1919-1929
Chapter Introduction

This chapter will cover the economic boom and
government policies of the 1920s. It will discuss
changes to American culture that arose from the
consumer revolution, new technology, and the
Harlem Renaissance.
• Section 1: A Booming Economy
• Section 2: The Business of Government
• Section 3: Social and Cultural Tensions
• Section 4: A New Mass Culture
• Section 5: The Harlem Renaissance
11 Section 1

 Objectives
 Explain the impact of Henry Ford and the
automobile.
 Analyze the consumer revolution and the bull
market of the 1920s.
 Compare the different effects of the economic boom
on urban and rural America.

 How did the booming economy of the 1920s lead to
changes in American life?
 During the 1920s, the American economy
experienced tremendous growth. Using mass
production techniques, workers produced more
goods in less time than ever before.
 The boom changed how Americans lived and helped
create the modern consumer economy.

 Did You Know? The automobile changed the
landscape and architecture of America. The
landscape was filled with paved roads. New houses
were built with a garage or a carport and a driveway,
making lawns much smaller. New industries and
buildings that grew as a result of the automobile
included gasoline stations, repair shops,
campgrounds, public parking garages, motels, and
shopping centers.

The 1920s were a time of rapid economic growth
in the United States.
Much of this boom can be traced to the automobile.

 During the 1920s, Americans enjoyed a new
standard of living.
 Wages increased and work hours decreased.
 Mass production, or large scale product
manufacturing usually done by machinery,
increased the supply of goods and decreased costs.
 The Greater productivity led to the emergence of
new industries.

Before 1920, only wealthy people could afford cars.
By applying innovative
manufacturing techniques,
Henry Ford changed that.
His affordable
Model T became a car
for the people.

Ford made the Model T affordable by applying
mass production techniques to making cars.
•
A moving assembly line brought cars to workers,
who each added one part.
•
Ford consulted scientific management experts
to make his manufacturing process more efficient.
•
The time to assemble a Model T dropped from
12 hours to just 90 minutes.

 The assembly line, used by carmaker Henry Ford,
greatly increased manufacturing efficiency by
dividing up the operations into simple tasks that
unskilled workers could perform.
 Ford’s assembly-line product, the Model T, sold for
$850 the first year but dropped to $490 after being
mass-produced several years later.
 By 1924 the Model T was selling for just $295.

Ford also raised his workers’ pay and shortened
their hours.
With more money and
more leisure time, his
employees would be
potential customers.
By 1927, 56% of
American families
owned a car.

 Ford changed American life with his affordable
automobiles. Small businesses such as garages and
gas stations opened.
 The petroleum industry expanded tremendously,
and the isolation of rural life ended.

How the Automobile Changed America
•
Road construction boomed, and new businesses
opened along the routes.
•
Other car-related industries included steel,
glass, rubber, asphalt, gasoline, and insurance.
•
Workers could live farther away from their jobs.
•
Families used cars for leisure trips and
vacations.
•
Fewer people traveled on trolleys or trains.
The 1920s saw a consumer revolution.

Using installment
buying, people
could buy more.
Advertising
created
demand.
New products
flooded
the market.

 More disposable income made innovations affordable.
 From electric razors to frozen foods and household
cleaning supplies to labor saving appliances, Americans
used his or her new income to make life easier.
 By 1919 the Post Office had expanded airmail service
across the continent with the help of the railroad. In 1927
Charles Lindbergh took a transatlantic solo flight which
gained support in the U.S. for the commercial flight. By
the end of 1928, 48 airlines were serving 355 American
cities.

 Higher wages and shorter workdays led to an economic
boom as Americans traded thrift for their new role as
consumers.
 American attitudes about debt shifted, as they became
confident that they could pay back what they owed at a
later time.
 Advertising was used to convince Americans that they
needed new products.
 Ads linked products with qualities that were popular to
the modern era, such as convenience, leisure, success, and
style.

 By the early 1920s many businesses hired
professional managers and engineers. The large
number of managers expanded the size of the middle
class.
 In the 1920s, unions lost influence and membership.
Employers promoted an open shop, a work place
where employees were not required to join a union,
 Welfare capitalism, where employees were able to
purchase stock, participate in profit sharing, and
receive benefits, made unions seem unnecessary.


Why did Americans' attitudes toward consumerism change during
the 1920s?

