The Roaring Twenties
America during the “Jazz Age.”
The Postwar Economic Downturn
1919-the U.S. economy
suffered a serious
downturn. National
Income dropped there
was high unemployment
and laborers were unable
to buy the new
technology of the time.
African-Americans
• African-Americans had undergone a Great Migration north during the
war. The North was seen as the land of hope but the end of the war
limited their employment opportunities.
• 369th Regiment, 1919, shows the African American fighting unit of World War I.(van
der zee)
Competition for Jobs
• Severe downsizing developed into class and racial
tensions and burgeoning intolerance.
• Workers Unions were met with violence, government
arrested members of left-leaning political parties and
instituted anti-immigration legislation
• Groups like the KKK persecuted members of minority
groups and the U.S. government jailed black leaders
advocating black power, like Marcus Garvey.
• Fundamentalists battled scientists over evolution
• Government plagued with scandal and corruption.
Political Scandals
• President Harding failed to
diffuse the tensions that
permeated postwar society
• His Cabinet was corrupt
• Attorney General Daugherty
and other presidential
favorites allowed political
allies to break the law, accept
bribes and graft.
• Teapot Dome Scandal
• A. Fall leased the Navy’s gas reserve
to private interests
Teapot Dome
Labor Unrest
• 1919= 3,600 strikes protesting wage cuts and long hours with no
overtime pay.
• Most laborers faced rigid and violent opposition
• Major strikes included United Mine workers and the Boston Police
Strike among others.
• Union Membership dropped
American Radicalism
• Labor linked to Anti-Communist Fears
• Small portion of Radicals in the US did seek to
destroy the existing political order and promote
anarchy.
• From 1919 to 1920 anarchists delivered a series of
bombs to political officials’ homes and offices
nationwide
• 1919-Attorney General’s A. Mitchell Palmers house
was bombed leading Palmer to declare
• “that organized crime directed against organized
government in the country shall be stopped”
The Red Scare
• The Government
organized attacks on
Radicals and foreigners
• Attorney General Palmer
mobilized officials to
arrest communists, these
were know as the Palmer
raids
Anti-Immigration Laws
• The National Origins Act set an
Immigration quota of 2% of
each nationality living in the
U.S. in 1890.
• Large decline in Immigration
from Southern and Eastern
Europe.
• Restrictive Legislation on Asian
immigrants
• American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU), worked to represent
“the rights of both individuals
and minorities [which were
being] violated.”
The Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
• Happened in 1920 and was
the culmination of various
postwar societal tensions.
• The prosecutions case lacked
sound evidence but neither
man could secure a written
alibi and both had loaded
weapons when arrested.
• Both were executed, in 1927.
Rising Intolerance
• Organized racial discrimination
• Asians in California
• African Americans in Midwest
• Anti-Semitism in the business community
• Mexicans in the Southwest
• The new KKK-restarted in 1915, claimed to be
patriotic, benevolent organization that supported
education, morality, and charity opposed to
• Catholics, blacks, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, Asians,
drug dealers, “wild women,” the pope, F.D.R.
• Conducted swift justice on people they believed
deserved punishment
• Began declining in 1925
From Intolerance to Violence
• Racial Riots
• St. Louis 1917
• 1919-Red Summer, over
20 Major Racial riots killed
or injured hundreds of
people
• Lynching-dramatic
illustrations of racist
violence
Marcus Garvey and Black Pride
• African Americans looked for new
leaders in the movement who had
alternative solutions
• Millions turned to Marcus Garvey who
promoted
• Black Pride
• Separatism
• The Universal Negro Improvement
Society (UNIA)
• Sought to empower African
Americans toward
• Economic, religious, psychological,
& cultural independence
• Also promoted a separatist vision
of African Americans returning to
Africa.
Marcus Garvey and Other African
American Leaders
• Booker T. Washington
• Famous for prioritizing black economic gains as a route to
social equality. Differed with Garvey’s separatism
• W.E.B. DuBois
• Famous for pushing African American Political Influence
• James Weldon Johnson
• Led the NAACP, and fought for legislation to protect
African American Rights and outlaw lynching.
The Science and Religion Debate
• Science, Fundamentalism and Modernism
• The Scopes Trial (AKA The Monkey Trial)
• Famous People at the Trial
• Clarence Darrow- Famous Defense Attorney
• William Jennings Bryan-Prosecution Witness, former
Presidential Candidate
• John Scopes-science Teacher backed by the ACLU
• The Case became a two-sided argument between
science and religion