Roaring 20s

Harding and Normalcy 

  • 1920 Election expected Teddy Roosevelt to run, but he died 

  • Warren G. Harding nominated 

  • Not very bright, limited political career, but no real enemies 

  • Only real disturbance ws an illicit affair, but it was kept quiet 

  • Vwed a return to “Normalcy” and older values. A time for healing 


Consumers

  • Henry Ford making cars more affordable 

  • Name brands: Kellogg’s, Kodak, Crisco 

  • Advertising becoming American culture 

  • Sears used a catalog system to expand general merchandise to a mass audience. Cut prices and linked rural America to commercial enterprises 

  • Annual per capita income $277 (highest in world) 


Ford

  • Assembly line allowed for a more efficient process 

  • By 1920 they produced a car a minute 

  • Dropped costs from $850 (1908) to $290 (1924); about $4,000 in todays cost 

  • 1916- 1 million cars 

  • 1920 - 8 million 

  • 1929 - 23 million 

  • Creates the $5 workday, 3x more than competitors 

  • People could earn enough to afford the cars he was selling 


Growing Electricity 

  • 1920 only 35% homes had electricity 

  • By 1930 it was 68% 

  • Also increased indoor plumbing 

  • Growing use of electricity spread to other products 

  • GE created the Toaster 

  • Hoover made a vacuum cleaner



Culture 

  • Motion picture becoming more popular 

  • Averaged 80 million per week, over half the nation’s population 

  • Increasing in length and comfort of theaters 

  • Still affordable for all social classes 

  • Movie popularity 

  • Charlie Chaplin became wildly popular as he helped the rise of the Movie industry 


Taking Flight

  • 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright flew at Kitty Hawk 

  • During WW1 technology advanced 

  • Needed government subsides post war to increase production


Charles Lindberg 

  • First pilot to fly from New York to Paris (3600) miles 

  • Became instant celebrity 

  • Embodies the achievements of America’s industrial age and progress 



Harlem Renaissance 

  • Marcus Garvey formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) 

  • Called for a seperation of white and blacks

  • Claimed they had nothing alike and wanted Blacks to “return to Africa” 

  • Supported amongst those living in slums, but opposed by many other African American leaders 

  • W.E.B DuBois “The most dangerous enemy of the Negro race”


Tin-Pan Alley

  • Section of New York City which saw a growth of popular American music 


New Woman

  • Young Women, bored, promiscuous, ambitious 

  • Smoke, Drank, danced, drove, wore lots of makeup, short skirts 

  • Fum-loving and defiant to traditional norms

  • Still have fewer opportunities and acceptance, but making waves 

  • FLAPPERS!!! (main people of this time)








Social Change

  • Sex: 

  • 1 out of 9 marriages ended in divorce 

  • Family sizes decreasing 

  • Sexual intercourse before marriage was twice as high than Victorian Era babies 

  • Birth Control and Women’s Rights 

  • Margaret Sanger pushed for reform on promoting knowledge and contraceptives 

Urbanization and Immigration

  • More people flocked to cities 

  • More opportunities and the young found more excitement 

  • Post-war immigrants led to a resurgence in immigration restriction 

  • Backed by labor unions as a fear that aliens would be used as strikebreakers 

  • Europe cut down to 600,000 annually 

  • National Origins Quota Act cut that into 150,000


Red Scare and Palmer Raids

  • The Fear of Communism 

  • Post WW1 and successful Bolshevik Revolution 

  • After an anarchist led bombing Attorney General Mitchell Palmer led raids 

  • 4000 suspects rounded up, 600 deported 







Sacco-Vanzetti 

  • LalaNicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti allegedly murdered and robbed 

  • Self professed anarchists and Italian Immigrants 

  • Weak evidence and questions of being framed, found guilty 

  • Appeals process carried on with many people calling for a fair trial 

  • Massachusetts Governor called for a special commision, upheld verdict 

  • Executed on August 23, 1927

Eugenics 

  • The pseudo-science of breeding a superior race 

  • Better genetics would increase better offspring 

  • Leads to sterilization and promotion of ideas of “inferior races” 

  • Notable people believed eugenics would promote a better future, W.E.B DuBois, Margaret Sanger, and Adolf Hitler 


Fundamentalism 

  • Literal truth of the Bible 

  • Political, Social, and Religious 

  • Wanted to eliminate modern ideas that contradicted the Bible 

  • William Jennings Bryan leading figure 

  • “It is better to trust the Rock of Ages than to know the age of rocks.” 

   - Texas Governor “Ma” Ferguson prohibited textbooks from having    Darwinism 





Scopes Monkey Trial 

  • John T. Scopes taught evolution in Tennessee in 1925 

  • Indicated and tried by Special Prosecutor William Jennings Bryan 

  • ACLU brought in Clarence Darrow 

  • Judge refused Darrow’s ability to call in scientific experts, instead put Bryan on the stand 

  • Cross examined Bryan who crumbled under the pressure 

  • Scopes guilty, but generally seen as the case who broke up Fundementalism 

Scandalous Harding 

  • Generally considered most corrupt president in American history 

  • Reality: Bad judge of character 

  • Most public scandal: Teapot Dome 

  • Albert B. Fall (Sec. of Interior) loaned out Federal oil reserves to private businesses in exchange for $400,000 in ‘loans’ 

  • Dies of heart attack