(Higher wages and shorter workdays led to an economic boom as
Americans traded thrift for their new role as consumers. American
attitudes about debt shifted, as they became confident that they
could pay back what they owed at a later time. Advertising was
used to convince Americans that they needed new products. Ads
linked products with qualities that were popular to the modern
era, such as convenience, leisure, success, fashion, and style.
The ads promised consumers selfimprovement, happiness, and
self-fulfillment.)
Rising stock
market
prices also
contributed
to economic
growth.
Throughout the 1920s, a
•
bull market meant stock
prices kept going up.
•
Investors bought on
margin, purchasing
stocks on credit.
By 1929, around four million
Americans owned stocks.
During the 1920s, cities grew rapidly.

Immigrants, farmers, African
Americans, and Mexican Americans
were among those who settled in
urban areas.

Cities
expanded
outward,
thanks to
automobiles
and mass
transit
systems.
•
More and more people
who worked in cities
moved to the
suburbs.
•
Suburbs grew faster
than inner cities.

While cities and suburbs benefited from the
economic boom, rural America struggled.
Farm incomes
declined or
remained flat
through most of
the 1920s.

 American farmers did not share in the prosperity of
the 1920s. Instead, prices dropped dramatically
while cost to farmers technology increased.
 During wartime, the government had encouraged
farmers to produce more food for supplies needed in
Europe.
 Farmers borrowed money at inflated prices to buy
new land and new machinery to raise more crops.

 The farmers prospered during the war, because the
government was buying their crops to support the
war in Europe.
 After the war, Europeans had little money to buy
American surplus farm products.
 After Congress raised tariffs, farmers could no
longer sell products overseas, and prices fell.
 President Coolidge twice vetoed a bill to aid farmers,
fearing it would only make the situation worse.


Why were farmers left out of the economic prosperity
of the 1920s?
 (During wartime, the U.S. government had
encouraged farmers to produce more for food
supplies needed in Europe. Farmers borrowed money
at inflated prices to buy new land and new machinery
to raise more crops. Farmers prospered during the
war. After the war, Europeans had little money to buy
American farm products. After Congress raised tariffs,
farmers could no longer sell products overseas, and
prices fell. The farmers had technological advances
that enabled them to increase production, but
because there was no increase in demand, they were
forced to lower prices.)
11 Section 2

 Objectives
 Analyze how the policies of Presidents Harding and
Coolidge favored business growth.
 Discuss the most significant scandals during
Harding’s presidency.
 Explain the role that the United States played in the
world during the 1920s.

 Did You Know?
 During the 1920s, Americans owned about 40
percent of the world's wealth.
 Most historians rank President Warren G. Harding
as one of the country's weakest presidents. They
believe he failed as president because he was weakwilled and a poor judge of character.

 How did domestic and foreign policy change
direction under Harding and Coolidge?
 Rather than pursue Progressive reform, Presidents
Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge favored
conservative policies that aided business growth.
 Foreign policy during this time was largely a
response to the devastation of World War I.

 In 1920, when Warren G. Harding ran for president,
most Americans wanted a return to simpler times.
 His campaign slogan to return to normalcy, or a
“normal” life after the first world war, made him
very popular and he won the presidency.
 He made a few distinguished appointments to his
cabinet, but most appointments were given to his
friends.

In 1920 Warren G. Harding was elected
President, promising a “return to normalcy.”
•
Unlike Progressives, Harding favored business
interests and reduced federal regulations.
•
His Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon
was for low taxes and efficiency in government.
•
Mellon cut the federal budget from a wartime
high of $18 billion to $3 billion.

 Andrew Mellon, named secretary of the treasury by
president Harding, reduced government spending
and cut the federal budget. His measures reduced
the federal debt by $ 7 billion between 1921 and 1929.

 Mellon applied the idea of supply-side economics to
reduce taxes. This idea suggested that lower taxes
would allow businesses and consumers to spend and
invest their won extra money, resulting in economic
growth. As a result, the government would collect
more tax revenue at a lower rate.
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover sought
voluntary cooperation between labor and business.

Instead of relying on legislation to improve labor
relations, Hoover got business and labor leaders
to work together.

 Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover attempted to
balance government regulation with cooperative
individualism.
 Manufactures and distributors were asked to form
their own trade associations and share information
with the federal government’s Bureau of Standards.
 Hoover felt this would reduce waste and costs and
lead to economic stability.
Harding was a popular, fun-loving president
who trusted others to make decisions for him.

