US - Life in the 1920s

1
US - Life in the 1920s

• Lifestyles of the 1920s
• Post - WWI Tensions
• Republican Leadership during the 1920s

2
Role of Women

• Women won the right to vote
• 19th Amendment, 1920
• Change in fashion
• Flappers
• Short Skirts, short hairdos
• Lipstick
• Change in the work place and leisure.

3
Prohibition

• 1917 - Congress passed the 18th Amendment
• Ratified in 1919
• Bootlegging Liquor
• Speak-Easies
• 1933 - Congress passed 21st Amendment
• Ending Prohibition.

4
Sports

• Becomes a big Business/Entertainment
• Heros
• Baseball Babe Ruth Ty Cobb
• College Football
• Boxing Joe Dempsey

5
Consumer Habits

• Industrial improvements of the 1920s focused on
  consumer goods
• Ice boxes, Autos, radios
• Supermarkets were introduced
• Invention of cellophane

6
Movies Film
Douglas Fairbanks
Lillian Gish

• Motion Picture was a popular past time
• Movie stars as celebrities grew.
• Movie studios began to market films to publics
  choice
• Miss America pageant
• Atlantic City, 1921

Clara Bow
Mary Pickford
7
The Jazz Singer

• 1927 musical film. 1st full length feature motion
  picture, using synchronized dialogue.
• Talkies film.

8
New Transportation

• 1920 - 9 million registered autos
• 1930 - 27 million registered autos
• Tripled
• 1920 - 387,000 miles of roads
• 1929 - 662,000 miles of roads
• Doubled
• 2009 - 6.1 Million miles
• Henry Ford the assembly line production
• Auto industry employed 3.7 million people in 1929.

9
Air Travel

• 1927, First Trans-Atlantic Air Flight.
• Within 1 year, air travel grew 4x.

• May 12, 1927. Flew from San Diego, CA to Long
  Island, NY (22 hours)
• May 20, 1927 Flew from Long Island, NY USA to
  Paris, France. (38 hours)

Charles Lindbergh, 25 years old
10
US - Life in the 1920s

• Lifestyles of the 1920s
• Post- WWI Tensions
• Republican Leadership during the 1920s

11
End of WWI Victory Parade

• WWI ends November, 1918
• US Celebrates the victory with parades in NYC.
• 4 million soldiers return home from being
  mobilized in the war

12
Strikes Labor Unrest

• Strikes - workers refusal to work unless their
  demands are met.
• Prices rose quickly, wages much more slowly
• Unsafe, unfair business practices
• 1919 - 4 million workers went on strike.

• Famous strikes
• Boston Police Strike, 1919
• No. Indiana Steelworkers, 1919
• United Mine Workers Coal Mine Strike, 1919

13
Red Summer of 1919

• 1920, Car bombing, Wall Street, NYC
• Strikers were subject to hysteria, prone to begin
  riots.
• Fearful of pro socialist/communist actions
  against the American capitalist market system.
• Fearful of south eastern European immigrants.

14
Attorney GeneralA. Mitchell Palmer

• Appointed by President Woodrow Wilson.
• Responsible for the US 1st Red Scare.
• Palmer raids - rounded up Soviet immigrants,
  deported or detained them. Acts of government
  repression.
• ACLU founded by U. Sinclair Jane Adams.
• Provided legal assistance to victims of Palmers
  tactics.

15
Red Scare

• Patriotic Americans saw a Red agitator behind
  union organizers and every labor protest.
• Anti Immigrant feelings were at an all time high.

16
N. Vanetti B. Sacco

• April 1920 - a robbery at a factory in So.
  Braintree, MA,
• Resulted in two deaths
• 3 weeks later, these 2 Italian immigrants were
  arrested.
• Known Anarchists and protesters of the Palmer
  Raids.
• Convicted based upon contradictory evidence and
  testimony.
• Honorable W. Thayer sentenced the accused to
  death.
• Mass American and foreign protest did not change
  the verdict.
• Executed on Aug. 23, 1927
• Claim - innocent victims of the Red Scare.

