History of The New Era: The American 1920s

The Post-War Climate (1919–1920): Following World War I, the United States faced significant turmoil, including the loss of over $115,000$ soldiers and the deaths of nearly $700,000$ Americans during the flu epidemic, which affected approximately $20\,\%$ of the population. The era was marked by labor strikes, racial violence, and the "Red Scare" following the Bolshevik Revolution.
Economic Instability: Immediately after the war, wartime controls were removed, leading to a tanked economy with national unemployment reaching $20\,\%$ . Farmers faced astronomical bankruptcy rates.
Warren G. Harding’s "Normalcy": Inaugurated in $1921$ , Harding promised a “return to normalcy,” defining the nation's need as “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.”

Harding’s Administration: Harding sought stability through high protective tariffs and the dismantling of wartime industrial controls. His presidency was notoriously corrupt, largely due to his "Ohio Gang" appointees.
Teapot Dome Scandal: Interior Secretary Albert Fall and Navy Secretary Edwin Denby were convicted for conspiring to lease government land in Wyoming to oil companies in exchange for cash.
Calvin Coolidge’s Presidency: Ascending after Harding’s death in August $1923$ , Coolidge famously stated, “The chief business of the American people is business.” He championed “active inactivity,” lowering taxes on the wealthy from $66\,\%$ to $20\,\%$ .
Herbert Hoover and the Election of 1928: Republican Herbert Hoover, a self-made millionaire and humanitarian, defeated Democrat Alfred E. Smith. The election was heavily influenced by Smith’s Catholicism and opposition to Prohibition. Hoover won in a landslide, even gaining ground in previously solid Democratic southern states.

The Consumer Revolution: Innovations in energy and manufacturing led to a flood of products like ready-to-wear clothing and household appliances. Marketing expert Christine Frederick highlighted this in her $1929$ monograph Selling Mrs. Consumer, noting that women accounted for $90\,\%$ of household expenditures.
The Department Store: Emporiums like Marshall Field \& Co. in Chicago transformed shopping into a “joy,” offering services such as restaurants and babysitting alongside a vast array of goods.
Credit and the Automobile: Easy access to credit fueled spending. By $1927$ , over $60\,\%$ of cars were bought on credit. Henry Ford’s assembly line produced a Model-T every $10$ seconds by $1925$ . By the end of the decade, nearly $27,000,000$ cars were registered in the U.S., accounting for $80\,\%$ of the world's automobiles.

Film Industry: Hollywood was largely shaped by Jewish immigrants like the Warner brothers, who founded Warner Bros., and executives at Universal, Paramount, and MGM. Weekly movie attendance grew from $16,000,000$ in $1912$ to $40,000,000$ by the early $1920s$ . The Jazz Singer ( $1927$ ) introduced synchronized sound.
Radio: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless message in $1901$ , and by $1930$ , nearly half of American homes had a radio. Networks like NBC and CBS spread popular culture via sponsored programs (e.g., “soap operas”).
Music and Jazz: Originating in New Orleans, Jazz became a national sensation. Despite being ridiculed by the New York Times as “savage,” it represented cultural independence for African Americans and captured the spirit of the decade.
Sports Heroes: Radio broadcasts popularized professional sports. Key figures included heavy-weight champion Jack Dempsey, football star Red Grange (“The Galloping Ghost”), and baseball legend Babe Ruth, whose $54$ home runs in $1920$ helped the sport recover from the Black Sox Scandal.
Charles Lindbergh: In May $1927$ , Lindbergh completed the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris in $33$ hours, becoming a national hero who restored faith in individual effort and technology.

The Flapper Image: Characterized by bobbed hair, short skirts, makeup, and smoking, flappers rejected Victorian modesty for individual pleasure in urban spaces like speakeasies.
Gender Contradictions: While the $19th$ Amendment ( $1920$ ) granted the vote, only $10\,\%$ of married women worked outside the home. Women entered “feminized” professions like nursing and teaching or lower-level clerical work, facing a clear “glass ceiling.”
Activism: The National Woman’s Party, led by Alice Paul, introduced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which sought to eliminate legal distinctions based on sex but was defeated in Congress.

The Great Migration: Massive African American migration to northern cities like New York, where Harlem’s population grew by $257\,\%$ between $1910$ and $1930$ . Harlem became the “culture capital.”
Literary and Artistic Movement: Alain Locke’s The New Negro ( $1925$ ) proclaimed a “spiritual emancipation.” Writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay explored racial pride and countered stereotypes.
Garveyism: Marcus Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the world’s largest black nationalist organization. He promoted Pan-Africanism, economic independence, and a “Back to Africa” movement via the Black Star Line before being deported for mail fraud in $1927$ .

Nativism and Restricted Immigration: The Sacco and Vanzetti trial ( $1927$ ) highlighted fears of foreign radicals. The Emergency Immigration Act ( $1921$ ) and National Origins Act ( $1924$ ) established permanent country-of-origin quotas at $2\,\%$ of the $1890$ population, effectively excluding Asians and limiting southern/eastern Europeans.
Protestant Fundamentalism: Emerging from the collection of essays titled The Fundamentals, this movement championed biblical inerrancy against the metaphorical interpretations of “Modernists.”
The Scopes Trial (1925): John T. Scopes was tried for teaching evolution in Tennessee, violating the Butler Act. The “trial of the century” featured Clarence Darrow defending Scopes against William Jennings Bryan, who defended biblical literalism. Though Scopes was found guilty, the trial was widely seen as a public relations defeat for fundamentalists.

Expansion: The "second" KKK was organized by William Joseph Simmons in $1915$ , inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation. By the mid- $1920s$ , membership reached approximately $5,000,000$ .
Demographics: Unlike the original Klan, this version was a national, largely middle-class movement targeting Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and radicals alongside African Americans. It held significant political power in states like Indiana, Texas, and Oregon.
Violence and Decline: The Klan engaged in “nightriding” and lynching, such as the Lowman family lynching in $1926$ . By $1930$ , the organization dwindled to roughly $30,000$ members due to scandals and internal strife.

Economic Weaknesses: Despite the decade’s “glitz,” the economy relied on dangerous levels of credit, suffered from wealth inequality, and faced a construction bubble. For many, including minorities and farmers, prosperity was a fiction, and the looming Great Depression signaled the end of the Roaring Twenties.