Life in the Roaring 20’s
“You can get much farther with a kind
word and a gun than you can with a kind
word alone.”
~Al Capone
What is your interpretation of the
quote? How does this relate to
Teddy Roosevelt’s philosphy, “Speak
softly and carry a big stick”?
•Best known gangster and the
single greatest symbol of the
collapse of law and order in the
United States during the 1920s
Prohibition era. Capone
bootlegged whiskey from Canada
and ran over 10,000 speakeasies.
Warm-up
The year is 2115.
You are sitting in your US History class
learning about the life of people in 2015.
List 5 topics students might visit stations on
regarding life in 2015.
The Roaring Life of the 1920’s
Between 1922 and 1929, migration to the cities accelerated,
with nearly 2 million people leaving farms and towns each
year.
Cities were the
place to be…..
*Small town attitudes
began to lose their hold
on the American mind
as cities rose to
prominence.
- New York:
5.6 million people
- Chicago:
3 million people
- Philadelphia:
2 million people
*Streets were filled
with strangers, not
friends and
neighbors. Life was
fast-paced, not
leisurely.
Cultural Conflicts of the 1920’s
After completing the 1920’s rotation stations,
what cultural conflicts are taking place in
the 1920’s?
Cultural Conflicts
of the 1920s
1.Traditional vs. Modern
values
2.Old ways vs. new ways
3.Older Generation vs.
Younger
WHY?
Prohibition born from
Temperance
• The ____ Amendment
• Prohibition- The manufacture,
sale and transportation of
alcoholic beverages was illegal.
-Drinking was the cause of
poverty, severe health
problems, & crimes such as lead
to crime, wife and child abuse,
accidents on the job, and other
serious problems.
The Volstead Act
• Established a prohibition bureau in
the Treasury Department in 1919.
Problems
- The agency was underfunded
- The task of patrolling and
tracking down illegal alcohol fell to
1,500 poorly paid federal agents.
Speakeasies & Bootleggers
• Speakeasies- Hidden saloons and night clubs.
- So called because when inside, one spoke
quietly, or “easily” to avoid detection.
• Bootleggers: Smuggled alcohol into the country
for sale. (named for the smugglers practice of carrying
liquor in the legs of boots)
Organized Crime
• Prohibition led to disrespect for the law and
organized crime in nearly every major city.
-Chicago became notorious as the home of Al Capone, A
gangster whose bootlegging empire netted over 60 million
a year.
• By the mid-1920’s only 19% of Americans
supported prohibition; most said it made it made
problems worse.
• The 18th amendment remained in force until 1933
when it was repealed with the 21st amendment.
Al Capone was arrested finally in
1931 for not paying income taxes.
Al Capone was not a
part of the mafia, but he
probably had over a
thousand people killed.
Rise of Fundamentalism
• Groups that take
a strict, literal
interpretation of
the bible.
Fundamentalism
• Fundamentalists: skeptical of
scientific knowledge; they
argued that all important
knowledge could be found in
the bible.
- rejected the Charles
Darwin theory of evolution
- followers began to call for
laws prohibiting the teaching of
evolution.
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
• In 1925, Tennessee passed the nation’s
first law that made it illegal to teach
evolution.
- The American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) promised to defend any teacher who
would challenge the law.
- John T Scopes a biology teacher
accepted the challenge.
In his Biology Class,
Scopes Read…
“ We have now learned that animal forms may be
arranged so as to begin with the simple one-celled
forms and culminate with a group which includes
man himself.”
• Scopes was promptly
arrested.
• Verdict:
– Found guilty; fined $100
– Law outlawing evolution remained
•
1.
2.
•
•
•
Two men who were considered to
be the greatest orators of their
day participated in the trial
the state was represented by
William Jennings Bryan as special
prosecutor
Clarence Darrow defended Scopes
The jury returns its guilty verdict
after nine minutes of deliberation
Scopes is fined $100, which both
Darrow and the ACLU offer to pay
for him
FYI: Five days after the Scopes trial
ends, Bryan dies in his sleep. He is
buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
The words "He Kept the Faith" are
inscribed on his tombstone
STOP!
• Think and Write
• Get out your notecard.
• Write the MOST IMPORTANT idea you’ve learned in
the last ten minutes on your card
• Everyone will trade cards with the person next to you.
