophobic hysteria.
Groups such as the KKK and the 100% Americanism movement manifested outside of the
government’s mandate, demonstrating the grass roots tension in the country. The Klan
unabashedly believed they represented the “old stock” Americans who had “given the world
almost the whole of modern civilization.” (Doc D). Nostalgia like the Klan’s represented a
yearning for the old America.
The political domination of the Anglo Whites does not indicate that minority groups
acquiesced to the pressures of the “old” America. African American leaders and artists
represented the immediate legacy of the Great Migration. Black nationalists like Marcus Garvey
represented a “new negro” pushing against subjugation. Garvey’s “black nationalism” departed
from Booker T. Washington’s traditional approach to integration and even moved a step further
than W.E.B. DuBois’ belief in full integration.
Harlem Renaissance writers created a new style for blacks, as well as all Americans that
broke from the traditional artistic patterns. Langston Hughes redefined his color by declaring
“black is beautiful.” Claude McKay’s poetry embodied Garvey’s black nationalist rhetoric in
works like “If We Must Die.”
Perhaps the most immediate dissemination of the new black culture into old America was
in music. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bessie Smith defined the Jazz era with their
pure form American music. This new art form sounded like the “eternal tom-tom beating in the
Negro Soul, the tom-tom of revolt.” (Doc E). Jazz combined the old classical instrumentation
and the new rhythms brought to the north by the Great Migration.
African Americans were not the only new artists breaking ground. The Lost Generation
of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stein criticized America’s “return to normalcy” and
demonstrated their disgust by spending most of the decade in Europe. Societal tensions
manifested in all art mediums. Artists realized America’s veneration of the new philosophy of
science, industry, and capitalism. Stella’s “Bridge” (Doc B) encapsulates the triumph of
modernism over traditionalism with glowing cities and cathedrals of city light.
New technology also stressed the tension between old and new America. The
automobile’s proliferation allowed many Americans to escape the “new problems” of the cities.
At the same time, cars allowed unsupervised dating and tested the old morals and standards.
Automobiles also facilitated the bootlegging industry. The 18th Amendment was a triumph of
“old” America against the problems of “new” America. New immigrants could hopefully be
civilized without their “rum” and soon after be cured of their “romanism” as well. The
temperance experiment failed largely due to “new” automobiles and the automobile/temperance
conflict is a clear demonstration of manifested tensions between modern and traditional America.
Other new technologies such as the radio and telephone also created tension in America.
Mass communication carried ideas, morals, and conflict to isolated parts of the nation. Part of
the Scopes Monkey trial’s allure was its national radio broadcast of Darrow and Bryan’s
arguments. New ideas like evolution were carried on the airwaves. Film and radio stars like
Clara Bow and Rudolf Valentino became national celebrities for their charisma and appeal.
These stars represented a new cult. People began to ignore the church and praise materialism
and financial success. Americans’ tastes fixed upon what “the large national advertisers” told
people about “individuality.” ( Doc A)
In certain cases scientific progress seemed to represent American traditionalism. Charles
Lindbergh’s achievements hailed as comparison to that of Jesus “nineteen hundred years ago.”
(Doc F). Capitalist and entrepreneur Henry Ford saw himself as a defender of traditional
America. Ford supported prohibition and vehemently opposed unions at Ford Motor Company.
To Ford, unions and alcohol obviously represented the problems of the “new America.”
Henry Ford and the Model T served as duplicitous symbols of old and new conflicts.
Even Sunday school teachers represented the aforementioned commingling of traditionalism and
modernism when called to educate the youth about the “well proven facts of science” (Doc G) in
regard to smoking. It is doubtful that William Jennings Bryan would call for Sunday schools to
push new scientific ideas upon the nation’s children.
Throughout the post World War I era Americans were divided over the nation’s path.
For modernists, the country was stuck in a quagmire of dogma and intolerance. Traditionalists
believed the country was rapidly abandoning its founding racial, political, and religious
doctrines. Americans could not ignore that the country was changing. Divorce rates rose,
marriage rates declined (Doc H), African Americans lived in the north and south, and the white,
Anglo Saxon control over the country seemed threatened. Immigration, progressivism, and the
Great War introduced new values and challenged the old, leaving the country in a political and
cultural struggle over its identity.