Political Reaction in the Jazz Age (1920s)

Overview of the 1920s Political Climate

  • Cultural nickname: “Jazz Age,” “Roaring Twenties” → images of flappers, speakeasies, Charleston, jazz, parties
  • Political reality: sharp conservatism led by rural & small-town voters
    • Core goals: defend traditional Protestant Christian morality + promote laissez-faire, pro-business government
    • Rural/small-town bloc fears big-city “wacky” modernism
  • Party dominance: Republicans control presidency & Congress all decade
  • Key demographic facts (1920 census)
    • >50\% of Americans labeled “urban” (any settlement >2{,}500 people)
    • In practice: many “urbanites” still in towns <10{,}000
    • ≈33%\approx33\% of population still farmers (vs <2\% today)
    • Rural + small-town coalition = GOP outside South, conservative Democrats in South

Republican Administrations & “Business of America”

  • Warren G. Harding (elected 1920)

    • Campaign slogan: “Return to Normalcy”
    • Elected as controllable, low-key alternative to TR/Wilson; wins huge anti-change mandate
    • Presidency 1921–23 → dies of food poisoning on Alaska cruise (possible poison rumors)
    • Personal hypocrisy: drank & hosted wet poker nights while enforcing Prohibition
    • Cabinet corruption surfaces post-death ➔ public shrugs (prosperity > outrage)
    • Teapot Dome Scandal
      • Naval oil reserves (e.g., Teapot Dome, WY) leased to private firms
      • Interior Secretary takes hefty bribes; imprisoned
    • Veterans’ Bureau head steals millionsmillions meant for WWI vets’ health care
    • Justice Dept. officials bribed to ignore crimes (esp. liquor)

  • Calvin Coolidge (1923–29)

    • Background: shy Vermont, straight-laced Protestant → image of small-town virtue
    • Policies
    • Slashes wartime taxes; shrinks federal budget
    • Deregulates—dismantles many TR/Wilson regulatory boards
    • Pro-business creed: “The chief business of the American people is business.”
    • Religion-profit linkage → quote: “The man who builds a factory builds a temple …” ⇒ early prosperity-gospel vibe
    • Media performance as “Silent Cal”
    • Deliberately cultivates taciturn persona (gardening in suit, two-word anecdotes)
    • Reality: delivers 1616 nationwide radio addresses & weekly pressers ➔ uses new medium effectively
    • Self-aware: “To appear really natural, one must be actually artificial.”
    • Photo-ops: e.g., three-piece suit + Lakota headdress
    • Popular ad slogan: “Keep Cool with Coolidge” (Farrell’s Ice Cream tie-in) showing politics–business merger
    • Bestseller of decade: Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows (\approx7,000,0007{,}000,000 copies) → casts Jesus as model CEO, reinforces business-Christian fusion

Prohibition (1919–1933)

  • 18th Amendment & Volstead Act: complete ban on production/sale of alcohol
  • Drivers
    • Rural Protestants link liquor to immigrants, vice, crime
    • WWI anti-German sentiment (breweries)
    • Idealistic promise: sobriety ⇒ health, thrift, higher productivity
  • Outcomes
    • Average booze prices ↑ 500%500\%
    • National alcohol consumption ↓ ≈50%\approx50\%
    • Geographic gap: scarce in interior; coastal/Gulf/Canadian-border smuggling thrives
    • Organized crime boom: rum-runners, speakeasies, Al Capone’s Chicago empire
    • Law-abiding Americans forced to violate law ⇒ “nation of lawbreakers”
    • Enthusiastic backers: KKK, rural Protestants

Ku Klux Klan Revival (Second Klan)

  • Re-founded 1915 after film Birth of a Nation
  • Explodes when Dallas promoter uses modern marketing (1920: 5,0005{,}000 → 1925: 5,000,0005,000,000 members)
  • Not secret: parades, sheet-music (“We Are All Loyal Klansmen”), mass rallies, women’s auxiliary
  • Ideology broadened
    • Anti-Black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant, pro-Prohibition, “100 % Americanism”
  • Political clout
    • Controls Indiana GOP (“Klan-opolis” Indianapolis); strong in OR, WA, TX, CA (LA mayor a Klansman)
  • Decline late 1920s
    • Leader scandals: Indiana Grand Dragon kidnaps & rapes woman; national head pockets robe/dues profits
    • Success of core goals (Prohibition, Immigration Act) removes rallying causes

Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson–Reed Act)

