The Roaring
Twenties
The Roaring 20’s
An era of prosperity,
Republican power,
and conflict
Roaring Twenties
Women
had right to vote
Fashion more liberal
Alcohol was banned
Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh
Movies
Jazz
Prosperity/Politics
 Return
to Normalcy
 From 1922 economy soared
 Mass production/Competition drops as
corporations gain more control
 Few unions/wages rise slowly
 Minorities /women bottom of pay scale
Civil Unrest
Red
Scare
Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer
Palmer Raids
Sacco - Vanzetti Case
Decade of Prosperity and Play
Unemployment
was low
60% of wealth with just a few
families
27,500 wealthiest had as much
as 12 million poorest
Desire to return to normalcy but:
High prices
Increased demand for goods
Wages low
Labor strikes; Boston Police,
steel workers, (both
unsuccessful)
 1920's
collectively known as the
"Roaring 20's", or the "Jazz Age"


a period of great change in American
Society - modern America is born at this
time
Age of Prosperity
Economic
expansion
 Mass Production
 Assembly Line
 Age of the
Automobile

Republican Power
 President
Harding
 Elected 1920
 Legacy of
Scandals
 “Teapot Dome”
 Died in office
ELECTION of 1920
 Republican
 Warren
G. Harding and Calvin
Coolidge
 “Return to Normalcy”
 Isolationism, Laissez -faire
 Landslide victory for Republicans
Warren G.Harding
1921-1923
 Popular,
good looking
 Wife , Florence King DeWolfe ran
his campaign
 Golfed, Played poker, had a
mistress
 Poor judge of character
Harding
Has heart attack and dies
 Country was saddened as he was popular.
His poor presidency doesn’t come to light
until later

Warren G. Harding
 Teapot
Dome Scandal
–Govt. oil reserves sold for business
interests
–Sec. of Interior Albert Fall
 Naval
Limitation Treaty
 Immigration Legislation
Harding

“I have no trouble with my enemies, but
my friends keep me walking the floor at
night”

Many took bribes, many caught
POLITICAL SCANDALS
Teapot
Dome Scandal
–Albert Falls: oil rich public lands
set aside for the Navy
–Secretly leased to oil companies
for cash and cattle
POST WAR ECONOMY
 Assembly
line: (Henry Ford)
increases productivity by 40%
 Corporate mergers
 Oligopolies: Fix prices, lead to
chain stores
 Advertising
 Installment-buying plans
Consumer Economy

Consumer Good
»new consumer goods most readily to
city dwellers
»new electrical appliances transform
household duties
»the department stores of food
industry--supermarkets and
commercial bakeries--spring up
during this period
ORGANIZED LABOR
 Organized
labor membership
falls
 Managers offer benefit plans
 Wages rise slowly
POST WAR ECONOMY
Inflation
–Caused by wartime shortages
1919
- 3,600 strikes
Boston Police Strike
Steel and Coal Strikes
LABOR under HARDING
 American
Plan
–UnAmerican to join a Union to
get a job
–Employees offered benefits,
wage increases, stock options to
show unions were unnecessary
–Harding pardoned many Union
leaders
President Coolidge
“The business of America is business.”
 Fordney-
McCumber Tariff
 Smoot-Hawley
Tariff
 No help for farmers
 Foreign Policy
CALVIN COOLIDGE
1923-1929
Republican
VP:
Charles Dawes
“Silent Cal”
“Business of America is
Business”
Coolidge
Slept 10 hours/day
 Upon the death of Harding, woke up, was
sworn in, then went back to bed
 Widened the gap between rich and poor
 Very inactive president

Gov. Calvin Coolidge

“There
is no right to strike
against the public safety by
anyone,anytime,
anywhere!”
Prohibition
Prohibition
Ban
on Alcohol
Eighteenth
Amendment
Bootlegging
PROHIBITION
Volstead
Act: Enforce
Criminal acts
st
1933 – 21 Amendment to
repeal
SPEAKEASIES
Moonshiners
Made
illegal alcohol from grain
Shipped from Ireland Canada
Speedboats delivered liquor
faster than Coast Guard ships
Souped
up cars out ran
government agents
Early beginnings of NASCAR
Speakeasies
Illegal clubs
Criminal Gangs
Al Capone
 Gang violence

Organized
Al
Crime
Capone
Racketeers
Made businesses pay
“protection money
Finally
convicted on White
Collar crime not violent crime
Income Tax evasion landed
Capone in jail
African American Migration
 Reached
millions
 Racial Prejudice everywhere
 Marcus Garvey
 W.E.B. Dubois
 KKK
 Immigration laws: Quota System
SOCIAL VALUES
 Women
 Divorce:
1-17 ; 1-6; now 1-2
 Religion; suffered decline
 Scopes – Monkey Trial
–Darwin v Creation
–Fundamentalism
SOCIAL VALUES
Fundamentalism
Bible
contained no
contradictions or errors
Supported Bible is literally true
Every story actually took place
as written
A Society in Conflict

Anti-immigrant
– National Origins Act
– Discrimination
Sacco-Vanzetti Trial
– Italian immigrants
– Unfair trial




