American Life in the
Roaring Twenties
American Pageant
Chapter 31
Immigration and Imports
In the 1920s,
America turned
inward
(isolationism),
denounced
communism and
socialism, and
clanged shut the
door of
immigration with
tariffs
The Red Scare
After the 1917
Bolshevik
Revolution in
Russia, Americans
had a fear of
Communism.
Laborers (unions)
were lumped
together with
communists.
The Red Scare
Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer
conducted the
Palmer Raids
which rounded up
thousands of
“communists”.
Some 249
communists were
sent back to
Russia on the
“Soviet Ark”.
The Red Scare
 The trial of Sacco and
Vanzetti was conducted
in the height of the Red
Scare and resulted in
their being executed on
questionable evidence.
 Courts may have been
prejudiced against them
because of their
nationality, anarchism ,
draft dodger status and
atheist status.
The Red Scare
As a result of the
aforementioned,
the ACLU or
American Civil
Liberties Union
was formed by
Felix Frankfurter
The Rebirth of the KKK
Radical hate
group originally
founded by
Nathan Bedford
Forest after the
Civil War (18611865)
Reconstituted by
Willaim J.
Fitzsimmons
The Rebirth of the KKK
 Anti
 Foreign
 Catholic
 Black
 Jewish
 Pacifist
 Communist
 Internationist
 Anti-Evolutionalist
 Bootlegger
 Gambling
 Adultery
 Birth Control
The Rebirth of the KKK
Pro
Anglo-Saxon
”Native”
Protestant
The Rebirth of the KKK
 Officials of the Klan
 Grand Goblins
 King Kleagles
 Kreatures
 “Impressive
Displays” were
 Conclaves,
Flagwaving Parades
 Weapon of choice
was
 Cross Burning
Stemming the Foreign
Flood
 After the World
War, South
Eastern
European
immigration rose
600%
 “100%
Americans” Did
not like this
Stemming the Foreign
Flood
 Emergency Quota Act of
1921 limited the number of
immigrants who could be
admitted from any country
to 3% of the number of
persons from that country
living in the United States
in 1910
 Immigration Act of
1924, changed the 1921
act to 1890 census and
changed the limit from 3%
to 2%.
 To keep out “New
Immigrants”
Stemming the Foreign
Food
 The Immigration
Act of 1929
further changed
the law because it
limited the total
immigration to
152,574.
Stemming the Foreign
Flood
 In 1965, the nationalorigins system was
abolished by Congress.
 The Emergency Quota
Act of 1921, Johnson
Reid Act of 1924, and
the Immigration Act of
1929 were known as
the National Origins
system.
Stemming the Foreign
Flood
 The National Origins
system favored
Western European
over Eastern
European. Japanese
Immigration was
completely shut off
while the law
allowed unlimited
immigration from
Canada and
Central America.
“Cultural Pluralism” or
“Multicultralism”
 Cultural Pluralism or
Multiculturalism was
the idea of
preserving ones own
culture in America.
 Five early
proponents
 Horace Kallen
 Randolph Bourne
 John Dewey
 Jane Addams
 Louis Brandeis
Prohibition
 Also known as the
Noble Experiment
(The 18th
Amendment , later
the Volstead Act)
 Prohibition outlawed
the distilling and
sale of liquor.
 Popular in the
South/ West, not so
popular in the East
 Wet= Drinking,
Dry= Not Drinking
 Prohibition did not
work because
people wanted to
drink
 Men and women
drank bathtub gin at
Speakeasies
Crime in the 1920s
 Gangsters like Al
Capone ran
bootlegging and
other illicit activities
like…
 By the 1930s
organized crime was
a huge business
even in labor unions
and government
contracts.
Crime in the 1920s
St. Valentine’s
Day Massacre
Gangs moved into
other activities
like prostitution ,
gambling and
narcotics
Monkey Business in Tennessee
(Scopes Monkey Trial)
 Christian Fundamentalists believed in a literal
interpretation of the bible and were against teaching
evolution (Darwinism). In Tennessee, teacher John T.