•
Some advisors, such as
Mellon and Hoover, were
honest, capable, and
trustworthy.
•
Others, including a group
known as the “Ohio Gang,”
were not so civic-minded.

 His old poker-playing friends became known as the
Ohio Gang.
 Some members used their government positions to
sell jobs, pardons, and immunity from prosecution.
 Before most of the scandals became public
knowledge, Harding fell ill and died in 1923.

Some Scandals of Harding’s Administration
•
Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans’
Administration, wasted millions of dollars on
overpriced, unneeded supplies.
•
Attorney General Harry Daugherty accepted
money from criminals.
•
Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall took bribes
in return for federal oil reserve leases.

 Who were the Ohio gang?
President Harding’s old poker-playing
friends became known as the Ohio Gang.
 Some members used their government
positions to sell jobs, pardons, and
immunity from prosecution.

The Teapot Dome scandal became public.

•
In 1921, Fall took control of
federal oil reserves intended
for the navy in Wyoming.
•
He then leased those reserves
to private oil companies.

 Fall received bribes totaling over $300,000.
 When the Teapot Dome Scandal ended with Fall
being the first cabinet officer in history to be sent to
prison.

 Another Harding administration scandal involved
Attorney General Harry Daugherty.
 He refused to turn over files and bank records for a
German-owned American company.
 Bribe money ended up in a bank account controlled by
Daugherty and he refused to testify under oath, claiming
immunity, or freedom from prosecution, on the grounds
that he had confidential dealings with the president. .
 The new president, Calvin Coolidge, demanded his
resignation.

 Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president
after Harding's death.
 Coolidge distanced himself from the Harding
administration.
 His focus was on prosperity through business
leadership with little government intervention. He
easily won the Republican Party's nomination for
president in 1924.

In August 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge
became President.
•
Coolidge was a quiet,
honest, frugal Vermonter.
•
As President, he admired
productive business
leaders.

Coolidge believed that “the chief business
of the American people is business.”
•
Coolidge continued Mellon’s policies to reduce the
national debt, trim the budget, and lower taxes.
•
The country saw huge industrial profits and
spectacular growth in the stock market.
•
The middle and upper classes prospered,
especially in cities.

How did Coolidge feel about business and
government?
 (Coolidge felt that business led to
prosperity and that the government
should not interfere.)


Not everyone shared in the era’s prosperity.
•
Farmers struggled as agricultural prices fell.
•
Labor unions fought for higher pay and
better working conditions.
•
African Americans and Mexican Americans
faced severe discrimination.
Coolidge ignored such issues, believing it was not the
federal government’s job to legislate social change.

 By the 1920s, the U.S. was the dominate economic
power in the world. The Allies owed the U.S. billions
of dollars in war debts. The U.S. National economy
was greater than that of Britain, France, and Japan
combined.
 Many Americans favored isolationism rather than
involvement in international politics and issues.
Americans want to be left alone to pursue prosperity. The
U.S. was too powerful and interconnected in
international affairs to remain isolated.
Under Harding and Coolidge, the United States
assumed a new role as a world leader.

Much of U.S.
foreign policy
was a response
to World War I’s
devastation.
•
The Washington
Naval Disarmament
Conference limited
construction of large
warships.
•
The Kellogg-Briand
Pact, signed by 62
countries, outlawed war.
But the U.S. refused to join the World Court.
Washington
Naval Disarmament

Conference
 The Washington conference held in 1921 invited
countries to discuss the ongoing post-war naval arms
race. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes
proposed a 10-year moratorium or pause, on the
construction of major new war ships.
 The conference did nothing to limit land forces.
Japan was angry that the conference required Japan
to keep a smaller navy than the U.S. and Great
Britain.

 The Kellog-Briand Pact was a treaty that outlawed
war. By signing the treaty, countries agreed to stop
war and settle disputes in a peaceful way.
 On August 27, 1928, The U.S. and 14 other countries
signed the pact, and eventually 62 nations ratified it.
 The treaty had no binding force, but was hailed as a
victory for peace.

During this period the United States also
became a world economic leader.
•
To protect American businesses, Harding raised
tariffs on imported goods by 25%.
•
European nations retaliated, creating a tariff war.
•
The Dawes Plan loaned money to Germany so
that Germany could pay reparations to Britain
and France; in turn, those countries could repay
the U.S. for wartime loans.

