• Companies focused on inventing & producing consumer goods
Examples: radios, automobiles, icebox, washing machine, vacuum cleaner
• People buying goods using “credit”
• mass production of goods = cheaper products
• increased use of advertising
to sell products
• Car ownership grew 18 million from
1920 to 1930
• New roads = more mobility, causing
growth in the suburbs
• Charles Lindbergh’s 1927
transatlantic flight – could fly across
the Atlantic Ocean
• Republican President elected in 1920
• Most famous for three scandals:
- “Ohio Gang” (president’s
advisors caught using power of the
presidency to get rich)
- Teapot Dome Scandal (extreme
example- gov. claimed some land oilrich land for supplying the navy, but
the secretary of the navy secretly let
private companies get and use the oil
in return for $)
- Mysterious death in S.F at the
Palace Hotel in 1923
• Harding’s Vice President
• Became President in 1923 (after Harding’s
death)
• Elected in 1924 with slogan “Coolidge or
Chaos”
Anecdotes- ‘Silent Cal’ (you don’t have to write
this stuff…)
•in private he was a man of few words and was therefore
commonly referred to as "Silent Cal." A possibly apocryphal
story has it that Dorothy Parker, seated next to him at a
dinner, said to him, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a
fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two
words out of you." His famous reply: "You lose.“
•It was also Parker who, upon learning that Coolidge had
died, reportedly remarked, "How can they tell?"
• Conservative pro-business Republican elected in 1928
• Believed in the individual & a small federal government
• Mitchell Palmer (U.S. Attorney
General) started the “First Red
Scare”
• He deported immigrants during the
“Palmer Raids”
• In 1921 & 1924 limits were placed on
immigrants from Italy, Russia, and
Slavic nations.
• Fear and discrimination against
Question:
immigrants & minority ethnic groups
Why would Americans
spread throughout the U.S.
Ex: Sacco & Vanzetti Trial
dislike immigrants?
• The 18th Amendment “Volstead Act” prohibited the
manufacturing or sale of alcohol (1919)
• It was hard to enforce – smuggled and bootleg liquor
was common – led to a rise in organized crime (mob)
• The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition in 1933
• Gain right to vote in 1920
with the 19th Amendment
• Women expressed new
freedoms and political rights
- birth control, voting, and
new fashions (though few in
number, flappers represented
the “new woman”)
• Black Americans moved north to cities for jobs, but still suffered
from discrimination
• KKK membership grew to 4.5 million by 1924
• Increase in Civil Rights groups fighting for change (ex: Marcus
Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement)
• Era of Babe Ruth & Yankee Stadium
• Sports figures were heroes and big business (1927
Dempsey fight made $2.6 million)
• Negro National Baseball League started in the 1920s
• Rise of movie stars (Rudolph Valentino & Charlie Chaplin)
became popular in the 1920s
• Talking movies started October 6th, 1927 with “The Jazz
Singer”
• Harlem Renaissance – rebirth of black culture in New York
City