1920s Unit Test

what party dominates the presidency?

Republicans

“return to normalcy”

President Harding

legacy, Teapot dome

What do Republicans stand for?

return to normalcy

Was America isolationist or internationalist/interventionist in this period? 

mostly isolationist

Economic Expansion; but was everyone making money?

the happy mood of the 1920s was encouraged by the economy

national income grew > 20%

the market value of stocks soared

Real wages also increased more than 35%

Consumer Culture: What is it?

much of America’s wealth is generated through the manufacturing and sale of consumer goods

consumerism: the idea that buying products is good for the economy

-in the early years of the decade, America became a consumer-driven society WHY

• higher wages and desire to spend them

• people wanted a taste of the “good life”

• inventions became “must haves”

Boom Cycle

income increases

people purchase more goods

companies earn higher profits

companies expand and hire more people

growth of credit

credit or installment - Inc. Buying

Consumption no longer for just the wealthy

UPSIDE: more people can buy fun things

DOWNSIDE: A BIG increase in personal debt

Henry Ford and the automobile industry;

mass production/assembly line productivity

age of the automobile - Henry Ford

Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line

The efficiency pf the assembly likely helped to decrease our prices

people easily moved in and out of the country

Auto Industry and Labor

Ford $5 per day plan

8 hr work day (40 hr work week)

Welfare Capitalism

Welfare Capitalism

created programs to give workers mostly non-wage benefits

employe turnover, don’t want them to join a union

Effects of Automobile

Advertising, radio, automobile; mass society/culture

Prohibition – Amendments; problems with it

18th amendment

bans alcohol (it caused the nations problems)

advantages: keeps people safe, family savings would increase

disadvantages: created organized crime

speakeasies: establishments that sold illegal liquor/law enforcement bribe

organized (Al Capone)

21st Amendment: overturns prohibition

Mass Culture

Industrial Age:

city vs rural

wealthy vs working class

By the 1920s, these lines had blurred

people moving to the city

inventions radio/car breaking down geographical barriers

wealth was no longer a prerequisite to buy products

All Americans began to participate in and be exposed to the same culture

spread by advertising

The Teenager – what caused this?

highschool

new technologies (radios, movies, cars) gave teens a way to socialize

urbanization

changing social norms

Feminism; Flappers 

post war: more jobs outside the home for women; college

worked for laws benefitting women

fought for an equal rights amendment

The Flapper: “new woman” that wore bobbed hair, makeup, bright red lipstick, short skirt, smoked and drank in public,

female declaration of independence

Fads, spectator sports and heroes

fad- activity or fashion that is very popular for a short time (flagpole sitting, beauty pageants, etc.)

celebrities: Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey, Charles Lindbergh

literature: “the Lost Generation” Hemingway; Fitzgerald

Movies: Charlie Chaplin, The Talkie and the Tramp

Great Migration,

Blacks moved North to take advantage of booming wartime industry

Black ghettos began to form (Harlem)

“Black is Beauty”

Harlem Renaissance

centered in Harlem

a community of radical pride and success

Red Scare

Begun by Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution (1917)

Fear of Communist revolution in the US

Heightened by 1919 anarchist bombings

Passage of various sedition laws

Capitalism

Capitalism: private ownership of the means of production, plus individual economic freedom, not owned by government

private owners make the decision on what to produce and how much to charge. Free competition between businesses with out government interference (regulation) works under supply and demand

labor/strikes

strikes not permitted during WWI

several strikes occurred soon after

nation wide steel strike

coal strike

some management officials tried to portray strikes as revolutionaries labor unions in decline

Palmer Raids

a series of government actions during 1919–1920 aimed at arresting and deporting suspected radicals, anarchists, and communists in the United States. They were named after U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

• Occurred during the First Red Scare, a period of fear of communism, anarchism, and radical leftist movements following World War I and the Russian Revolution.

• Triggered by a wave of bombings and labor strikes that made Americans fear a domestic uprising.

• Federal agents raided homes and meeting places of suspected radicals.

• Thousands were arrested, often without warrants or proper legal procedures.

• Many immigrants were deported, regardless of whether they had committed a crime.

• Targets included anarchists, socialists, labor organizers, and immigrants from Eastern Europe.

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Communism

Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto (1848)

predicted workers revolutions against capitalism

destruction of private property

collective (government) not individual ownership of resources

government exercises control in the name of people

everyone makes the same money

Socialism

like Communism, calls for government ownership of major businesses/public services

richer people contribute more taxes

belief that wealth and income should be shared more equally than capitalism

Mild forms of socialism wanted

Government regulation of big business

right to unionize

improved wages and benefits workers

8-hour work day

In US History: these ideas were associated with Labor Unions and the Progressive Movement (1890-1920)

Nativism

came out of various worries following WWI

Prejudice against foreign born people

Evident in immigration quotas, rise of KK

led to “Red Scare”

quotas…effect and who is excluded and who is not excluded

• Restricted immigration into the U.S.

• Favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe (like Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia).

• Greatly reduced immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe (like Italy, Poland, Russia, and Greece).

• Completely banned immigration from Asia.

• Reflected nativist and racist attitudes of the time — the U.S. wanted to keep its population mostly Anglo-Saxon.