Scopes went to trial for teaching evolution. His lawyer
was Clarence Darrow and the prosecution was led by
W. J. Bryan. Scopes was found guilty and fined. He
was later released. This trial illustrated the question of a
changing people and society.
The Mass Consumer
Economy
 Both the recent war and
the tax policies of
Andrew Mellon, the
Secretary of the Treasury
for Presidents Coolidge
and Hoover led to
massive economic
growth.
 Keep taxes low , little
government spending ,
laissez faire / trickle
down economics
The Mass Consumer
Economy
 Powered by cheap
energy, factories
turned goods for
consumption spurred
by the new arm of
American commerce
advertising. Henry
Ford mass produced
cars.
Advertising
Turn “an arm pit
into a charm pit”
Bruce Barton’s
book, The Man
Nobody Knows
states “J.C. good
salesperson”
The Mass Consumer
Economy
People consumed
goods by buying
on credit.
Eventually bills
come due!
 Lack of credit
availability stalls
the economy.
The Golden Age of Sports
Baseball and Boxing
Automobile Powers from
the 1920s to 1970s
 The Big Three
automakers in the
United States were:
 Chevrolet
 Ford
 Chrysler
 Revolution led by
Henry Ford and his
“Fordisms”
(assembly line
techniques), who
produced the
“Model T” cars.
Secondary Industries
Secondary to car
production were:
Rubber
Glass
Fabrics
Highway
construction
Service Station
Garages
Oil
Humans Develop Wings
 First flight was by
Orville and Wilbur
Wright at Kitty Hawk
 Planes were used during
World War I
 The first solo flight was
by Charles Lindenberg
in his plan Spirit of St.
Louis. The first female to
fly was Emila Airhart.
 Airships like the
Hindenberg were also
developed.
The Radio
 The radio of the
1920s knitted the
nation together. On
the radio, jazz
music was played,
sports were
broadcast and
politicians spun their
stories. The most
famous politician
on the radio was
FDR.
Hollywood
“The Star System”
 First movies
 The Great Train Robbery
 Birth of a Nation
 WWI aided the movie
industry because…
 Credit for the film
industry goes to Thomas
Edison
 The first “talkie” was
The Jazz Singer
 Movie houses were called
Nickelodeons
Important Women of the
1920s
Alice Paul
National
Women’s
Party
Suffrage
for women
Margaret
Sanger
Women’s
rights
champion
Flappers
Women of the
1920s were
called “flappers”
Sigmund Freud
advocated to not
repress sexuality
“Smooching”
turned into … and
…
Entertainment of the
1920s
Jazz was the
music of the
era and the
“Charleston”
was the
dance.
The Harlem Renaissance
 In New York, a
Harlem Renaissance
occurred in the black
community led by
Marcus Garvey who
formed the United
Negro Improvement
Association. He
formed the Black
Star Line to return
blacks to Africa.
“Cultural Liberation”
 H.L. Mencken
 American Mercury
 F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Side of Paradise
 The Great Gatsby
 Theodore Dreiser
 An American Tragedy
 Ernest Hemingway
 The Sun Also Rises
 A Fairwell to Arms
“Cultural Liberation”
 Sinclair Lewis
 Main Street
 Babbitt
 William Faulkner
 The Sound and the
Fury
 As I Lay Dying
 Absalom, Absalom!
 Ezra Pound
 “Make It New”
 T.S. Eliot
 “The Waste Land”
“Cultural Liberation”
 Eugene O’Neill
 Strange Interlude
 Frank Lloyd Wright
 The Empire State
Building
 Three “Lost
Generation” writers
were
 Claude McKay
 Langston Hughes
 Zora Neale
The Bull Market
Buyers bought
“on the margin”,
which means they
borrowed money
to buy stock.
Secretary of
Treasury’s tax
policies were
supplied side in
nature