Aim: What was the political
climate like during the
1920’s?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_8cOI
FbUM
12:50
Do Now: What would a
“return to normalcy” be?
In the 1920 presidential election
would you have voted for a
candidate who promised a “return
to normalcy?” Why or why not?
Would you vote for this candidate???
“America's present need is not heroics,
but healing; not nostrums (plans), but
normalcy; not revolution, but restoration
(repair); not agitation (worry), not the
dramatic, but the dispassionate (calm);…
• -Warren G. Harding - speech during the
1920 presidential campaign
Leaders of the 1920’s
President Warren Harding
President Calvin Coolidge
(1921-1923)
(1923-1929)
Election of 1920
How does this map show the change people wanted?
• During the 1920 campaign, for the first time, newsreels and
photo-ops became the norm in presidential campaigning, and
campaign results were broadcast on the radio. Harding
marketed his own quaint home in rural Ohio as his primary
podium, instituting what he called a "front porch" campaign,
in which he was routinely depicted in photographs on his front
porch, and gave numerous speeches there to enormous
audiences. He was also widely regarded to be a handsome,
and thus photogenic, man, Harding was popular with female
voters, primarily because he had supported Women's Suffrage
and not, as the legend says, because he was so good-looking.
The 1920 election, of course, was the first in which women
were permitted to vote. All the campaigning and women voters
paid off; he won the largest landslide in U.S. history, taking
more than 60% of the popular vote.
Vote for ME,
ladies!!!!!!!!!!!
A. “a return to normalcy”
1. Warren Harding (R) is elected president in 1920
2. Political philosophy fit the mood of the country
a. wanted to bring America back to it’s pre-war
days. As Harding put it, “a return to normalcy.”
3. Harding had an easygoing personality and open
style of governing.
4. Isolationism- Not part of the League of
Nations
5. Raise tariffs on imports to 60% (why?)
6. Quotas restrict immigration from Southern
and Eastern Europeans and Asians
(nativism)
• Congress passed the Emergency Quota
Act (1921), which set quotas, or limits,
on the number of immigrants who
could enter the United States. Total
immigration could not exceed 357,000 in
any one year. Limits were also placed on
the number of immigrants who could enter
the United States from each foreign
country.
B. Administration Scandals
1. Teapot Dome- 1922
-Government oil lands leased out
2. Ohio Gang
-Friends of Harding’s who took advantage of
Government positions.
• The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery
incident that took place in the United
States in 1922–23, during the
administration of President Warren G.
Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert
B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at
Teapot Dome and two other locations to
private oil companies at low rates without
competitive bidding. Fall was later
convicted of accepting bribes from the oil
companies. The Ohio gang was responsible
for the scandal.
Teapot Dome, Wyoming
What about COOLIDGE????
“The chief business of the American people
is business. They are concerned with
producing, buying, selling, investing and
prospering in the world. I am strongly of
the opinion that the great majority of
people will always find these the moving
wishes of our life. ...The man who builds a
factory builds a temple – the man who
works there worships there.”
-Excerpts from a speech by President
Calvin Coolidge,1925
Election of 1924
Fun Facts about Silent Cal!!!!!!!!!!!!
*After the death of Harding, Calvin’s father
swore him in as President because he was a justice
of the peace.
*A hostess once bet that she could get Calvin to
say more than two words. Calvin replied with
“YOU LOSE”…he didn’t get his nickname for
nothing!
*His first name isn’t Calvin. It is really John.
After college he dropped his first name and just
went by Calvin.
WHAT A “COOL” GUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
C. Silent Cal
1. Following Harding’s death, Vice President Calvin
Coolidge takes over.
2. Believed prosperity rested on business
leadership.
-”the business of America is business”
3. Won election in 1924
- Campaign slogan: "Keep Cool with Coolidge.”
D. Keeping the Peace
1. Promoting Peace
- Economically
- Arms controls
2. Washington Naval Conference -1921
• Several countries agreed to scrap all
battleships then under construction, and
promised not to build any more for ten years.
3. Dawes Plan- 1924
• Charles G. Dawes (VP)
• Loan money to Germany by US so that
France can pay the US back
4. Kellogg-Briand Pact- 1928
• United States and France
• Promised not to use war to resolve
conflicts. (could not be enforced)
In your notebooks:
• Which president helped America “return to
normalcy” after WWI?