Chapter 22: Beginning of Modern America: The 1920s

Teapot Dome Scandal

Major scandal in the administration of President Warren Harding

Red Scare

After World War I, the fear of the spread of communism in the United States

Palmer Raids

as part of the Red Scare, in these 1919 to 1920 raids thousands of Americans not born in the United States were arrested, and hundreds were sent back to their countries of origin

National Origins Act (1924)

Anti-immigration federal legislation that took the number of immigrants from each country in 1890 and stated that immigration from those countries could now be no more than 2 percent of that

Scopes Trial (1925)

Trial of teacher John Scopes of Dayton, Tennessee, for the teaching of evolution

Jazz Age

Image of the 1920s that emphasized the more relaxed social attitudes of the decade

Flapper

"New woman" of the 1920s, who was pictured as having bobbed hair, a shorter skirt, makeup, a cigarette in her hand, and somewhat liberated sexual attitudes

"Lost Generation"

Group of post-World War I writers who in their works expressed deep dissatisfaction with mainstream American culture

Harlem Renaissance

1920s black literary and cultural movement that produced many works depicting the role of blacks in contemporary American society

1917

Race riots in East St. Louis, Missouri

1918

Armistice ending World War I

1919

Race riots in Chicago

1920

Warren Harding elected president

1921

Immigration Quota Law passed

1922

Fordney-McCumber Tariff enacted

1923

Teapot Dome scandal

1924

Election of Calvin Coolidge

1925

Publication of The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton

1926

Publication of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

1927

The Jazz Singer, first movie with sound, released

1928

Election of Herbert Hoover

1929

Nearly 30 million Americans have cars

1919

Major strikes in Seattle and Boston

1919

Palmer Raids

1920

First broadcast of radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh

1920

Publication of Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

1920

Arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti

1920

Prohibition takes effect

1921

Disarmament conference held

1922

Publication of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

1923

Death of Harding; Calvin Coolidge becomes president

1923

Duke Ellington first performs in New York City

1924

Immigration Quota Law enacted

1924

Ku Klux Klan reaches highest membership in history

1924

Women governors elected in Wyoming and Texas

1925

Publication of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1925

Scopes Trial held in Dayton, Tennessee

1927

Charles Lindbergh makes New York to Paris flight

1927

Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti

1927

15 millionth car produced by Ford Motor Company

1927

$1.5 billion spent on advertising in United States

1927

Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs

1929

Stock market crash

scientific management

American industrialists adopted Frederick W. Taylor's "____________." Production efficiencies reduced consumer goods prices.

installment plan

A marketing innovation that allowed consumers to buy goods over 36 to 48 monthly payments, made luxuries affordable.

Republican

Even the Supreme Court was headed by a _________, Chief Justice William Howard Taft, who had served as president from 1909–1913.

New Era

The Republicans of the “________” believed in limited government and supported free enterprise.

national radio system

Herbert Hoover's creative statesmanship as secretary of commerce under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge helped organize a _________ and encouraged industries to standardize parts and procedures.

**social experiments**

Wilsonian idealism and Progressivism's "**__________**" were repudiated by Harding's victory. The economy was Harding's first priority.

Charles Dawes

Harding named ___________ as the Bureau of the Budget's first director to help Congress better manage government revenues and expenditures.

**Charles Evans Hughes**

For his cabinet, Harding wanted the "best minds." Secretary of state was former Supreme Court Justice and presidential candidate **____________**.

1921 Washington Conference

Washington hosted military and diplomatic representatives from Great Britain, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and China.

**Five Power Agreement**

The **________________** between the US, UK, Japan, France, and Italy set ratios for their navies. The invited powers recognized Chinese sovereignty and supported the **Open Door** in China.

**1924 Dawes Plan**

American diplomacy's **_____________** was another success. German reparations were reduced by Charles Dawes.

Andrew Mellon

Harding appointed _________ secretary of the treasury.

**1922 Fordney-McCumber Tariff**

High tariffs were also Mellon's goal. Manufacturing tariffs increased with the ________________.

Espionage and Sedition Act

During World War I, he freed Eugene Debs and other political dissidents imprisoned by the Wilson administration for ____________ violations.

Charles Forbes

He misappropriated $250 million as Veterans' Bureau director.

Attorney General Harry Daugherty

A hung jury acquitted ______________, Harding's former campaign manager, of taking bribes from bootleggers and others seeking government favors.

Teapot Dome Scandal

The ___________ was the Harding administration's most notorious misdeed.

Albert Fall

A respected New Mexico senator, became Harding's secretary of the interior. In exchange for bribes, he leased the federal oil reserve in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and other oil lands to private companies.

August 2, 1923

Harding’s Death

Calvin Coolidge

Harding was succeeded by Vice President ____________. The new president had simple tastes and was from New England.

**Revenue Act of 1926**

This Act, which reduced taxes, was passed by Coolidge and Mellon. The president was willing to take unpopular stands for his beliefs.

American individualism

Hoover championed "_____________" and the Republican economic record during the 1928 election.

**Al Smith**

In 1928, **He** was nominated by Northerners. A product of Tammany Hall, embodied America's bustling metropolis.

Marcus Garvey

He founded Universal Negro Improvement Association

Ku Klux Klan

By 1925, the _________ had over 5 million members, inspired by The Birth of a Nation and modern marketing.

**Emergency Quota Act of 1921**

This limited immigration to 3% of a nationality's 1910 US population. Quotas reduced Southern and Eastern European immigration.

National Origins Act

This halted mass immigration to the US for over 40 years.

Alcohol

This was the devil's "instrument," and cities were his playground.

Bathtub gin

It was bad liquor sold in speakeasies. Bootleggers supplied better liquor to meet demand.

**Monkey Trial**

The **"___________" Scopes Trial** garnered national attention. Scopes' famous defense attorney was **Clarence Darrow**.

New Era business culture

It encouraged wealth and showed that anyone could become a millionaire with smarts and hard work. The media inflated a Florida real estate bubble that burst, causing many investors to lose money.

the devil's music

Like rock and roll 30 years later, jazz became more popular as traditionalists called it "_________."

National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

In 1926, __________ founded the first radio network. By the end of the decade, listeners nationwide had a variety of news, entertainment, and sports programming.

*The Man Nobody Knows* (1925)

Here Barton imagined Jesus Christ as a dynamic businessman whose leadership and promotion skills allowed Him to build the most successful organization in history.

*Lost Generation*

Many of these writers were shaped by World War I's disorientation.

Sinclair Lewis

He became famous and wealthy by criticizing middle America's materialism and cultural philistinism.

Main Street (1920)

Babbit (1922)

Works by Lewis that satirized small-town life and inhabitants.

*Winesburg, Ohio (1919)*

Work by Sherwood Anderson that depicted desperate people in a remote Midwestern community.

*The Great Gatsby (1925)*

Work by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he brilliantly depicted the spiritual emptiness of upper-class New Yorkers living a life of decadent self-indulgence.

*The Sun Also Rises* (1926)

ritten by Ernest Hemingway, he depicted expatriate writers and artists traveling between France and Spain.

*Farewell to Arms* (1929)

In *this book,* a character rejects the war's false idealism and brutal hypocrisy and tries to escape with the woman he loves.

Mencken

A brilliant writer with a taste for invective, called ordinary Americans the "ignorant mob" and the "booboisie."

Harlem Renaissance

___________ artists looked to African American folk art and Negro spirituals for authentic black expression.

Langston Hughes

Zora Neale Hurston

The Harlem Renaissance poet ____________ and novelist ________ were prominent.

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington

Musicians like __________ reached mainstream audiences through club performances and recordings.