APUSH Chapter 30: American Life in the Roaring Twenties (American Pageant)

The Roaring Twenties

• Lots of disillusionment regarding the US involvement in WW1; will maintain an isolationist foreign policy and financial policies which will allow for greater domestic economic prosperity
• Red Scare (1919 -1920): started after a small Communist party is started in the US following the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) in Russia, where the Communist Bolsheviks overthrow the govt. Domestically, many labor strikes break out; govt suspects Communist influence in the US
• Palmer raids: lead by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, arrested thousands and many immigrants who were suspected to be Communist were deported — increased nativism
• criminal syndicalism laws: made it illegal to even suggest using violence to encourage societal improvements —there's a direct violation of 1st amendment rights in order to ‘protect’ against Communists
• American Plan: said all_businesses should be ‘open shop’, meaning not all employees are in the labor union (as opposed to a closed shop, where ALL employees are in the union). Closed shops are called ‘Sovietism in disguise’ → shows how conservative businessmen took advantage of the situation to further dismantle the power of labor unions.
• Sacco and Vanzetti Case: two Italian immigrants are convicted of murder; considered radicals because they're atheist, anarchists and from Southern Europe — jury gives them a harsh death sentence where they're electrocuted. Shows how increased nativism was avenged through brutality.
• The Red Scare will make a resurgence in the 1940s and 1950s

Controversy

• KKK: as they expanded into the Midwest, the scope of their hatred also spread to become nativist, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist — believed the ‘native’ Anglo-Saxon must be pure and preserved.

  • However, because they juxtaposed the increasingly diversifying and modernizing America, they soon collapsed.

• Immigrant Act of 1924: tried to limit the number of southern/eastern European immigrants, who were suspected of being Communist, to 2%. Also discriminated against the Japanese, which led to many revolts → immigration drops sharply, America loses some ethnic diversity (nativist goal).

• However, labor unions are now able to better organize against employers

• 18th Amendment: enacted the prohibition of alcohol, with the Volstead Act to help enforce it — leads to bootleg alcohol sold in big cities and widespread corruption to bypass the law.

• Immigrants were especially opposed to it because alcohol allowed for social gathering which would allow them to better adapt to American life — bootleggers made lots of money

• Although it decreased drinking, the cons outweigh the pros and it was repealed due to public disapproval and not enough officers to enforce it.

• Racketeers: gangsters that made illegal profits through fraud, bootlegging, gambling, violence, etc. Honest merchants often had to pay them protection money to that their shops wouldn’t be damanged by the racketeers

A New Culture

• Fundamentalism: belief that every word of the Bible should be considered literally true. Fundamentalists despised Darwin's new evolutionary theory because it contradicted the Bible, which they believed would destroy public faith in God.
• A deeply religious group of Southern states, called the Bible Belt, even banned schools from teaching students about evolution
• Scopes Monkey Trial (1925): John Scopes, a teacher in one of the Bible Belt states, is Sued for teaching his students about evolution → prosecuted by religious Fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan (remember from Cross of Gold Speech?). Scopes is fined but is ultimately let off on a technicality → shows how traditionalist values amidst the modernizing American society will create lasting cultural conflicts.
• Thanks to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s lenient tax policies that encouraged rapid expansion and capital investment, a mass consumption economy was born.
• The tremendous economic prosperity and new system of buying things on credit allowed people to buy new inventions like the car and radio.

The Mass Consumption Economy

Automobile Industry

• Principles of Scientific Management by Patrick Taylor (Fordism): methods that allowed for greater efficiency in work and overall mass production — inspired Henry Ford to perfect the assembly line, which allowed him to create cars at a middle-class price point.

• Cars are no longer just for the wealthy — revolutionizes American life by allowing people to travel farther; seen as a badge of freedom that gives people more leisure time. Driving also serves as a way for women to gain more social independence

• Necessitated the growth of new industries like steel, rubber, gas, and highway building — the public is no longer dependent the railroad for long-distance travel, which leads to a decline in the industry.

  • Negatives: people die from car accidents, gangs use cars to escape the police, pollution

• Airplane allows Charles Lindbergh become the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic (NY — Paris) in 1903 — this accomplishment popularized the still-new aviation industry (significant because planes would later be used to drop bombs during World War 2).

• Radio is first used to announce the results of the Election of 1920, when Warren Harding wins — united the nation by providing shared experiences and helped educate the American public by keeping them updated on the news

Movies:

• The Jazz Singer (1927): first movie, or ‘talkie’, that wasn't a silent film (but it had blackface).
• The Birth of a Nation: pro-KKK movie that glorified Reconstruction by making Northern carpetbaggers and blacks seem like villains — film led to many protests.
  • Overall, movies (called nickelodeons) helped immigrants assimilate into American society by depicting social norms and provided common ground for Americans to unite behind during these divisive times.
• The changing role of women:
  • Now that most Americans lived in the city, it was commonplace for women to balance a working life and taking care of the home.
  • Margaret Sanger advocated for making birth control more accessible to allow women to explore options outside of motherhood seemed radical, but kickstarted the sexual/moral revolution of giving women greater control over their bodies, no longer limited by being the nation;s face of morality.
• Flappers: young female dancers who wore short dresses and often smoked → shows how long women are no longer being modest of society’s sake (promiscuousness is symbolic of their freedom). However, many people were shocked by their ‘unladylike’ actions.
• Jazz Age: as African Americans migrated North following WW1, they brought jazz music with them; unfortunately, many white bands stole their music and made most of the profits → overall, this is the first, original version of American music.

Black Culture

• Harlem Renaissance: name for the strong black community that developed during the Jazz Age migration, specifically in Harlem, NYC. Sustained a creative culture that cultivated notable artists and poets like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay — overall, leads to “New Negro” pride
• UNIA (United Negro Improvement Association): this was created by the Jamaican politician Marcus Garvey, who believed “black dollars should stay in black pockets” and that blacks should resettle in the ‘African homeland’ — separatism is still considered an option for achieving racial equality.
• Modernism: concept was pioneered by an ethnically and regionally diverse group of writers and artists; modernism questioned social norms and traditional authorities (like the govt) — they looked for new moral codes and understanding about the world during this modernizing era
• Lost Generation: group of writers, like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and painters who criticized different aspects of the decade, like materialism.
  • Materialism and buying on credit leads to economic downfalls throughout the early 1920s, where hundreds of banks would close annually — all leads up to the greatest downturn during the Great Depression.
  • worsened by Sec. of Treasury Andrew Mellon’s lenient tax policies + reductions for the rich → people have to spend, further inflating the market.