American Life in the Roaring Twenties

1
American Life in the Roaring Twenties

• American Pageant
• Chapter 31

2
Immigration and Imports

• In the 1920s, America turned inward
  (isolationism), denounced communism and
  socialism, and clanged shut the door of
  immigration with tariffs

3
The Red Scare

• After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia,
  Americans had a fear of Communism. Laborers
  (unions) were lumped together with communists.

4
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.

5
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.

6
The Red Scare

• As a result of the aforementioned, the ACLU or
  American Civil Liberties Union was formed by
  Felix Frankfurter

7
The Rebirth of the KKK

• Radical hate group originally founded by Nathan
  Bedford Forest after the Civil War (1861-1865)
• Reconstituted by Willaim J. Fitzsimmons

8
The Rebirth of the KKK

• Anti
• Foreign
• Catholic
• Black
• Jewish
• Pacifist
• Communist
• Internationist
• Anti-Evolutionalist
• Bootlegger
• Gambling
• Adultery
• Birth Control

9
The Rebirth of the KKK

• Pro
• Anglo-Saxon
• Native
• Protestant

10
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

11
Stemming the Foreign Flood

• After the World War, South Eastern European
  immigration rose 600
• 100 Americans Did not like this

12
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

13
Stemming the Foreign Food

• The Immigration Act of 1929 further changed the
  law because it limited the total immigration to
  152,574.

14
Stemming the Foreign Flood

• In 1965, the national-origins 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.

15
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.

16
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

17
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

18
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.

19
Crime in the 1920s

• St. Valentines Day Massacre
• Gangs moved into other activities like
  prostitution , gambling and narcotics

20
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.

21
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

22
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.

23
Advertising

• Turn an arm pit into a charm pit
• Bruce Bartons book, The Man Nobody Knows states
  J.C. good salesperson

24
The Mass Consumer Economy

• People consumed goods by buying on credit.
• Eventually bills come due!
• Lack of credit availability stalls the economy.

25
The Golden Age of SportsBaseball and Boxing
26
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.

27
Secondary Industries

• Secondary to car production were
• Rubber
• Glass
• Fabrics
• Highway construction
• Service Station
• Garages
• Oil

28
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.

29
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.

30
HollywoodThe 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

31
Important Women of the 1920s

• Alice Paul
• National Womens Party
• Suffrage for women
• Margaret Sanger
• Womens rights champion

32
Flappers

• Women of the 1920s were called flappers
• Sigmund Freud advocated to not repress sexuality
• Smooching turned into and

33
Entertainment of the 1920s

• Jazz was the music of the era and the
  Charleston was the dance.

34
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.

35
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

36
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

37
Cultural Liberation

• Eugene ONeill
• Strange Interlude
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• The Empire State Building
• Three Lost Generation writers were
• Claude McKay
• Langston Hughes
• Zora Neale

38
The Bull Market

• Buyers bought on the margin, which means they
  borrowed money to buy stock.
• Secretary of Treasurys tax policies were
  supplied side in nature