• On the back of your new card, write whether you
agree or disagree with that person’s fact, and explain.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Murder Statistics
During what two time periods
was the murder rate in
America at it’s highest?
Do you see a correlation
between the two red sections?
Explain.
Why do you think the murder
rate dropped after the 1930’s?
What can the government do
to DECREASE the current
murder rate in America?
The Twenties Woman
Section 2 and 3
Emancipated Women
• Many women began to assert their independence, and
demand the same freedoms as men.
The Flapper
- clipped their long hair into short
boyish cuts
- Smoking cigarettes and drinking in
public, talking openly about sex
- Marriage was starting to be seen as
a partnership, although both
agreed that the house and children
remained a woman’s job.
Double Standard
• A set of principles granting greater
sexual freedom to men than to women.
• It required women to observe stricter
standards of behavior than men did.
Popular Culture
The mass media, movies, music,
and spectator sports played
important roles in the 1920s.
Charles Lindbergh
• A prize of $ 25,000 was
offered for anyone that
could fly solo non stop
across the Atlantic.
• In May of 1927
Lindbergh took off from
New York in his plane,
The Spirit of St Louis.
• After 33 hours and 29
minutes in the air
Lindbergh landed
outside of Paris
– Inspired Amelia
Earhart
Dance
Fads
Fashion
Sports
The Roaring Twenties
American Writers
• F.Scott Fitzgerald- Wrote the
“Great Gatsby” and coined the
term “The Jazz Age” - Part of
the “Lost Generation”
• Langston Hughes- The best
known poet of the Harlem
Renaissance. Many of his poems
described the difficult lives of the
African American working class.
• Northern Cities in general had not welcomed the
massive influx of African Americans.
• Many African Americans found a voice in the
NAACP.
• African Americans faced many daily threats and
discrimination
STOP!
• Gimme Five
• Stand up and make eye contact with ONE person
across the room. DON’T stop looking at your partner.
• Walk towards your partner and hold up your hand.
• Tell your partner FIVE things you’ve learned today.
• Have your partner REPEAT those 5 things to you!
The Harlem Renaissance
•
Many African Americans
who migrated north moved to
Harlem a neighborhood on the
Upper west side of New York’s
Manhattan Island.
• In the 1920’s Harlem became
the world’s largest black
community
• The flowering creativity in
Harlem led to a literary and
artistic movement celebrating
African American culture.
Jazz
• Jazz was born in the 20th Century in
New Orleans.
- Louis Armstrong made personal
expression a key part of jazz.
-“Duke” Ellington, a jazz pianist
was a renown composer. Led his
orchestra at the Cotton Club.
• Bessie Smith:
– a female blues singer, was perhaps the
outstanding vocalist of the decade. In 1927 she
became the highest-paid black artist in the
World.
Tin Pan Alley
During the 1920s, Jazz and The
Blues became very popular in
American culture, with both
white and black audiences. A
group of music production
companies in New York City
Tin Pan Alley, c. 1910
called “Tin Pan Alley”
capitalized on this, by
producing catchy, easy-to-play
songs that sounded similar to Irving Berlin, one
of the most
authentic Jazz and Blues music. successful Tin
Pan Alley
musicians
The Legacy of the 1920s…
economic
prosperity, new ideas, changing
values, and personal freedom.
• The 1920’s was characterized by
• Most of the social changes were lasting.
• The economic boom, however, was short-lived.
Answer these questions in your
Merry Go Round - 1942
notebook:
1. What do you see?
by Langston Hughes
2. Who are you?
• Where is the Jim Crow section
3. Where do you come from?
On this merry-go-round,
4. What obstacles have you
Mister, cause I want to ride?
overcome in life?
Down South where I come from
5. What do you feel strongly
White and colored
about?
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?
CAUSE AND EFFECTS CHART
Draw this chart in your notebook. Fill out the “cause” and
“effect” of each event using your notes.
EVENT
CAUSE
EFFECT
Prohibition
Ex: People think alcohol
makes men beat their
wives and children, cause
accidents at work, etc.
Building disrespect for the
law; speakeasies and
bootleggers, growth in
oganized crime.
Isolationism
Installment Plan
Quota System
Double Standard