APUSH: Unit 7, Lecture 1
(covers Chapter 24)
Ms. Kray

Not all returning soldiers could find jobs
◦ Those who did often took them from women and
African Americans
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U.S farmers suffered falling prices
Consumers went on a buying spree leading to
inflation
1919-1921  RECESSION!!!
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Causes:
◦ Widespread
unhappiness w/peace
process
◦ Bolshevik Revolution
fueled growing U.S.
fears of socialism
◦ Anti-German hysteria
of WWI turned into
anti-communist
hysteria
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Series of unexplained
bombings led Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer to create a
special office to investigate
radicals
Also ordered mass arrests of
anarchists, Socialists, and labor
agitators
◦ Nov 1919- Jan 1920  6,000
people arrested
◦ 500 departed, including Emma
Goldman

“May Day Riots,” 1920  never
happened
◦ Hurt Palmer’s credibility
Palmer Raids, 1919-1920
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Feb. 1919  Shipyard Workers Strike, Seattle
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Sept 1919  Boston Policeman’s Strike
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Sept 1919  U.S. Steel Corporation Strike
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◦ 60,000 unionists demanded higher pay
◦ Troops were called out, but no violence
◦ Protesting firing of officers who tried to unionize
◦ Gov. Calvin Coolidge sent in the National Guard
◦ State and federal troops called out, considerable violence
Traditional anti-union feeling + fear of socialist
revolution = further turned U.S. public against
unions
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Migration of blacks to northern cities during
the war increased racial tensions
◦ Whites resented competition for jobs
◦ Racial violence and lynching on the rise
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1917  East St. Louis
◦ Largest race riot during WWI
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1919  Chicago
◦ 40 people killed
◦ 500 injured
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Revealed to African Americans that life in the
North was no better
“A retreat from
Progressivism or an
extension of reform?”

Warren G. Harding (R)
◦ Won Election of 1920 in a
landslide
◦ His victory signaled the idealism
and activism of the Progressive
Era was over

Conservative Republicans
back in power
◦ Disillusionment over the war
allowed their return
◦ Controlled the Presidency and the
Congress through much of the
1920s
◦ Progressive Republican like TR are
gone
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Republicans believed the nation would benefit
if business and the pursuit of profits took the
lead in developing the economy
◦ Preached a return to laissez-faire
◦ But accepted the idea of limited government
regulation to aid in businesses
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Progressive Era regulatory commissions
administered by appointees sympathetic to
big business’ interests
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Harding was likeable but not very smart, nor
a good leader
Hoped to make up for his shortcomings by
appointing qualified men to his cabinet
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Charles Evan Hughes  Sec. of State
Andrew Mellon  Sec. of Treasury
Herbert Hoover  Sec. of Commerce
Taft  Chief Justice of Supreme Court
But not all his choices were good ones
◦ Harry M. Daugherty  Attorney General
◦ Albert B. Fall  Sec. of the Interior
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Congress discovered Fall had accepted bribes for
granting oil leases near Teapot Dome, Wyoming
Harding died before these scandals broke
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VP Calvin Coolidge finished off the final year
of Harding’s presidency and easily won the
election.
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“The Business of America is Business”
◦ Believed in limited government
◦ Gave businesses free reign
◦ Cut government spending to the bone
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Important vetoes
◦ Bonus Bill for WWI veterans
◦ McNary-Haugen Bill which offered price supports to
help struggling farmers cope with falling crop
prices
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Smith was a Catholic and opposed Prohibition
Republicans boasted about “Coolidge Prosperity”

Hoover won in a landslide and even took
electoral votes in the South
“A business person’s
paradise or an economic
dirge?”
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1919-1921  Recession
1922-1928  Economic Prosperity
◦ Unemployment was low
◦ Standard of living improved
◦ Indoor plumbing and central heating became
commonplace
◦ Two-thirds of homes had electricity by 1930
◦ Real income increased for middle & working class
◦ 40% of family incomes still in poverty range

October 1929  Stock Market Crash
◦ Great Depression begins
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Increased productivity

Increased use of oil and
electricity
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Government Policy
◦ F.W. Taylor’s scientific
management
◦ Ford’s assembly line
◦ 1919-1929  64% rise in
manufacturing
◦ Gov’t at all levels favored
the growth of big business
◦ Offered corporate tax cuts
◦ No longer enforced
antitrust laws

1916-1918  Best years for farmers
◦ Wartime demand kept prices high
◦ U.S. gov’t wartime policy guaranteed minimum
price for wheat and corn

When the war ended, so did the prosperity
◦ Farmers borrowed heavily to expand during the war
now left with large debt
◦ Improved technology increased productivity 
◦ Surpluses of crows led to ever falling prices

Wages rose during the 1920s but union
membership declined 20%, why?
◦ Companies insisted on open shop
◦ Companies practice welfare capitalism – offered
employees improved benefits and higher wages in
order to remove need for unions

Union efforts at strikes usually failed
◦ In the South  textile industrialists used police,
state militias, and local mobs to break strikes
◦ Conservative courts routinely issues injunctions
against strikes and nullified labor laws
“Was the so-called ‘Jazz
Age’ a time of carefree
fun or insecurity?”