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
for immigrants – the point of origin
had shifted to S & E Europe and new
religions appeared: Jewish,
Orthodox, Catholic
N. European immigrants of early 19c.
feared this shift and felt it would
undermine Protestant values
this fear was known as NATIVISM
many wanted Congress to restrict
immigration, leading to a quota
system that favoured n. areas of
Europe
fear of immigrants (from SE Europe)
led to a sentiment known as the Red
Scare (fear of comm. post-Bolshevik
Rev.)
basic comm. advocates a int'l
revolution by the proletariat/workers fears that this ideology could find its
way into the U.S.



at this time, W.
Wilson was gravely
ill following a stroke
his Attorney
General, A. Mitchell
Palmer, wanted to
take a shot at the
presidency - he used
fears of both
immigrants and
communism to his
advantage
he had J. Edgar
Hoover round up
suspected radicals,
many of which were
deported (Palmer
Raids)
SOCIAL VALUES
Scopes
Trial
Evolution vs. Fundamentalist
Tennessee passed
Illegal to teach Evolution
Scopes “Monkey”
Evolution vs. Creationism
Famous Lawyers
Trial
Science vs. Religion
Dayton, Tennessee
John Scopes
High School Biology teacher
SOCIAL VALUES
John
T. Scopes challenged law
Trial combatants
William Jennings Bryan
Clarence Darrow
Prohibition Volstead Act
18th Amendment
Gangsters
Al Capone
SOCIAL CHANGES
Civil
Rights
Riots
25 cities summer of 1919
Chicago hard hit
Rock fight
SOCIAL CHANGES
17
year old African American
was struck and killed while
swimming
Several days of rioting broke
out
SOCIAL CHANGES
Revival
of KKK
Colonel William J. Simmons
revived
Not only in South
Indiana had lad the largest
membership
The Ku Klux Klan
Great increase
In power
Anti-black
Anti-immigrant
Anti-Semitic
Anti-Catholic
Anti-women’s suffrage
Anti-bootleggers
SOCIAL CHANGES
4
million members
African Americans, Catholics,
Jews, Immigrants, all were
victims
1925 leader of Indiana Klan
Was sent to prison
Youth Culture

Flappers
SPORTS
Baseball
Football
Boxing
Tennis
FAMOUS PEOPLE
Heroes
Lucky
Lindy
First to fly across Atlantic solo
Became National hero
Remained modest thus
increasing popularity
FAMOUS PEOPLE
Amelia
Earhart
 first woman to fly solo across
Atlantic
First successful flight from
Hawaii to California
CULTURAL CREATIVITY
Literature
–Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair
Lewis, Hemingway
HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Harlem
Renaissance
–Grew from 50,000 to 200,000 in
16 years
–Literature and music of African
Americans
 NAACP
 James
Weldon Johnson
 Alain Locke The New Negro
–African American Culture
 Langston
Hughes
 Joys and difficulties of being
American and black
College Life
Enrollment
tripled
New target group
Leisure Fun and fads

Dance Marathons
Beauty Contests- Miss America Pageant
 Pole Sitting

Music & Dance
Berlin,
Gershwin, Porter
Jazz: Louie Armstrong,
Duke Ellington
Flappers
Theaters
rose from 500 in
1910 to 22,500 in 1930
Elaborate design ornate
lobbies balconies place to go
125,000 million people in the
United States
Magazines
and Newspapers
More readers less independent
newspapers
Tabloids instead of Hard News
Magazines
Saturday
Evening Post
Readers Digest
Time
Ladies Home Journal
The 20’s is The Jazz Age
The Flappers
make up
cigarettes
short skirts
Writers
Musicians
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Jazz
Age
African American music of the
south
Radio popularized Jazz
Jazz clubs allowed musicians to
play
Louis
Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Benny Goodman
Charleston became popular
Culture of the Roaring 20’s
Radio
KDKA Pittsburgh
GE, Westinghouse,& RCA
form NBC
Silent Movies
Charlie Chaplin
“Talkies”
The Jazz Singer
Starring Al Jolson
Mary Pickford
“America’s Sweetheart”
Jazz
sprung Off shoots
George Gershwin
“Rhapsody in Blue”
Combination of symphonic and
jazz
Mass Entertainment
 Bigger
Paychecks/more free time
 RADIO
–800 stations by 1929
–Broadcast church
services,news,music, sporting
events
–advertising
MOVIES
Silent
Film,dramas,
westerns
Showed changes in
morality, sexuality
SPORTS
Professional,
college level
Football Baseball
Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey
Celebrities
Babe Ruth &Ty Cobb
Charles Lindbergh
The Spirit of St. Louis
Jack Dempsey
Divisions in American Society
Farm
Crisis
Migration to city- fewer
farmers needed
1900- 42% of America on
Farms
1920 – 25% on Farms
Farm Depression
Over-production
Mortgage
payments
½ million lost farms
McNary-Haugen Bill (Govt.
buys surplus and resells
abroad)
Agriculture
the
1920s a hard time for
agriculture
–natural disasters and diseases
–foreign markets shrink
–increased production lowers
prices
–as a result, farmers have
difficulty paying off loans
and mortgages
Automobiles
»biggest impact on U.S. life and
culture
traffic jams and parking problems
accidental traffic deaths rise
sharply (as many as 26,000 per
year)
changes in family life--people get
away form home more often,
automobile comes into the
household

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1920's great changes for
women...
1920 - 19th Amendment
more women worked
outside the home
women went to college
characterized by the
FLAPPER/ "new
woman"
– (bobbed hair, short
dresses, smoked in
public...)