 Other countries felt the U.S. should help with the war’s
financial debt. The U.S. government disagreed, arguing
that the Allies had gained new territory and received
reparations, or huge cash payments that Germany paid as
punishment for starting the war.
 War reparations crippled the German economy. As a result,
Charles G. Dawes, an American diplomat, and banker
negotiated an agreement called the Dawes Plan- with
France, Britain, and Germany by which American banks
would make loans to Germany so they could meet their
reparations payments. France and Great Britain also
agreed to accept less in reparations and pay more on their
war debts.

How did the Dawes Plan effect Europe’s
economic problems?
 The plan did little to help. Britain, France
and Germany tried to pay what they owed
while going deeper in debt to the
American banks and corporations.

11 Section 3

 Objectives
• Compare economic and cultural life in rural America to
that in urban America.
•
Discuss changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 1920s.
•
Analyze the goals and motives of the Ku Klux Klan in the
1920s.
•
Discuss the successes and failures of the Eighteenth
Amendment.

 How did Americans differ on major social and
cultural issues?
 In the 1920s, many city dwellers enjoyed a rising
standard of living, while most farmers suffered
through hard times.
 Conflicting visions for the nation’s future heightened
tensions between cities and rural areas.

 Did You Know?
 During the 1920s, cosmetic sales soared as women
tried to copy the look of Hollywood movie stars. The
average American woman used about one pound of
face powder a year.
In 1920, for the first time, more Americans
lived in cities than in rural areas.

In cities, many
people enjoyed
prosperity and
were open to
social change
and new ideas.
Times were
harder in rural
areas. Rural
people generally
preferred
traditional views
of science,
religion, and
culture.
An example of this clash of values was
the tension between modernism and
Christian fundamentalism in the 1920s.

Modernism emphasized science
and secular values.
Fundamentalism emphasized
religious values and taught the
literal truth of the Christian Bible.
Attitudes toward education illustrate another
difference between urban and rural perspectives.

•
Urban people saw
formal education as
essential to getting
a good job.
•
In rural areas, “book
learning” interfered
with farm work and
was less highly
valued.

 Some Americans feared the new morality and
worried about America's social decline. Many of
these people came from small rural towns and joined
a religious movement called Fundamentalism.
 The Fundamentalists rejected Darwin's theory of
evolution, which suggested that humans developed
from lower forms of life over millions of years.
Instead, Fundamentalists believed in creationism—
that God created the world as described in the Bible.

Education became a battleground for
fundamentalist and modernist values
in the 1925 Scopes Trial.
•
Tennessee made it illegal to teach evolution in
public schools.
•
Biology teacher John Scopes challenged the law.
•
Defense attorney Clarence Darrow tried to use
science to cast doubt on religious beliefs.

 In 1925 Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made
it illegal to teach anything that denied creationism
and taught evolution instead.
 The debate between evolutionists and creationists
came to a head with the Scopes Trial. Answering the
request of the ACLU, John T. Scopes, a biology
teacher, volunteered to test the Butler Act by
teaching evolution in his class.

The Scopes Trial illustrated a major cultural and
religious division, but it did not resolve the issue.
•
Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution
and fined but the case was later overturned. After the
trial, many fundamentalists withdrew from political
activism.
• The conflict over teaching
evolution in public schools
continues today.

Immigrants were at the center of another
cultural clash.
Many Americans
recognized the
importance of
immigration to
U.S. history.
Many Mexicans
settled in the
sparsely populated
areas of the
southwest.
Nativists feared that
immigrants took
jobs away from
native-born workers
and threatened
American traditions.
After World War I,
the Red Scare
increased distrust
of immigrants.

 In the 1920s, racism and nativism increased.
Immigrants and demobilized military men and
women competed for the same jobs during a time of
high unemployment and an increased cost of living.
 Ethnic prejudice was the basis of the Sacco and
Vanzetti case, in which the two immigrant men were
accused of murder and theft. They were thought to
be anarchists, or opposed to all forms of
government. Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to
death, and in 1927 they were executed still
proclaiming their innocence.

 Nativists used the idea of eugenics, the false science
of the improvement of hereditary traits, to give
support to their arguments against immigration.
Nativists emphasized that human inequalities were
inherited and said that inferior people should not be
allowed to breed. This added to the anti-immigrant
feeling of the time and further promoted the idea of
strict immigrant control.