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1920 Census  for the 1st time more than
50% of Americans lived in cities
Jazz music became the symbol of the “new”
and “modern” culture of the cites
This was city culture was increasingly at odds
with strict religious and moral codes of rural
America
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Advertising expanded consumers’ desire and
demand for new products
Electricity in homes enabled millions of
Americans to purchase new consumer
appliances
Buying on credit made everything affordable

By the end of the 1920s there was an average
of nearly one car per family
◦ Automobiles replaced the railroad industry as the
key promoter of economic growth

Socially the automobile affected all that
Americans did
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Shopping
Traveling for pleasure
Commuting to war
Dating
New issues too: traffic jams,
accidents, etc.
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First talking picture
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In an earlier era, politicians like William
Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, and
Woodrow Wilson had been popularly viewed
as heroic figures
In the 1920s they looked to the sports pages
and movie screens
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Division among Protestants reflected the tensions
in society between traditional and modern values.
Modernism
• Took a historical and critical view of the Bible
• Could accept Darwin’s theory of evolution without
abandoning religious faith
Fundamentalism
• Bible was the literal word of God, not open to
interpretation
• Prominent in rural areas
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Ever since the Great
Awakenings there had
been religious revivals in
America
1920s Revivalisism
◦ preached a fundamentalist
message
◦ but used the new instrument
of mass communication 
the RADIO!!!
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Scorned religion
Bitterly condemned the
sacrifices of wartime as a
fraud perpetrated by money
interests
Disliked the materialism and
what they felt was the
“shallow,” business-oriented
nature of the 1920s
Many chose to leave the
country and live in Europe
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Sinclair Lewis
Ezra Pound
T.S. Eliot
Eugene O’Neil
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By 1930  20% of
African-Americans lived
in the North and
migration continued
from the South
Celebrated black
culture
“Black is Beautiful”
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Countee Cullen - author
Langston Hughes - author
James Weldon Johnson - author
Claude McKay - author
Duke Ellington - musician
Louis Armstrong - musician
Bessie Smith - musician
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Advocated individual and
racial pride for African
Americans
Developed political ideas
of black nationalism
Favored
◦ Black separatism
◦ Economic self-sufficiency
◦ Back-to-Africa Movement
“Was this an age of
unlawful protest or legal
repression?”
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At issue  traditional vs. modern values
John T. Scopes arrested for teaching evolution
in a classroom in Tennessee
◦ Guest Prosecutor: William Jennings Bryan
◦ Defensive: ACLU hired famed defense lawyer
Clarence Darrow
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The verdict: Scopes found guilty & fined $100
◦ Verdict was later overturned
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Rural vs. Urban Values
◦ Republicans generally supported
◦ Democrats were divided
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18th Amendment passed
Volstead Act 
federal law enforcing
Prohibition
People in cities
openly defied the law
21st Amendment
repealed it
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Post-WWI yrs. spike in immigration

1921  1st Quota Act passed

1924  National Origins Act passed
◦ 1919-1921- 1 million foreigners entered the U.S.
◦ “new immigrants”
◦ Workers feared competition for jobs
◦ Limited immigration to 3% of the # of foreign-born
persons from a given nation counted in 1910
census
◦ Set quota at 2% based on 1890 census
◦ Designed to keep “new immigrants” out
◦ Canada & Mexico exempt
“The
Only
Way to
Handle
It”

Sign of rising nativism

Most extreme expression of nativism
◦ Gained enormous influence
◦ Claimed to be defenders of traditonal American
values

1925  5 million members
◦ Used modern
advertising techniques
◦ “klegling”
“Are the twenties best
remembered as a period of
isolation or one of
internationalism?”
Interventionism
Isolationism
•
Collective security
•
Isolationism
•
“Wilsonianism”
•
Nativists
•
Business interests
•
Anti-War movement
•
Conservative
Republicans
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1919  U.S. refused to join the League of
Nations
◦ Widespread disillusionment about WWI
◦ Americans feared being pulled into another war

The mood was clearly isolationist and yet our
actions were not
◦ actively pursued arrangements in foreign affairs
that would advance U.S. interests and maintain
world peace
5 Long-standing Anglo-Japanese alliance (1902) obligated
Britain to aid Japan in the event of a Japanese war with the
United States.
5 Goals  naval disarmament and stabilizethe political
situation in the Far East.
5 A battleship ratio was achieved through this ratio:
US
5
Britain
5
Japan
3
France
1.67
Italy
1.67
5 Japan got a guarantee that the US and Britain would
stop fortifying their Far East territories [including
the Philippines].
5 Loophole  no restrictions on small warships
5 15 nations dedicated
to outlawing aggression
and war as tools of
foreign policy.
5 62 nations signed.
5 Problems  no means
of actual enforcement
and gave Americans a
false sense of
security.
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U.S. used diplomacy to advance American
business interests abroad
1927  Mexico
◦ Mexico’s constitution mandated gov’t ownership of
mineral & oil resources
◦ Pres. Coolidge negotiated a peaceful resolution to
protect American interests

Middle East
◦ Sec. of State Hughes succeeded in winning oil rights
for U.S. companies
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Increased duties on
foreign goods by 25%
Europeans responded
with tariffs of their
own
These obstacles to
international trade
weakened the world
economy
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Pre-WWI the U.S. had been a debtor nation
Post-WWI the U.S. is a creditor nation
◦ Allies own $10 billion
◦ Harding and Coolidge insist Britain and France pay
back every penny

Britain and France irritated
◦ High tariff policy made it difficult to repay debts
◦ Squeezed Germany for faster repayment of
reparations
◦ Germany was bankrupt, had soaring inflation, and
was near anarchy
1. The U.S. would
loan money to
Germany
2. Germany could
then make
reparations
payments to
Britain and France
3. Britain and
France could
then use the
money to pay the
U.S. back for
their war debts
LEGACY: Entire
situation left bad
feelings all around.