• Canadians and Mexicans were not affected

Sacco and Vanzetti

Italian Immigrants accused of murder/sentenced to death because they “killed” a guard in a robbery

Lesson: Prejudice against immigrants

The judge hated radicals

Lynchings/Resurgence of KKK:New KKK…how is it different from Reconstruction era…why the resurgence; tactics; decline;

lynchings: public hanging of black people

Sudden rise of KKK: movie glorified KKK, anti-Catholic, fear of communists and anarchists (immigrants), powerful in Midwest (Indiana)

How was it different? Against anyone who isn’t a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. Mass movement across the whole country

Tactics: hanging, beating, marches, parades, dressed in white hood, cross burning, strong political influence

Decline: fraud and corruption. Murder, fraud, and assault case. Media started to expose Klan members

Tulsa Race Massacre - what and significance?

white mobs attacked the town of greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma by burning homes and businesses and killing 100-300 Black residents leaving thousands homeless

Significance:

• Exposed racial tensions.

• Destroyed Black prosperity

• Highlighted injustice

• Renewed historical awareness

Black Wall Street

Greenwood, Tulsa district Oklahoma

included a thriving business district

Eugenics

the “psuedo-science”

idea of superiority of whites

justified sterilization of mental ill people and immigrants

White western Europeans were considered good hereditary

sterilization = make so they can’t have kids

Urban v Rural Life

for the first time, urban dwellers outnumbered rural ones

ethnic and social differences

rural and urban dwellers clashed on issues such as religion and alcohol consumption

Scopes Trial

what is fundamentalism? Protestant movement in the 20s that believed the literal truth of the Bible. Opposed to science

What were the issues of trial? ACLU wanted to teach modern science (Darwin’s theory) Fundamentalists wanted to teach the Bible. So they put a law (Butler Act) that prohibited teaching of evolution in schools. John Scopes was set up to teach evolution and he got arrested

What is Butler Act? prohibited teaching of evolution in schools.

Result: Darrow got Bryan to admit that the Bible can be interrupted in certain ways. Scopes was found guilty

Significance: highlight struggle between science and religion in American schools

Epperson v. Arkansas - Supreme court ruled laws against teaching evolution unconstitutional in 1969

Farmers Plight

Postwar Europe - demand down

agricultural depression in early 1920s

technology/efficiency

borrowed money to pay for technology

production went up and prices went down

Demand down so farms no longer as prosperous = banks call in loans (farm repossessed)

American farmers enter the Depression in advance of the rest of society

Warren G. Harding

republican president from 1921-1923

best known for his “return to normalcy” meaning a return to peace, stability, and traditional American values.

Isolationism: Favored limited involvement in foreign affairs after WWI.

several scandals were exposed in his administration, the most famous being the Teapot Dome Scandal, involving corruption and bribery in the leasing of federal oil reserves. These scandals damaged his reputation.

Calvin Coolidge

president 1923-1929

Republican known for his honesty, quiet personality, and strong belief in limited government and free-market capitalism

Pro-business policies: Believed government should interfere as little as possible in the economy (laissez faire)

Henry Ford

created the Ford Model T first automobile

pioneered the assembly line

Al Capone

Chicago “furniture dealer”

Powerful bootlegging empire

St. Valentines Day Massacre (brought organized crime to the streets)

Eventually convicted of income tax evasion

Margaret Sanger

American birth control activist, nurse, and sex educator. She is best known for advancing women’s reproductive rights and founding organizations that eventually became Planned Parenthood.

Charles Lindbergh

best known for making the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Jack Dempsey

famous in the 1920s for being a famous boxer

F. Scott Fitzegerald

an American novelist and short story writer, best known for capturing the spirit and excess of the Roaring Twenties.

Babe Ruth

a very famous Baseball player in the 1920s

Charlie Chaplin

was a British actor, filmmaker, and comedian, best known for his work in silent films and as the iconic character “The Tramp.”

Marcus Garvey

was a Jamaican-born political leader, publisher, and activist who became a key figure in the early 20th-century Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements.

Langston Hughes

was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, and a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, the cultural movement celebrating Black art, music, and literature in the 1920s.

Vladimir Lenin

was a Russian revolutionary, political theorist, and the leader of the Bolshevik Party who played a key role in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the founding of the Soviet Union.

Karl Marx

His ideas inspired socialist and communist movements worldwide.

a philosopher and economist who criticized capitalism and promoted communism, profoundly shaping political thought and revolutionary movements around the world.

A. Mitchell Palmer

• Led the Palmer Raids (1919–1920), targeting suspected radicals, anarchists, and communists in the U.S. after a wave of bombings and labor unrest.

• Oversaw the arrest and deportation of thousands of immigrants, often without proper legal procedures.

• Symbolized post-World War I fear of communism and radicalism in the U.S.

• His actions highlighted the tension between civil liberties and national security, as many of his raids violated constitutional rights.

ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union, a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

• Formed partly in response to the Red Scare and Palmer Raids, defending individuals accused of radical or unpopular beliefs.

• Provided legal support and advocacy for immigrants, labor organizers, and political activists facing government persecution.

John T. Scopes

A teacher in Tennessee arrested for teaching the theory of evolution