1920s

What was life like, life for women, immigrants and leisure

Political change for women:

• 19th amendment (1920) gave women vote for federal election

• assisted the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity, 1921, to help with maternity and infant health

• women’s bureau of labor set up in 1920 to help with working conditions

Political continuity for women:

• the vote for women did not lead to any significant legislation to help aid gender equality

• only 25% of women voted during 1920s

• suffragist protests were ongoing

Employment change for women

• number of women in paid employment rose from 8 million to 11 million during the 1920s

• number of married women working rose - 10% worked

• women’s working conditions improved - Women’s bureau (campaigned for wider employment for women)

• 1910-1940, number of working women went up 7 million

Employment continuity for women

• lacked equal opportunity

• law firms usually refused to hire female lawyers

• 1920s, most school authorities refused to hire married women

• 24 states had laws banning employment of women

Domestic changes for women

• electrical appliances (e.g sewing machines, vacuum cleaners) made housework easier

• // many couldn’t afford

• birth control, more effective and widely used

Domestic continuity for women

• average homemaker still spent 50 hours to work a household a week

• contraception not approved by many

• many women returned to domestic traditional roles post-war

Social change for women

• increased availability of automobiles and speakeasies led to a rise of young women going on dates (without chaperones)

• automobiles liberated housewives (shopping and leisure)

• short skirts, bobbed hair, danced- daringly drank and smoked in public

• rise of the flapper // only 7% of 2000 women (middle-class) had pre-marital sex, disliked by conservatives

• behaved like young men, attending male dominated sporting events without escorts

social continuity

• 89% of women in Middletown wanted to work but not after they married

• 90% of young women at Vassar women’s college said they felt unprepared for employment - female administrators encouraged education based on motherhood and the home

• president Coolidge did not allow his wife to dance in public, drive, ride a horse, cut her hair

What did the ‘old’ Americans fear about immigration in the 20s?

• they were protestants: feared the increase in Catholic and Jews threatened National Values

• Idea that Russian Jews might bring in Communism and Catholics might bring in a papal despotism - pope dictatorship ( fear helped the revival of the KKK in 1915)

What did social scientists claim about immigration?

• claimed that wartime army intelligence tests proved Southern and Eastern Europeans were less intelligent that Northern and Western Europeans

• contributed to a feeling that ‘inferior’ aliens would damage ‘superior’ american europeans

• coolidge subscribed to these ‘biological laws’ and many americans believed in a racial hierarchy

• immigrants willingness to accept lower pay and work used as strike breakers

Immigration impact on social life

• 1/3 of chicargo’s 2.7 million population was foreign born

• ghettos had more violent crime, drunkenness and sex work than other parts of America

  = Immigrants blamed for urban problems like disease, crime and corrupt political machines

‘I am a good American’

• from 1914, Henry Ford ran a compulsory ‘Americanization’ school for primarily Eastern European immigrant workers

first thing they were taught was to say ‘I am a good American’

would dress up in traditional clothing, walk into ‘melting pot’ then came out wearing American suits and carrying the flag

Increased Opposition to Immigrants after 1917

• WWI intensified nationalism and generated a desire for less contact with Europeans, brief post war economic depression aroused resentment for immigrants as competitors for jobs

• revolutionary risings in European countries would bring in ‘un-American’ ideologies such as anarchism, socialism and communism

  = fear deepened by first generation of immigrant participation in strikes, the Red Scare and the Sacco and Vanzetti case (1920)

Elliot Smith, Democrat Senator from South Carolina in debate on 1924 Quota Act

‘shut up the door and to breed up a pure, unadulterated American citizenship’

‘I recognize there is a dangerous lack of distinction between certain nationality and the breed of the dog’’
‘Thank God we have.. the pure unadulterated Anglo-Saxon stock’

1917 immigration act:

• lists ‘undesirable’ immigrants to be excluded- homosexuals, insane persons, criminals

• imposed literacy test for anyone over 16

1921 Emergency quota act

• restricts yearly number of immigrants from any country to 3% of total number of people from that country living in 1910

1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act

• changes quota system to 2%, taken from 1890 census - tipping in favour of northern europeans

• 1 july 1927, number of immigrants to be fixed at 150 000, based on 1920 census

1929 National Origins formula

• confirms 150 000 limit

• exclusion of asian immigrants altogether

What evidence is there that movies were the most popular form of mass entertainment?

• by 1920, 50 million were going to the movies each year - roughly half the population

• by 1930, was nearly 100 million

How did the genres of movies change?

• in early 20th cent, movies focused on societal problems

• by 1920 the big Hollywood studios such as Fox and Warned Brothers focused on more fantasies and romance, consumerism and social harmony

How did cinema impact society

• change of theme within 1920s cinema appealed to those who sought escape from the recent war, flu pandemic and Red Scare

Celebrity obsession

• Italian immigrant and actor, Rudolph Valentino who achieved fame = reminded americans that the american dream was alive and well