7.8 1920's: Cultural and Political Controversies

modernism, fundamentalism, revivalists, Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, Scopes trial, Clarence Darrow, Volstead Act, organized crime, Al Capone, 21st amendment, quota laws, Sacco and Vanzetti, Ku Klux Klan, African Americans, foreigners, suspected Communists, Birth of a Nation, Gertrude Stein, "lost generation", F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Eugene O'Neill, Edward Hopper, regional artists, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, George Gershwin, Sigmund Freud, Margaret Sanger, fashion, high school education, from the South, Harlem Renaissance, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, black pride, back-to-Africa movement, Warren Harding, Charles Evans Hughes, Andrew Mellon, Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, Bureau of the Budget, Albert B. Fall, Teapot Dome, Harry M. Daugherty, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Alfred E. Smith, Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday, consumer culture

modernism

historical and critical view of passages, acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution without abandoning religious faith, redefining faith

fundamentalism

the idea that every word in the bible was true literally, believed in creationism (God created the universe in seven days), mostly preached by rural Protestant preachers, blamed modernists for decline in morals

revivalists

used radio to preach fundamentalism in the 1920’s

• Billy Sunday - attacked drinking, gambling, dancing

• Aimee Semple McPherson - anti communism and jazz

Scopes trial

• Tennessee and other southern states outlawed teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution for challenging fundamentalist principles

• biology teacher John Scopes was persuaded by the American Civil Liberties Union to teach the theory of evolution

• Lawyer Clarence Darrow defended scopes, William Jennings Bryan represented fundamentalists

• Scopes was convicted but the decision was later overturned on a technicality

prohibition

• 18th amendment - prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages

• Volstead Act - federal law enforcing prohibition/18th amendment

• smuggling, bribery, gangsters, organized crime

• 21st amendment - repealed 18th amendment, ending prohibition after growing public resentment and criminal activity

opposition to immigration

• Quota laws - restricted Asians and Eastern and Southern Europeans’ immigration to the U.S.

• Sacco and Vanzetti (Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti) - poor Italian anarchists convicted and executed after being accused of robbery and murder

Ku Klux Klan

• “extreme expression of nativism” in the midwest and south, terrorizing African Americans, Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and suspected Communists

• mostly composed of lower middle class White Protestants in small cities and towns

• Birth of a Nation - popular silent film portraying KKK members during Reconstruction as heroes

• targeted “un-Americans” while in disguises, burning crosses, “vigilante justice”, whips, tar and feathers, lynching, political influences

• fraud, corruption, murder convictions → decline in influence and membership

“lost generation”

Gertrude Stein referring to writers of this generation due to dominant themes of

• hypocrisy of religion

• condemnation of wartime sacrifices for monetary interests

• ex. F. Scott Fitzgerald

• regional artists - celebrated rural people and scenes (ex. Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton)

women, family, and education

• no change in voting patterns

• traditional gender roles

• employed women in cities, limited jobs, lower wages

• revolution in morals - greater promiscuity, birth control, fashion

• liberalized divorce laws

• American goal of universal high school education

African American cultural renaissance

• continued migration from the South to the North

• Harlem Renaissance - Harlem became famous in the 1920’s for talented actors, artists, musicians, and writers

• leading Harlem poets commented on their African heritage - Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay

• Harlem musicians - Louis Armstrong

• Marcus Garvey - Jamaican immigrant, developed black nationalism and Black pride

  • back-to-Africa movement

Republican majority

anti laissez-faire, prioritized big business over the general public

• Warren Harding

• Calvin Coolidge

• Herbert Hoover

Warren Harding’s presidency

• unpresidential leading capabilities

• cabinet

  • secretary of states - Charles Evans Hughes

  • secretary of commerce - Herbert Hoover

  • secretary of the treasury - Andrew Mellon

  • Chief Justice - William Howard Taft

• domestic policy

  • approved reduction in income tax

  • approved increase in tariff rates under Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922

  • approved establishment of Bureau of the Budget - procedures for all government expenditures to be placed in a single budget

  • pardoned Eugene Debs

• scandals

  • Albert B. Fall - accepted bribes for granting oil leases near Teapot Dome, Wyoing

  • Harry M. Daugherty - Attorney General who took bribes for agreeing not to prosecute certain criminal suspects

Calvin Coolidge’s presidency

won election of 1924

silence, limited government, and vetoing everything

election of 1928

• Republicans (winner) - Herbert Hoover - promised to extend “Coolidge prosperity” and end poverty

• Democrats - Alfred E. Smith - Roman Catholic who opposed prohibition, appealing to immigrants

Frederick Lewis Allen

wrote Only Yesterday portraying the 1920’s as full of narrow-minded materialism, nativism, racism, and fundamentalism

less conflict with business in the 1920’s

consumer culture