 In 1921 President Harding signed the Emergency
Quota Act, limiting immigration to 3 percent of the
total number of people in any ethnic group already
living in the United States. This discriminated
heavily against southern and eastern Europeans.
In 1924, the National Origins Act set up a
quota system for immigrants.

For each nationality, the quota
allowed
up to 2% of 1890’s total population
of that nationality living in the U.S.
This further restricted immigrants
from southern and eastern Europe.
The act exempted immigrants from
the Western Hemisphere from the
quotas.

 The immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 reduced the
labor pool in the United States. Employers needed
laborers for agriculture, mining, and railroad work.
Mexican immigrants began pouring into the United
States between 1914 and the end of the 1920s. The
immigrants fled their country in the aftermath of the
Mexican Revolution of 1910.
Trends such as urbanization, modernism, and
increasing diversity made some people lash out
against change.

•
Beginning in 1915, there was a
resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
•
The Klan promoted hatred of
African Americans, Jews,
Catholics, and immigrants.
•
By 1925, the Klan had between
4 and 5 million members.

 The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) led the movement to
restrict immigration. This new Klan not only
targeted the freed African Americans but also
Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and other groups
believed to have "un-American" values.
Others embraced the idea of racial, ethnic,
and religious diversity.

•
Many valued the idea of the United States
as a “melting pot.”
•
Groups such as the NAACP and the Jewish
Anti-Defamation League worked to counter
the Klan and its values.
By the late 1920s, many Klan leaders had been
exposed as corrupt.
Prohibition

 Alcohol has played a historic role in the politics of
the nation. As early as the American Revolution the
local tavern was a place to meet and discuss the
candidates and issues over a drink.
 The taverns also served as polling places, and more
often than not, whoever could ply the most alcohol
to the voters as they arrived won the election.
 Despite alcohol’s place in politics and social
structures, there was a rising concern over the effects
about the consumption of alcohol by the 1880s

 Just after the Civil War, several states introduced
referenda trying to deal with liquor and the social
problems it represented.
 While most of these measures failed, by 1890
prohibition proponents known as “drys,” made up
primarily of church members and concerned citizen
leagues, had managed to pass a statewide
prohibition in Maine, Kansas, and North Dakota.
Alcoholic beverages were another divisive issue.

In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment, which
banned the making, distributing, or selling of
alcohol, became part of the Constitution.
The Volstead Act enabled the government
to enforce the amendment.
Prohibition became law in the United States.

 Many people felt that the Eighteenth Amendment,
which prohibited alcohol, would reduce
unemployment, domestic violence, and poverty.
 The Volstead Act made enforcement of Prohibition
the responsibility of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Until the 1900s, police powers, a governments power
to control people and property in the public’s
interest had been the job of the state governments.

 Prohibition led the nation down the road to its first
attempt at social reform at the federal level.
 The necessary increase in government agencies that
accompanied the Volstead Act provided the federal
government and the American public an avenue for
the federal government’s unprecedented foray into
major social reform.

 This paradigm shift, and the change in attitudes of
the federal governments role, made it possible for
people to accept the New Deal policies President
Franklin Roosevelt would later enact.
“Drys” favored
Prohibition,
hailing the law
as a “noble
experiment.”
Drys believed that
Prohibition was
good for society.

“Wets” opposed
Prohibition,
claiming that it did
not stop drinking.
Wets argued
that Prohibition
encouraged
hypocrisy and
illegal activity.
Prohibition
did not stop
people from
drinking
alcoholic
beverages.
•
•

A large illegal network created,
smuggled, distributed, and sold
alcohol, benefiting gangsters
such as Al Capone.
People bought alcohol illegally
from bootleggers and at
speakeasies.
Prohibition contributed to
the rise of organized crime.

 Americans ignored the laws of Prohibition. They
went to secret bars called speakeasies, where alcohol
could be purchased. Crime became big business, and
gangsters corrupted many local politicians and
Governments.

 In 1923, the mayor of Philadelphia brought in
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler from the
Marines to enforce the law in that city.
 Within the first week, Butler closed 973 liquor
establishments, which made him highly unpopular
with the residents.
 In a short period, the citizens turned against him,
making his task all but impossible.

 General Butler attempted to carry out the letter of the
law in Philadelphia for two more years, but at the
end of his leave of absence President Coolidge sent
him back to the Marine contingent permanently
stationed in China.
 Before leaving the city, the General remarked,
“Trying to enforce law in Philadelphia was worse
than any battle I was ever in.”

