The Roaring 20’s

1. The Roaring 20’s America After WWI

2. “A Return to Normalcy” • This became Warren G. Harding’s campaign slogan when he accidentally messed up the word, “Normality” • Americans loved it and elected him

3. Fighting the Recession • After WWI, 2 million soldiers were looking for work • Factories were closing because they were no longer getting orders for wartime goods from European nations

4. Republicans Rule the 1920s Warren G. Harding 1921-1923 (died in office) • “HARD”-”COOL”-”HOOV” • All the presidents of the 1920s were Republican • The names of the 3 presidents are Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover • Warren G. Harding died in office, probably due to heart attack Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929 Herbert Hoover 1929-1933

5. Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew Mellon, a wealthy financier • Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover, famous for his food raising efforts during WWI • “Ohio Gang”: Harding’s old friends from Ohio who were corrupt and stole money from the government President Harding’s Corrupt Cabinet

6. The Teapot Dome Scandal • Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall accepted a bribe to lease government land to oil executives • One of these areas was called “Teapot Dome” in Wyoming • Fall was sent to prison • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gk9ebeaZcU

7. “Silent Cal” spoke and spent little (Harding loved to throw parties and give long speeches) • He forced corrupt officials to resign • He was re-elected in 1924 with the slogan “Keep Cool With Coolidge” Vice President Calvin Coolidge Becomes President

8. From War Goods to Consumer Goods • Coolidge cut regulations on businesses • Americans’ incomes rose • People began to buy refrigerators, radios, vacuums, and other appliances • Businesses began to advertise their products

9. “Coolidge Prosperity” • “The business of America is business. The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there” • Calvin Coolidge What does President Calvin Coolidge believe American Prosperity rests on?

10. Installment Buying= Buying on Credit (Buy now, pay later) • Demands for goods jumped, but so did Americans’ debt “If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problems whatsoever, except that perhaps some day to have to pay for them.” –Comedian Will Rogers Buying on Credit

11. Soaring Stock Market • By the late 1920s, more people were investing in the stock market • People became rich overnight • Bull Market: Period of rapidly increasing stock prices • Prices of stocks rose more quickly than the value of the companies themselves

12. Most Americans (including Harding and Coolidge) wanted to remain “isolationist” HOWEVER: 1. The U.S. still needed to protect economic interests in Mexico 2. The U.S. gave $10 million in aid to Russia during a famine 3. The U.S. still signed the “Kellogg-Briand Pact” with 61 other nations (which outlawed war) American Foreign Policy in the 1920s

13. “Hopeful that, encouraged by their example, all the other nations of the world will join in this humane endeavor and by adhering to the present Treaty as soon as it comes into force bring their peoples within the scope of its beneficent provisions, thus uniting the civilized nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy” -Section of the Kellogg-Briand Pact http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm

14. Women Gain the Right to Vote • 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right to vote • Carrie Chapman Catt set up the League of Women Voters • This group tried to educate voters and ensure the right of women to serve on juries

15. Women were told to go back home when the men came home to the factories after WWI • Many women stayed in the workforce as typists, cleaners, cooks, servants, seamstresses, teachers, secretaries, and store clerks • Many women bought ready-made clothing instead of making their own • Many women bought appliances to help them with housework after working a full day outside of the home Life Changes for Women

16. Impact of the Automobile • Car sales grew rapidly in the 1920s because Henry Ford’s assembly line made them so cheap • General Motors also became a popular seller of cars

17. Changing Lifestyles Due to the Automobile • Millions of jobs were created through factories, oil refineries, roads, highways, truck stops, gas stations, restaurants and tourist stops • Many Americans began to move to the suburbs to escape crowded conditions in cities

18. Mass Culture • Radio • Movies (Above, lines outside a movie theatre) (Left, family listening to the radio

19. Fashion Fads, flappers • Marathon Dancing The Jazz Age

20. More Fads • Flagpole sitting: Where young people would sit for hours and even days on top of a flagpole. (The record: 21 days!)

