The 1920s

1
The 1920s

• Coping with Change,
• 1920-1929

Chapter 23
2
The Harding and Coolidge Administrations

• Return to Normalcy
• GOP
• Old Guard
• Conservatism

3
Harding Policies

• Thorough revision of Tax Code
• Emergency Tariff Act
• Readjustment of War Tax
• Creation of Federal Budget

4
Economic Boom

• Unemployment fell to 3
• Prices held Steady
• GNP grew by 43, 1922-1929

5
Corruption and Scandal

• Director of Veterans Bureau
• Teapot Dome, WY

6
Calvin Coolidge

• Improved Moral Tone of White House
• Continued Conservative Policies of Harding
  Administration
• Led by Andrew Mellon, instituted conservative
  platform

7
Andrew Mellon, 1855-1937

• High Taxes
• Discourage expansion and investment
• Keep cost of living high
• Lowers revenue
• Revenue Act of 1924
• Increased revenue
• Lowered national debt

8
Coolidge Administration

• Noninterference and bolstering Business
  Industry
• the Business of America is Business
• Strict Constructionist
• Self-government implies self-reliance
• Vetoed McNary-Haugen bill of 1927 1928
• Tyranny of bureaucratic regulation

9
Mass Society, Mass Culture

• Flood of new consumer products, advertising, and
  entertainment

10
Cities, Cars, Consumer Goods

• Urbanization
• Automobile becomes American mode of
  transportation
• Automobile Changed American Life
• Family Vacation Roadside Restaurants and motels
• Youth and Women freedom

11
Significance of Automobile

• Youth Movies, dances, parking
• Women work, errands, meetings, etc
• Tractors increase productivity
• Standardized American Life
• School Bus
• Supermarkets
• Department Stores, Shopping Centers, Fast food.
• Automobile Suburbs

12
Mass Entertainment

• Mass Circulation Magazines
• Saturday Evening Post
• Readers Digest, etc
• Book of the Month Club Literary Guild
• Fastest Growing Media Radio Movies
• 1922 500 radio stations

13
Radio

• 1926 National Broadcasting Service (NBC)
• 1927 Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS)
• Significance
• Unified American Culture
• Advertising
• Fame

14
Radio Shows

• Amos Andy
• June 22, 1929 Amos unwittingly becomes the "wheel
  man" for a pair of robbers who knock off a fur
  store.
• June 23, 1929 Aftermath of the above
• Feb 22, 1933 Announcement of Madame Queen's
  engagement.

15
Movies

• By 1930 Viewers 80 million per week (National
  Population in 1930 123 million)
• Significance
• Shaped behavior and values
• Contributed to Consumer Culture
• Stimulated Consumption
• Unified culture
• Product of Urbanization

16
Silent Stars

• Charlie Chaplin
• Rudolph Valentino
• Mary Pickford

17
Sound in 1927

• Al Jolson
• Gary Cooper
• Greta Garbo
• Mickey Mouse

18
Cultural Ferment Creativity

• Jazz Age/ Post war Crises of Values
• World War undermines social values
• Flapper
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Harlem Renaissance

19
American Painters

• Thomas Hart Benton
• Edward Hopper
• Charles Sheeler
• Georgia OKeefe

20
Composers

• Aaron Copeland

21
Jazz

• George Gershwin
• Hudie Ledbetter (Leadbelly)
• Bessie Smith
• Louis Armstrong
• Duke Ellington

22
Society in Conflict

• Immigration Restriction
• Eugenics and Racialism
• National Origins Act (1924)

23
Fundamentalism Scopes Trials

• The Fundamentals, 1909-1914
• Fundamentalism
• Rejects compromise with Modernity
• Return to traditional values
• Literal interpretation of Bible
• Fundamentalists targeted Darwinism

24
Scopes Trials

• 1925 Tennessee bars theory of evolution from
  being taught in schools
• ACLU
• John Scopes
• Clarence Darrow
• William Jennings Bryan

25
Ku Klux Klan

• 1915 Klan revived in Georgia
• Equal Opportunity Haters
• Win Political Power
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rape

26
Marcus Garvey

• Appeal to Northern Urban Blacks
• Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
• Return to Africa
• 1923 Fraud Conviction

27
Prohibition

• 18th Amendment takes effect January 1920
  repealed 1933
• Grand Failure
• Large segments of society opposed
• Illegality increased its appeal
• Increase in organized crime
• Speakeasies
• Al Capone