 While the party platform of the three presidential
races from 1920 to 1928 all endorsed a strict
enforcement of prohibition, a new faction arose
during the 1924 Democratic national convention.
 In 1929, the Great Depression struck, seriously
compounding the problems the Treasury
Department was having enforcing the law.

 The Depression resulted in such a wide spread break
down in social structure that poverty,
unemployment, and the other social problems that
prohibitionists had used as propaganda to pass the
Eighteenth Amendment could no longer be blamed
solely on alcohol.
11 section 4

 Objectives
 Trace the reasons that leisure time increased during
the 1920s.
 Analyze how the development of popular culture
united Americans and created new activities and
heroes.
 Discuss the advancements of women in the 1920s.
 Analyze the concept of modernism and its impact on
writers and painters in the 1920s.

 How did the new mass culture reflect technological
and social changes?
 The automobile made it easier for people to travel.
Other technological advances, such as radio and
film, created a new mass culture. New styles also
emerged in art and literature.
 In many ways, the 1920s represented the
first decade of our own modern era.
In the 1920s, urban dwellers saw an increase
in leisure time.

Farmers
worked from
dawn to dusk
and had little
time for
recreation.
In cities and
suburbs, people
earned more money
and had more time
for fun. They looked
for new kinds of
entertainment.

 A "new morality" challenged traditional ideas and
glorified youth and personal freedom. New ideas
about marriage, work, and pleasure affected the way
people lived. Women broke away from families as
they entered the workforce, earned their own livings,
or attended college. The automobile gave American
youth the opportunity to pursue interests away from
parents.

 The economic prosperity of the 20s afforded many
Americans leisure time for enjoying sports, music,
theater and entertainment.
 Radio, motion pictures and News papers gave rise to
a new interest in sports. Sports figures such as Babe
Ruth and heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey,
were famous for their abilities but became celebrities
as well.
 Motion pictures became increasingly popular. The
first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, was made in
1927. the golden age of Hollywood began.

 The mass media- radio, movies, newspapers, and
magazines- helped break down the focus on local
interests. Mass media helped to unify the nation and
spread new ideas and attitudes.

One of the new kinds of
entertainment was the
motion picture.
In the 1920s, 60 to 100 million
people went to the movies each
week.
Throughout most of the decade,
movies were silent, so people could watch
them no matter what language they spoke.
Movies were affordable and available
to everyone, everywhere.

Movies’ democratic, universal
appeal created stars known the
world over.
Charlie Chaplin became the
most popular silent film star by
playing “The Little Tramp.”
In 1927, Al Jolson appeared in The Jazz Singer,
the first “talkie,” ending the era of silent films.
The radio and the phonograph were
powerful instruments of mass culture.

•
The first commercial
radio station, KDKA,
began in 1920.
•
Within three years,
there were 600 radio
stations.
•
People all over the
country could hear
the same music,
news, and shows.
•
With phonographs,
people could listen to
music whenever they
wanted.
•
Improvements in
recording technology
made records popular.
•
People listened to the
same songs and learned
the same dances.

 In 1926 the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
established a permanent network of radio stations to
distribute daily programming.
 In 1928 the Columbia Broadcasting Company System
(CBS) set up coast-to-coast stations to compete with
NBC.

The world of sports produced some nationally
famous heroes.
Thanks to newspapers and
radio, millions of people
could follow their favorite
athletes.
Baseball player Babe
Ruth, nicknamed “The
Sultan of Swat,” thrilled
people with his home runs.
Aviator Charles Lindbergh became a national hero
when he made the first solo flight across the Atlantic.

•
In May 1927,
Lindbergh flew his
single-engine plane,
Spirit of St. Louis,
non-stop from New
York to Paris.
•
The flight took more
than 33 hours.

Women’s roles also changed in the 1920s.
•
Women married later, had fewer children, and
generally lived longer, healthier lives.
•
Labor-saving appliances, such as electric irons and
vacuum cleaners, allowed time for book clubs,
charitable work, and new personal interests.
•
Such changes benefited urban women more than
rural women.

 Women's fashion drastically changed in the 1920s.
The flapper, a young, dramatic, stylish, and
unconventional woman, exemplified the change in
women's behavior. Professionally, women made
advances in the fields of science, medicine, law, and
literature.

