The Roaring Twenties

1. The Roaring Twenties

2. Chapter 31 Themes • Return to Republican presidents and a rejection of progressive reform and policies • Return to isolationism, social conservatism, and the arrival of mass consumption • Period of rapid cultural change due to changes in technology, mass marketing, entertainment. But back lash is increased cultural anxiety and sharp critique of American life. • So………Return of KKK, increase in anti-immigrants and new laws in immigration, Red Scare, Prohibition, and Scopes Monkey Trial

3. Chapter 31 Themes • New Technology • Mass produced cars • Radio • Hollywood • Planes • Mass marketing • Flapper Girls • Speakeasies and rise of Gangsterism • Harlem Renaissance and Jazz • Marcus Garvey and UNIA • Lost Generation • Modernism • Stock Market Boom and Bust

4. Flappers

5. 1920’s • In many ways, the 1920’s were a response to the Progressive period and World War I. • Nation responded to the Progressive Moralistic period with the counter-culture backlash • Speakeasies, flappers, Jazz, gangsterism, Harlem Renaissance, mass media, rise in strikes and Unionism • World War I coupled with the Spanish Flu (675,000 Americans died and estimated 21 million worldwide) left Americans disillusioned. Especially with the failed peace after the war, world was not safe for democracy

6. 1920’s

7. Roaring 20’s • After the war, Americans turn inwards: • Shunned diplomatic commitments to other countries • Denounced radical foreign ideas (socialism and communism) • Condemned un-American lifestyles • Closed the door on immigration • Economically, they also looked inward and partly closed the domestic economy off from the world

8. Roaring 20’s • Boom of the 1920’s was economically beneficial to all Americans: • Income and living standards rose • New technologies and new forms of entertainment made the 20’s exciting and what gave it is name the Roaring 20’s • However, underneath the surface, trouble was brewing: • Rampant speculation • Little governmental oversight • Citizens taking on more debt • A sense that America was moving away from its traditional ways.

9. The “Red Scare” “Put Them Out & Keep Them Out” – Philadelphia Inquirer “What a Year Has Brought Forth” – NY World

10. The Red Scare • Labor Strikes at the end of the war led many Americans to believe their was a strong communist faction in America. Strike in Seattle in 1919, the mayor called for federal troops to head off “the anarchy of Russia.” • Red Scare occurred from 1919-1920 • Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer (The Case Against the Reds) • Palmer Raids – 1920 • Arrested an estimated 6,000 accused Reds

11. “Red Scare” – Palmer Raids Police Arrest “Suspected Reds’ in Chicago, 1920

12. “Red Scare” – Palmer Raids Other events that led to the hysteria: • December 1919, the Buford. 249 a alleged alien radicals were shipped of to the workers paradise of Russia. • S.O.S- Ship or Shoot in regards to the Reds • September 1920, on Wall Street a bomb exploded killing 38 people • State laws made it unlawful the mere advocacy of violence to promote social change. Groups such as IWW were arrested and free speech again under attack • American plan was the open shop, as businesspeople took advantage of Red Scare to limit unions and label them Bolsheviks. A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home Bombed, 1920

13. Sacco and Vanzetti • Nicola Sacco- shoe factory worker • Bartolomeo Vanzetti- fish peddler • Both were convicted in 1921 of murder in Massachusetts • Manty argued that the jury and judge were prejudice because they were Italians, anarchists, atheists, and draft dodgers. • Case dragged on for 6 years, until 1927 when both men were sentenced to death by electrocution • Communists and other radicals given two martyrs for the class struggle argument • Most agree that in a different environment without the Read Scare, the verdict would have been prison and not death.