21. The Dance Craze • The Charleston • Has a quick beat • Dancers kick out their feet • Popular dance for Flappers: Women who wore short skirts (to the knees), bright red lipstick, hair cut short, smoked and drank in public, and drove fast cars

22. Jazz: Born in New Orleans, created by African Americans, combination of West African rhythms, African American songs and spirituals, European harmonies Listen to the song “Heebie Jeebies- What different rhythms can you recognize? Famous jazz musicians: Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, “Jelly Roll” Morton New Music

23. Depressed about their awful experiences in World War I • Criticized Americans for being obsessed with money and fun • Many became expatriates (people who leave their own country to live in a foreign land) and moved to Europe A New Generation of American Writers

24. Ernest Hemingway • Wrote about experiences of Americans during WWI and in Europe • Wrote A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man in the Sea

25. F. Scott Fitzgerald • Wrote about wealthy young people who go to constant parties but cannot find happiness • He wrote The Great Gatsby • His characters had flappers, bootleggers, and movie makers

26. Sinclair Lewis • Grew up in a small town in Minnesota and moved to New York City • He wrote books about rural people from a city person’s perspective (making them look stupid) • Wrote Main Street and Babbitt

27. The Harlem Renaissance • In the 1920s, many African American artists settled in Harlem, New York City • Black artists, musicians, and writers celebrated their African and American heritage

29. Harlem Renaissance Poets Claude McKay: From Jamaica, wrote the poem, “If We Must Die” that condemned lynchings Countee Cullen: Taught high school in Harlem, wrote of the experiences of African Americans

30. Zora Neale Hurston • Write novels, short essays, short stories • Traveled throughout the South in a battered car collecting folk tales, songs, and prayers of black southerners • Published these in her book, “Mules and Men”

31. Langston Hughes • Most well-known of the Harlem Renaissance poets • Also wrote plays, short stories, and essays • First poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” • Encouraged African Americans to be proud of their heritage • Protested racism and acts of violence against blacks

32. “The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful also, is the sun. Beautiful also, are the souls of my people.” -Langston Hughes, “In My People”

33. Heroes of the 1920s • Athletes: • Bobby Jones: Won nearly every golfing championship • Jack Dempsey: Heavyweight boxing champion for 7 years • Bill Tilden and Helen Willis: Tennis champions • Gertrude Ederle: 1st woman to swim the English Channel

34. Babe Ruth • Grew up in an orphanage • Often in trouble as a boy • Hit 60 homeruns in one season, and 714 overall • Called the “Sultan of Swat”

35. Charles Lindbergh • The greatest hero of the 1920s • The first person to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean alone • Flew from New York to Paris • Called “Lucky Lindy” because he had to fly for 33 ½ hours and didn’t carry a parachute, a radio, or a map

36. January 20, 1920 • Prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages. • Believed alcohol consumption led to: • Crime • Wife and child abuse • Corruption • Accidents on the job Prohibition: The 18th Amendment

37. Prohibition How did Prohibition help lead to organized Crime???? “The Noble Experiment”

38. Established a Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury Department It was established to: 1. patrol 18,700 miles of coastline 2. patrol borders 3. track down illegal stills 4. monitor highways 5. oversee all industry that legally use alcohol **1,550 employees left to this task!! Volstead Act

39. Speakeasies Underground nightclubs and saloons where liquor was sold illegally Could be found just about anywhere (cellars, houses, office buildings etc)

40. Bootleggers Smugglers who brought liquor into USA “The business of evading the law and making a mock of it has ceased to wear any aspects of crime and has become a sort of national sport.” H.L. Mencken

41. Prohibition : 1920-1933Cause/Effect • Causes: • Religious groups believe drinking sinful • Reformers believed government should protect public’s health • Reformers believed alcohol led to crime, abuse etc • Wartime hostility • Effects: • There was disrespect for the law • An increase in laswlesness, such as sumuggling and bootlegging • Criminals were supplied with a new source of income • There was a growth of organized crime

42. 21st amendment: Repeal of prohibition (1933) Mid 1920’s 19% of Americans supported prohibition However…some rural protestants believed it was a moral problem..

43. Scopes Trial Fundamentalism: a Protestant movement grounded in literal or non-symbolic interpretation of the Bible. Fundamentalists were skeptical of scientific knowledge…most especially the theory of evolution March 1925, Tennessee The state of TN enacted a law that made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution. *The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) stated they would defend any teacher who wanted to teach this theory.

44. John Scopes: 24 year old biology teacher read from Civic Biology: “We have now learned that animal forms may be arranged so as to begin with the simple one-celled forms and culminate with a group which includes man himself” • Scopes was immediately arrested! • Clarence Darrow (ACLU attorney) vs. William Jennings Bryan (special prosecutor) • **Fight over evolution and the role of science and religion in public school Scopes Trial

45. Scopes found guilty (later overturned) and fined $100 • The law of teaching evolution stayed on the books after the trial • BUT…this was done to ‘save face.’ The trial made a mockery of Bryan and the law • http://streaming.factsonfile.com/PortalViewVideo.aspx?xtid=7613&loid=7733&psid=0&sid=0&State=&title=The American Civil Liberties Union: A History&IsSearch=Y&parentSeriesID=# Scopes trial