Flappers represented a “revolution in
manners and morals.”
•
These young women
rejected Victorian
morality and values.
•
They wore short skirts,
cut their hair in a short
style called the bob, and
followed dance crazes
such as the Charleston.

The decade saw many “firsts” for women.
•
More women entered the workforce.
•
They moved into new fields such as banking,
aviation, journalism, and medicine.
•
Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first
female governor.
•
Other “firsts” included the first woman judge
and the first woman elected to the U.S.
Senate.
World War I strongly affected the art and literature
of the 1920s.

•
The war’s devastation left many questioning the
optimistic Victorian attitude of progress.
•
Modernism expressed a skeptical, pessimistic view
of the world.
•
Writers and artists explored the ideas of
psychologist Sigmund Freud, who suggested that
human behavior was driven by unconscious desires.

 During the 20’s , American artists, writers, and
intellectuals began challenging traditional ideas as they
searched for meaning in the modern world.
 The artistic and unconventional, or Bohemian, lifestyle of
Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Chicago’s South Side
attracted artists and writers. These areas were considered
centers of creativity, enlightenment, and freedom from
conformity to old ideas.

Artists such as Edward
Hopper, Joseph Stella,
and Georgia O’Keefe
challenged tradition and
experimented with new
subjects and abstract
styles.



 The European art movement Influenced American
modern artists . The Range in which artist choose to
express the modern experience was very diverse.
 Writing styles and subject matter varied. Chicago
poet Carl Sandburg used common speech to glorify
the Midwest and the expansive nature of American
life. Play write Eugene O’Neill’s work focused on
the search for meaning in a modern society.
Writers of the 1920s were called the Lost Generation
because they’d lost faith in Victorian cultural values.

•
F. Scott Fitgerald explored the idea of the American
dream, writing that his generation had found
“all faiths in man shaken.”
•
Ernest Hemingway questioned concepts of personal
sacrifice, glory, honor, and war and created a new
style of writing.
•
Playwright Eugene O’Neill explored the subconscious
mind in his plays.
Carl Sandburg

A Coin
Your western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.
Lunging buffalo shoulder,
Lean Indian face,
We who come after where you are gone
Salute your forms on the new nickel.
You are
To us:
The past.
Runners
On the prairie:
Good-by.

 O'Neill was the first American dramatist to regard
the stage as a literary medium and the only
American playwright ever to receive the Nobel Prize
for Literature. Through his efforts, the American
theatre grew up during the 1920s, developing into a
cultural medium that could take its place with the
best in American fiction, painting, and music. Until
his Beyond the Horizon was produced, in 1920,
Broadway theatrical fare, apart from musicals and an
occasional European import of quality, had consisted
largely of contrived melodrama and farce.
11 Section 5

 Objectives
• Analyze the racial and economic philosophies of
Marcus Garvey.
•
Trace the development and impact of jazz.
•
Discuss the themes explored by writers of the
Harlem Renaissance.

 Did You Know? Langston Hughes was a recent
graduate from high school when his first poem, "The
Negro Speaks of Rivers," was published. He enrolled
in Columbia University in 1921, but only stayed a
year. While working as a busboy in a Washington,
D.C., hotel in 1925, Hughes showed some of his
writings to poet Vachel Lindsay, who helped
Hughes get his work published.

 How did African Americans express a new sense of
hope and pride?
 As a result of World War I and the Great Migration,
millions of African Americans relocated from the
rural South to the urban North. This migration
contributed to a flowering of music and literature.
 Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance had a lasting
impact on American culture.

 The Great Migration occurred when hundreds of
thousands of African Americans from the rural
South headed to industrial cities in the North with
the hope of a better life.
 African Americans created environments that
stimulated artistic development, racial pride, a sense
of community, and political organization which led
to a massive creative out-pouring of African
American arts known as the Harlem Renaissance.

 Writer Claude McKay became the first important
writer of the renaissance, his work expressed
defiance and contempt of racism.
 Langston Hughes became a leading voice of the
African American experience in the U.S.
 Louis Armstrong introduced Jazz, a style of music
influenced by Dixieland music and ragtime.
 Bessie Smith sang about unrequited love, poverty,
and oppression, which were classic themes in blues
style music.
Many African Americans were attracted to
northern cities by dreams of a better life.