17
Marcus Garvey

• Leader of African Americans in 1920s.
• Struggle for Black Identity
• Back to Africa movement hoped to take blacks
  back to Africa return with imports/products to
  trade with in the US markets.
• His leadership resulted in a growing spirit of
  race consciousness and race pride.

18
Ku Klux Klan in Washington D.C.

• 1925 - KKK march down Pennsylvania Ave.
• 40,000 man in attendance
• Nativists - white Protestant men.
• Intolerant, Spread hate, Anti- immigrant
  (foreigners in general), black, Jew, Catholic.
• 1921 1924 - influenced Congress to pass
  legislation limiting immigration into the US.

19
Clarence Darrow Scopes trial

• July, 1925. Dayton, Tennessee
• John Scopes was arrested and tried for teaching
  the theory of evolution.
• Scientific theory of C. Darwin, cited by
  traditionalists as destroying faith in the Bible.
• ACLU hired C. Darrow, most famous attorney of the
  day, to defend Scopes. Took the case without
  pay.
• So called monkey trial

20
US - Life in the 1920s

• Lifestyles of the 1920s
• Postwar Tensions
• Republican Leadership during the 1920s

21
Republican Leadership in the White House

• With Warren G. Hardings inauguration in 1920,
  began 12 years of Republican leadership in the
  Capitol.
• Presidents Harding, Coolidge Hoover
• Examine their tenure in office and the issues the
  US faced during this era.

Harding
Coolidige
Hoover
22
Albert B. Fall, Secretary of Interior

• President Hardings Cabinet was subjected to
  mismanagement corruption.
• Most infamous case
• Teapot Dome Scandal
• 1921 - Albert B. Fall gained control of
  government oil fields secretly leased them to
  private oil companies
• Teapot Dome, Wyoming
• 125k Hundreds of cattle were give in the form
  of a bribe.
• Conviction, 1 year in jail sentence.

23
Vice President Coolidge swearing in.

• Warren G. Harding died August 2nd, 1923.
• Harding was ill from eating tainted crabs while
  on a trip to Alaska California.
• He was also suffering from bronchial pneumonia.
• Calvin Coolidge, Hardings VP was sworn into
  office on a farm in Vermont, by his father, a
  notary public at 230 am, August 3, 1923.
• He was resworn the next day in Washington D.C. by
  a Supreme Court Justice.
• He was on vacation with family during the summer
  of 1923.

24
President Coolidges Cabinet

• President Coolidge kept most of the Harding
  Cabinet once he sworn is as President.
• Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon
• Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes
• Main New appointee Attorney General Harlan
  Fiske Stome.
• Stowe was tasked with weeding out the Ohio Gang

25
President Coolidge family

• President Coolidge was a devote family man.
• Enjoyed spending time with family vs. time with
  political leaders from around the country the
  world.
• Averaged a 4-hour work day.
• He was one not to indulge in the extravagance of
  the 1920s lifestyle.
• He was Pro business, as the US economy improved,
  Coolidge advocated more more that government
  should be guided by business principles
  practices.

26
Coolidge, Mellon Hoover

• Political cartoons like this depicted Coolidges
  opinion on running for reelection in the 1928
  election.
• Coolidge refused the Republican partys
  nomination for President.
• Opened the way for Herbert Hoover.

• 1924 - Keep it Cool with Coolidge
• Election of Coolidge, here with Secretary of
  Treasury Mellon Secretary of Commerce, Hoover.
• All 3 men were pro business.
• Industrial output DOUBLED during period 1921 -
  1929
• Silent government/laissez-faire in its approach
  to US business.

27
Herbert Hoover

• Hoover campaigning in NYC at the Metropolis.
• Self-made millionaire by 40
• Standford University graduate.
• Rugged individualism was his philosophy.
• Through Hard work diligence, the American Dream
  could be possible.
• Personified the Republican party base.
• Midwestern, small-town Protestant white American
  voters.

• Personal Political views included
• Conservative
• Pro-business
• Advocate of small federal government
• Belief in the individual

28
1928 Herbert Hoover vs. Alfred E. Smith