  • Transforms inflow from flood →\rightarrow trickle
    • Pre-WWI average: ≈1,000,000\approx1,000,000/yr
    • Post-act quota: <100,000/yr
  • Quota formula: favors NW Europe, discriminates S/E Europe & bans Asia
    • Sample annual limits: Britain 80,00080{,}000; Germany 4,0004{,}000; Italy 2,0002{,}000; Russia 500500
    • Asia: total exclusion; Africa: token (e.g., Liberia 1.51.5 immigrants/yr!)
    • Western Hemisphere (Canada, Mexico) exempt → preserves ranch labor supply; inflow from Mexico small (\approx10,00010,000/yr)
  • Long-term effect (law stays until 1965)
    • Foreign-born share: 15%15\% (1920) → 5%5\% (1965)
    • Marks end of effectively “open borders” era for Europe

Fundamentalism vs. Modernism: The Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925)

  • Modernist fear: science contradicts literal Bible (esp. evolution)
  • Multiple state bans (OK, TX unenforced; TN enforced strictly)
  • Dayton, TN civic scheme: stage a test case for publicity
    • Football coach John Scopes teaches Darwin → arrested
  • Legal cast
    • Defense: Clarence Darrow (celebrity atheist attorney)
    • Prosecution helper: William Jennings Bryan (3-time populist presidential nominee, devout evangelical)
  • Media circus: national press + radio portray “Darwin vs. Bible”
  • Courtroom drama
    • Darrow calls Bryan as expert on Scripture → exposes literalist contradictions → Bryan humiliated
    • Scopes convicted (token $100\$100 fine) → overturned on technicality
  • Aftermath
    • Bryan dies of heart attack 1 week later
    • Evangelicals politically embarrassed; evolution bans fade in enforcement for decades

Mass-Media & Cultural Innovations

Radio Revolution
  • First commercial station: KDKA Pittsburgh, 1920
  • By decade’s end: majority of homes own receivers
  • Programming staples
    • News bulletins → instant national awareness
    • Live sports: college football, MLB, boxing
    • Music
    • Record companies forbid disc play → stations hire in-house bands or remote-broadcast operas/symphonies
    • Boosts popularity of classical genres; encourages formation of high-school orchestras & marching bands
    • Religious broadcasting → preachers seize airwaves
Evangelical Radio Stars
  • Amy Semple McPherson
    • Canadian-born Pentecostal evangelist; builds Angelus Temple, Los Angeles
    • Charismatic, photogenic costumes; dynamic radio sermons
    • Tabloid fodder: divorce, mysterious Mexico disappearance (claimed kidnapping vs. affair)
    • Illustrates merger of faith, celebrity, and new media
  • Southern California emerges as dual hub: entertainment + evangelical innovation
The Great Migration & Harlem Renaissance
  • Migration dynamics
    • Push: Jim Crow, sharecropping poverty, lynching; Pull: factory wages, voting, better Northern schools
    • 1920s launch sustained wave; 1900: 90%90\% of Black Americans South → 1960: <50\%
    • Black demographic shifts from most rural (1900) to most urban (1970)
  • Cultural flowering in Harlem, NYC
    • Concentration of writers, poets, intellectuals, painters, musicians
    • Publication & recording infrastructure amplifies Black voices → “Harlem Renaissance”
  • Jazz & segregated nightlife
    • Prohibition speakeasies & mob-run clubs showcase jazz
    • Cotton Club (Central Harlem)
    • Theme: plantation décor; Black musicians/dancers perform exclusively for White patrons
    • Band leader 1927: Duke Ellington (recruited from Philadelphia after mob “negotiations”)
    • Record industry still white-dominated; genuine jazz improvisation often diluted in early discs

1928 Presidential Election: City vs. Country Showdown

  • Republican Herbert Hoover
    • Engineer, humanitarian, pro-business, favored by booming economy
  • Democrat Al Smith
    • 1st Catholic major-party nominee; born in NYC’s immigrant slums; trademark Brown Derby & cigar
    • Positions: anti-Prohibition (“wet”), fiscally conservative like Hoover
    • Rural backlash: anti-Catholic sentiment (KKK cross-burnings along campaign train in OK); distrust of big-city accent/culture
  • Outcome: Hoover landslide larger than typical economic fundamentals predicted — culture > economics

Key Takeaways & Connections

  • 1920s politics = reactionary conservatism amid dazzling cultural modernism
  • Republican laissez-faire + rural Protestant activism shape federal & state policy (tax cuts, deregulation, Prohibition, anti-evolution laws)
  • Mass media (radio, film) magnify both modernist culture (jazz, celebrity preachers) and fundamentalist messages
  • Legislative landmarks (Immigration Act 1924) cement demographic and cultural barriers for four decades
  • Social conflicts (Scopes, KKK marches, 1928 election) foreshadow long-term “culture wars” between urban pluralism and rural traditionalism