1920s
P.E.R.S.I.A
What can we infer about the 1920s by
looking at this picture?
Essential Question
• To what extent do the 1920s illustrate
the growing dichotomy of American
society?
PERSIA
• Political
• Economic
• Religious
• Social
• Intellectual
• Aesthetic
Political
• Who is president? Why?
• Size of government
• Role of government
• Women in Politics
Economic
• Laissez-faire policy returns
• Tariff
• Innovation
• Rising Middle Class
• Stock Market Crash
Religious/Social
• Prohibition
• Ku Klux Klan
• Women’s roles
• Immigration
• Impact of Cars
• Sports/Leisure
Intellectual
• Anti-German backlash
• Anti-Socialist movement
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• Race Relations
Aesthetic
• Art
• Music
• Architecture
• Literature
• Harlem Renaissance
• Movies
Political
• Election of 1916 v. 1920
• 1916
1920
• What do these results say about the policies and programs of
Woodrow Wilson?
• What could they say about the nature of the voting populace of the
US?
• “Return to normalcy”
• What does Harding consider “normal”?
Political (cont’d)
• Warren G. Harding
• Saw Presidency as largely symbolic
• Delegated most affairs to others, and had little role in shaping any
policy
• Allowed tax cuts for the rich, stopped antitrust actions, and
opposed organized labor
• Regarded widely as one of the worst President’s in history
Political (cont’d)
• Calvin Coolidge (“Silent Cal”) – took over after Harding
died
• Philosophically, believed Providence had its own plan, which
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translated to very passive leadership
Motto was “let well enough alone”
Against League of Nations, foreign entanglement
Still participated in L.A. economic imperialism
One term president
Political (cont’d)
• Herbert Hoover
• Secretary of Commerce under Harding and Coolidge
• Rejected farm subsidies, supported prohibition, pledged lower
taxes, and promised more of the same prosperity
• "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty
than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is
vanishing from among us."
• President when Depression begins
Politics in Perspective
• Taking into account all the Presidents from the Gilded Age
through the 1920s, what can we say about the American
public’s view of the role/importance of the Office of
President?
• Be sure to compare and contrast the Progressive Presidents with
Gilded Age/1920s Presidents.
• Prior to the Great Depression, where does America stand on the
issue of the importance of the President?
Economic
• Return to laissez-faire economics
• No oversight meant speculation and shady deals were
rampant
• Policies were all intended to help the rich/business
• Anti-labor / Pro-business
• Protective tariff
• Meant to raise prices on imported goods, therefore make higher
priced American goods more competitive (good for American
business)
• Buying on credit introduced
Religious/Intellectual
• Prohibition
• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
• Alcohol causes immoral behavior
• Resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan
• White Protestant group against Catholics, Jews, African Americans
• Utilize extreme violence to achieve racial segregation and white
supremacy
• Felt threatened by blacks returning home from war and expecting
more equal treatment for fighting in the war
• Religious backlash
• Fundamentalist movement
• Religious reaction to innovation (automobile, flappers, etc)
Religious/Intellectual
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• Tennessee vs. John Scopes
• Violated state law prohibiting teaching of evolution
• Battle between Progressive thought/Science and traditional religion
Religious/Intellectual
• Sacco and Vanzetti
• Two Italian immigrant anarchists rounded up during the Red Scare
• Convicted of robbery and murder despite a weak case
• Received death penalty
• Case illustrates the power of fear in America of radical immigrants
Social
• Women
• Flappers
• More women working since the war
• Women wield political and economic power as they gain the right to
vote and make purchasing decisions
• In response to reports indicating that fully 80 percent of American
women do not receive adequate prenatal care, Harding signs the
Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act, granting matching federal
funds to states for maternal and child care.
• Targeted by advertisers in the home, given a greater role outside
the home
Social
• Immigration Issues
• Restrictions fueled by fear of
Communism and anarchists
• Restrictions fueled by racism
(Asia, India especially)
• Quotas in 1920s based upon
census of 1890, favoring
northern Europeans who
lived in US in large numbers
at that time
• Anti-Semitism was also
prevalent
• Henry Ford
Social
• Race Relations
• Many white citizens held views of African Americans as inferiors,
especially in the South
• Jim Crow Laws
• Separate but Equal
• Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 codified the "one-drop rule" as
the standard racial classification for people of mixed ancestry. A
person with even "one drop" of non-white ancestry was classified
as "colored" or non-white.
• KKK and other white supremacists lynched, attacked, and
terrorized blacks throughout the country
• Tulsa Race Riot
• Great Migration – movement of blacks from the South to Northern
cities
Aesthetic
• “The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro
Movement, was a literary, artistic, cultural, intellectual
movement that began in Harlem, New York after World War I
and ended around 1935 during the Great Depression. The
movement raised significant issues affecting the lives of African
Americans through various forms of literature, art, music,
drama, painting, sculpture, movies, and protests. Voices of
protest and ideological promotion of civil rights for African
Americans inspired and created institutions and leaders who
served as mentors to aspiring writers. Although the center of
the Harlem Renaissance began in Harlem, New York, its
influence spread throughout the nation and beyond and
included philosophers, artists, writers, musicians, sculptors,
movie makers and institutions that “attempted to assert…a
dissociation of sensibility from that enforced by the American
culture and its institutions.”
• http://www.jcu.edu/harlem/index.htm
Harlem Renaissance
• The notion of "twoness" , a divided awareness of one's
identity, was introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the
founders of the NAACP: "One ever feels his two-ness - an
American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two
unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark
body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being
torn asunder."
• It included racial consciousness, "the back to Africa"
movement led by Marcus Garvey, racial integration, the
explosion of music particularly jazz, spirituals and blues,
painting, dramatic revues, and others.