1920 S CULTURE CLASH
John Ermer
U.S. History Honors
Miami Beach Senior High
LACC.1112.RH.1.9, SS.912.A.5.1-10, SS.912.A.1-7,
SS.912.G.1-3, SS.912.G.4-3
PROHIBITION
 1920: Eighteenth Amendment prohibits the manufacture, transport,
sale, and consumption of “intoxicating liquors”
• Congress passes the Volstead Act to enforce Prohibition
• Only 1,500 federal prohibition agents hired to enforce law, local cops help little
• Law not enforced well, illegal alcohol is widely available
• Criminals now make fortunes in trade of illegal alcohol, rise in crime
 Prohibition loses support of urban middle class due to organized crime
• Many rural, Protestant “drys” fight back against “wet” urbanites
 Prohibition repealed in 1933 by the Nineteenth Amendment
IMMIGRATION
 After WWI, immigrants associated with radicalism (Sacco & Vanzetti)
• Many nativists use this perception to fight for immigration control
• Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 sets quotas on immigration
 National Origins Act of 1924 strengthens 1921 quotas
• Quotas based on 1890 census population (3% of 1890 numbers)
• Angers Japanese who understood selves as targets (Chinese already illegal)
• Law favors immigration by northern Europeans
NATIVISM
 1915: New Ku Klux Klan established at Stone Mountain, Georgia
• D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation helps KKK’s cause, recruiting
• At first, Klan most concerned with “insubordinate” African-Americans
 Primary targets of 1920s Klan = Catholics, Jews, and “foreigners”
• New focus makes Klan popular outside the South, moves North & West
• Defended what it called “traditional values”
• Worked for Bible readings in schools, terrorized divorced women/men
 Klan membership in declines after 1925 due to scandals & infighting
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
 American Protestantism divided b/w modernists & fundamentalists
• Fundamentalists insisted on literal translation of the Bible
• Fundamentalists fight against teaching of Evolution in schools
 Fundamentalist evangelists spread message to new groups w/ revivals
• In some Southern and Western states, Fundamentalists gain political power
• Some states (including Tenn.) outlaw the teaching of Evolution in public schools
 The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
• ACLU and Tenn. biology teacher John Scopes fight against Tenn. Law
• Famous attorney Clarence Darrow defends Scopes against W. J. Bryan
• Scopes loses the trial, but fundamentalists were made to look foolish
 Fundamentalists marginalized from mainstream churches & politics, start own churches
DEMOCRATIC POLITICS
 Democratic Party really a loose coalition of groups with different ideas
• Rural prohibitionists, Klansmen, and fundamentalists
• Urban immigrants, urban workers, and Catholics
 1924 Democratic convention shows disunity of party, lose election
 1928: Al Smith, northern Irish Catholic, wins Democratic nomination
• First democrat since Civil War not to win entire South
 Republican Herbert Hoover wins Election of 1928
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT
 1921-1933: Republicans hold both the Presidency and Congress
 Warren G. Harding is “man of limited talents from a small town”
• Limited intellect, uneventful political career, gambler, drinker, womanizer
• William Daugherty and the Ohio Gang—party cronyism
• Teapot Dome Scandal
• Sec. of Interior Albert Hall extorts money from naval oil reserves—convicted
• Harding dies in San Francisco, succeeded by Calvin Coolidge
• Coolidge is opposite of Harding, known as “Silent Cal,” but takes same
passive approach to the presidency—wins reelection in 1924
GOVERNMENT & BUSINESS
 Goal of Harding and Coolidge administrations = help business efficiency
• Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon enacts plan toward this goal
• Lower taxes on corporate profits, personal income, and inheritance
• Shrinks the federal budget
• Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, views self as a progressive
• Believes corporations should cooperate with one another with gov’t help
• Concept known as “Associationalism”
• Businesses help other businesses to stabilize and promote efficiency
• Elected president in 1928 on a progressive platform