14. Ku Klux Klan Revival • 1920’s KKK grew in popularity in response to the war and changes in society. • Resembled more the nativist movement of the 1850’s as opposed to the KKK of reconstruction • It was anti the following: • Foreign, Catholic, black, Jewish, pacifist, Communist, internationalist, revolutionist, bootlegger, gambling, adultery, and birth-control. • It was pro the following: • Anglo-Saxon, native born Americans, Protestant. • Basically, they reflected an extremist, ultraconservative response to the forces of diversity and modernity that were changing America

15. Grew in popularity in the Midwest and especially the Bible Belt. At its peak in the 1920’s the KKK had 5 million due paying members. In late 1920’s crimes of embezzlement hurt Klan leadership and it started to lose popularity. Ku Klux Klan Revival

16. Immigration Reform • Some 800,000 immigrants arrived from 1920-1921, with 2/3rds coming from southern or eastern Europe. • Americans started to speak out against the New Immigrants and asked for reforms. • IN 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921: • Quota was 3 percent of the people of the nationality who lived in the U.S. in 1910 • So, if there were 1 million Italians in 1910, 30,000 Italians could enter after the Quota act per year. • The EQA of 1921 was favorable to Southern and Eastern Europeans because many lived in U.S. in 1910

17. Immigration Reform • Immigration Act of 1924: • Quotas cut from 3% to 2%. • Nation-origins basis shifted from 1910 to 1890. This greatly hurt Southern and Eastern Europeans. • For example, only 5,802 Italians could come per year based on this new quota. • Goal was to freeze America’s racial composition at the time. • Act also slammed the door on Japanese immigration. • Canadians and Latin Americans were excempt from the act.

18. Immigration reform • The quota system marked a huge departure from previous immigration policy in many ways: • Immigration dwindled to a trickle. Essentially, put up a No vacancy sign. • By 1931, more foreigners left than came to America. • Marks the end of the unrestricted immigration era. Some 35 million immigrants came to America over the last century. But this stops in 1924. A new age in American immigration policy.

19. Response to Immigration • Cultural Pluralists: • Two reformers championed different ideas about immigration: • Horace Kallen • Believed that ethnic groups should be able to protect their traditional culture and be free to practice it in America. He thought it should be like an orchestra. • Randolph Bourne • Believed in having more interaction and sharing between the different groups. He believed in a more international and multicultural age. • Both reformers influenced other intellectuals who supported ethnic diversity, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism.

20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CE4u6jI_rc 18th Amendment started the Prohibition Era. Volstead Act implemented Prohibition Popular in the South and West But opposition remained in large eastern cities where immigrant groups lived. Old World style of social life was often centered on alcohol. Prohibition

21. Prohibition • Naïve in nature: • Overlooked America’s tradition of alcohol and also of little or small central government oversight in people’s private lives. • Also neglected that it is difficult to make something a crime overnight that many people do. It is similar to saying we are going to make eating fast food a crime tomorrow because it is bad for our health. • Lastly, nearly impossible to enforce. Speakeasies were common, as well as bootlegging, and many police forces turned a blind eye.

22. Prohibition and Gangsters • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltaqVTdFOqQ Prohibition made alcohol illegal and it also pushed it into the realm of organized crime. • Rival gangs fought each other for turf and where they could sell. • Gang wars in Chicago killed an estimated 500 mobsters. • Most famous of all was Al Capone, who was finally arrested on tax evasion charges and served 11 years in a federal prison • After Prohibition, organized crime moved to other vices: prostitution, drugs, gambling. Forced merchants to pay protection money. Infiltrated unions to run rackets. • Estimated in 1930 that the underworld raked in 12-18 billion dollars per year. More than the federal government.

23. Scopes Monkey Trial • Showed the conflict between Science and religion. • Erupted over a law that banned the teaching of Darwinism and Evolution in Tennessee. • John Scopes was caught teaching it in Dayton, Tennessee. • Famed Chicago trial lawyer Charles Darrow defended him. • William Jennings Bryan prosecuted him • Journalists from all over descended on the small town in this famous debate between theology and biology. • Scopes found guilty and paid $100 fine. Later rescinded by the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

24. Scopes Monkey Trial