•
They hoped to escape the poverty and racism of
the South.
•
The North offered higher wages and a middle class
of African American ministers, physicians, and
teachers.
•
Discrimination did exist in the North, however, and
African Americans faced low pay, poor housing,
and the threat of race riots.
Harlem, in New York
City, was the cultural
focal point of the
northern migration.

In Harlem, 200,000
African Americans mixed
with immigrants from
Caribbean islands such
as Jamaica.

 The Great Migration led to African Americans
becoming powerful voting blocs that influence
election outcomes in the North.
 Oscar DePriest was elected as the First African
American representative in Congress from a
Northern State after African Americans voted as a
block.
 The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) battled against segregation
and discrimination.

 The NAACP’s efforts led to the passage of antilynching legislation in the House of Representatives,
but the Senate defeated the bill.
 Jamaican black leader Marcus Garvey’s idea of
“Negro Nationalism” glorified black culture and
traditions.

 He founded the Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA), which promoted black pride
and unity.
 Garvey encouraged education as the way for African
Americans to gain economic and political power; but
he also voiced the need for separation and
independence from whites.

 Garvey’s plan to create a settlement in Liberia in
Africa for African Americans caused middle class
African Americans to distance themselves from
Garvey.
 His ideas, however, led to a sense of pride and hope
in African Americans that resurfaced during the
Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Jamaican immigrant Marcus Garvey
encouraged black pride.

•
Garvey promoted universal black
nationalism and support of blackowned businesses.
•
He founded a “Back to Africa”
movement and the Universal
Negro Improvement Association.
•
Eventually, Garvey was
convicted of mail fraud and
deported.

The 1920s was known as the “Jazz Age.”
•
Jazz was a kind of music
based on improvisation that
grew out of African American
blues and ragtime.
•
It began in southern and
southwestern cities such as
New Orleans.
•
Jazz crossed racial lines to
become a uniquely American
art form.
New Orleans trumpet player
Louis Armstrong was the unofficial
ambassador of jazz.

•
Armstrong played in New
Orleans, Chicago, and
New York.
•
His expert playing made
him a legend and
influenced the
development of jazz.

Spread by radio and phonograph records,
jazz gained worldwide popularity.
•
Duke Ellington was a popular band leader who
wrote or arranged more than 2,000 pieces of music
and earned international honors.
•
Jazz bands featured solo vocalists such as Bessie
Smith, the “Empress of the Blues.”
•
White composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin,
and George Gershwin found inspiration in jazz.
Jazz and the blues were part of the
Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of
African American arts and literature.

Novelists, poets,
and artists
celebrated their
culture and
explored
questions of
race in America.
Jean Toomer’s
Cane showed
the richness of
African American
life and folk
culture.
The writings of
Claude McKay
emphasized the
dignity of African
Americans and
called for social and
political change.

Langston Hughes, the most
celebrated Harlem Renaissance
writer, captured the diversity of
everyday African American life
in his poetry, journalism, and
criticism.
Zora Neale Hurston published folk tales from her
native Florida. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching
God speaks of women’s longing for independence.

As the Great Depression began, the
Harlem Renaissance came to an end.
Yet this artistic movement had a lasting effect on
the self-image of African Americans.
It created a sense of group identity and soldarity
among African Americans. It later became
the cultural bedrock upon which the Civil Rights
movement would be built.
Chapter Summary

Section 1: A Booming Economy
• The mass production of automobiles changed the U.S.
economy, creating new industries. Easier travel gave
Americans a new sense of freedom. New consumer goods,
methods of buying, and advertising appeared. The stock
market boomed.
Section 2: The Business of Government
• Presidents Harding and Coolidge followed a laissez-faire
policy that allowed business to grow during the 1920s.
Much of the wealth focused on the stock market. There
were major scandals in the Harding administration.
Chapter Summary (continued)

Section 3: Social and Cultural Tensions
• A major cultural divide existed between the modernism
found in cities and the fundamentalism that dominated
rural America. Disputes over Prohibition, education, and
immigration illustrated this divide.
Section 4: A New Mass Culture
• Americans had more leisure time than ever before. Radio,
phonograph records, movies, and sports heroes created a
new popular culture. Writers and artists searched for new
truths and forms of expression.
Chapter Summary (continued)

Section 5: The Harlem Renaissance
• The Roaring Twenties were also called the Jazz Age. This
uniquely American musical form began with African
Americans and gained worldwide popularity. Marcus Garvey
and the writers of the Harlem Renaissance expressed a new
sense of pride in African American culture.