What effects did postwar tensions
have on America’s founding ideals?

Demobilization causes massive unemployment
During WWI, industrial production doubled,
agricultural production tripled
 And when the war ended?


Inflation after the War
Spending spree (after much saving)
 Inflation

 A rise in the general level of prices of goods and services
in an economy
 When the price level rises, currency buys fewer goods
and services

Unemployment + Inflation = Recession

Businesses return to prewar labor practices



AFL (American Federation of Labor)




No more cooperation or the mediation of disputes by
the War Labor Board
Corporations fought unions and the gains they had
made
Group of unions represented skilled laborers
“bread and butter” issues (better wages/better
conditions)
The more radical Wobblies (I.W.W.)
wanted more
3600 strikes across the U.S. in 1919

In Seattle


35, 000 shipyard workers were
joined by 100,000 more in a
general strike
In Boston
The police force walked off the
job with the support and sympathy of the
citizens, at first
 Anarchy resulted
 Calvin Coolidge as Governor of Massachusetts

 “There is no right to strike against the public safety by
anybody, anywhere, any time.”

Americans viewed unions as a threat
Strike related violence could lead to anarchy
 The strikes didn’t achieve lasting effects
 “Politics” of union membership

 Unskilled workers often were left out
 Immigrants were not welcomed
 African-Americans were excluded

The Supreme Court rejected child labor
laws and minimum wage laws


Senators, mayors, business leaders and even a
Supreme Court justice either received bomb
packages or were going to
Radicalism = extreme change in the social or
economic structures


Could be Communists, Socialists or Anarchists (who are
opposed to all systems of government)
Communism called for the public
ownership of all means of production
leading to a classless society
 The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
accomplished this
 The Red Scare


Attorney
General Mitchell
Palmer and his
assistant J. Edgar
Hoover raid
homes,
businesses and
meeting places
often without
cause (known as
“Palmer Raids”)
Civil Liberties
were trampled

Nativism



Emergency Immigration Act of 1921


Set quotas to limit immigration
The Ku Klux Klan



“they” could never be 100% American
“they” are overcrowding our cities and taking our jobs
Anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic
Their membership reached 3-4 million in the 1920’s
In 1920 the ACLU was founded to defend those
whose rights were being violated (not always
popular)

Race riots exploded as a result of the Great Migration


Black veterans couldn’t find jobs (white veterans had their
jobs taken by blacks)
Back to Africa Movement
Marcus Garvey
 Raised the question of a
separate society versus an
integrated one


Anti-Semitism
Prejudice against Jews
 The Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) is founded to combat
discrimination against Jews






A Case Study for
Understanding PostWorld War One America
ECONOMIC TENSIONS:
LABOR
TENSIONS:
POLITICAL
TENSIONS:
SOCIAL
TENSIONS:
Did the Republican Era of the
1920’s bring peace and prosperity
to all Americans?
What social trends and
innovations shaped popular
culture during the 1920’s?

A new consumer
culture



New appliances,
electricity in
homes
Advertising
builds demand
Installment
buying allows
credit

Americans take to the road and air
Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis
become heroes
 Barnstorming air shows with wing walkers
gain popularity
 Amelia Earhart flies solo across the Atlantic
 Henry Ford mass produces affordable
automobiles

 The isolation of farm life ends
 Suburbs can grow
 Roadside advertising becomes big business

The importance of mass media
Newspapers and magazines keep Americans
informed
 Radio pioneers like David Sarnoff provide
entertainment (NBC)

 Music, comedies, dramas all on the radio

People flock to movie houses
 The Jazz Singer was the first full length “talkie”

“Radio told the masses what to do, movies
showed them how to do it.”
 Fashions, hair styles, behaviors

Women move toward greater equality
League of Women Voters to educate women
on the issues and support political activity
 Equal Rights Amendment championed by
Alice Paul is proposed but never ratified
 Women enter professions, seek greater
opportunities and rebel against traditional
roles, clothing, behavior and customs
 Margaret Sanger opens the country’s first
family planning clinic


The “Jazz Age”

Distinctly American form of music
 African rhythms, European harmonies, African-American
folk music
Improvisation not necessarily a written score
 Harlem in NYC doubled in population with the Great
Migration
 The most famous club of all was the Cotton Club


Harlem Renaissance



“revival” or “rebirth”
The Great Migration
congregated black
populations in large,
northern cities
 war opportunities
 limits in immigration
 poor conditions in the
south and oppression
by whites
None larger than in
Harlem, New York
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it, and splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor - Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall nowFor I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Jazz Age Authors

F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Moral emptiness, lost promises from World War I

The Lost Generation
 Critical of American
life
 Many headed to Paris
e.e. cummings used
no capital letters
Artists like Georgia
O’Keeffe found
inspiration in nature


How did social, economic and
religious tensions divide Americans
during the Roaring Twenties?
TRADITIONALISTS



Respect for long held
social, cultural and
religious values
Those provide stability
and order
A desire for the “simple
life”
MODERNISTS


Embrace of new ideas,
styles and social trends
Traditional values were
chains that restricted
individual freedoms and
the pursuit of happiness

Life in the
City



Wages and
per capita
income rose
Standards of
living
improved
Movies,
museums,
concerts,
clubs

Life in the Country



New ideas and
behaviors were
cause for suspicion
Crop prices fell
after the war and
farmers could not
pay loans
The Republican
administrations did
not want to
interfere with the
markets and help





Small town values were mocked by modernists
while the traditionalists fought to preserve and
defend all that was good in American life
Cities = immoral, materialistic, money-grubbing
Fundamentalism in the country = the idea that
religious texts and beliefs should be taken
literally and treated as the ultimate authority on
behavior
Billy Sunday gained popularity as the most
prominent fundamentalist preacher of the day
Rural areas were losing population to the cities
YOUTH PERSPECTIVE




High School and
college enrollment
was growing
Fads and trends
develop
Flappers w/ their
new clothing styles
and behaviors
Mass media
and
cars
provide
“escapes”
ADULT PERSPECTIVE



The young were
reckless and immoral
The Hays Office
issues moral
codes for movie
behavior
Legislate more
conservative
behavior
DRY PERSPECTIVE


Support the 18th
amendment
(Volstead Act) for a
happier and
healthier
society
Prohibition
would
help control
“foreign”
influences
WET PERSPECTIVE




Government
couldn’t (or
shouldn’t) legislate
morality
Too difficult to
enforce
Speakeasies allowed
drinking in secret
clubs
Bootleggers got rich
EVOLUTION

Charles Darwin
CREATIONISM

The Bible is the word of
God
EVOLUTION



Natural Selection
Survival of the
Fittest
“Social Darwinism”


The fittest or most
powerful should rule
the less powerful
Science can explain
how the physical
world works
CREATIONISM


Taken literally,
“God created the
Universe.”
Fear of eugenics

The human species
could be improved by
forbidding people
with undesirable
characteristics from
reproducing



Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution holds that inherited
characteristics of a population change over generations,
which sometimes results in the rise of a new species.

According to Darwin, the human species may have
evolved from an ape-like species that lived long ago.

Fundamentalists think this theory is against the biblical
account of how God created
humans and that teaching evolution
undermines religious faith.
Laws were passed preventing evolution
being taught in schools
One group in Tennessee persuaded a
young science teacher named John Scopes
to violate the law, get arrested, and go to
trial.




Scopes was represented by Clarence Darrow, and William
Jennings Bryan, three-time candidate for
president, represented
the prosecution.
John Scopes was
obviously guilty,
but the trial was
about larger issues.
Scopes was
convicted and
fined $100
The Tennessee law
remained in place until
the 1960s.