1920s

  1. Consumer Culture Webquest

  • Overconsumption & easily accessible goods bc of installments

  1. Modern vs Traditional Values Stations activity

  • Vulgarity, sexual freedom, party culture & drinking 

  • Christian divide

  • Two division: prohibition (rural) vs libertine (urban)

  • Black people flock to cities & find community to express themselves

  • KKK rises bc/ of ethnics rising 

  1. Ku Klux Klan Presentation

  • Resurged in the 1920s

    • Thomas Dixon’s The Klansman shaped perception of KKK

    • William Simmons revamps the KKK due to Black urban communities (black people were “stealing” jobs and ruining blood purity)

    • Birth of a Nation - movie glorifying the KKK and depicting blacks as vagrants, endorsed by Wilson

    • Pyramid scheme that grossed 6 million members by 1924 

      • Propaganda utilized patriotism, even kids joined

    • Washington march: 40k clansmen in full regalia marched through WDC

    • Did not face legal action for beatings and lynchings because police & judges were likely a part of the KKK

  • The fall:

    • Entrance fee became too expensive after WWI

    • South & North divisions broke apart

    • Leader convicted of rape 

Some Key Names

William Jennings Bryan - Wilson’s ex Secretary of State , & advocated for women’s suffrage, and prohibition

Warren Harding - republican who assumed office after Wilson & as the Red Scare was dying down. The essence of his campaign was returning to “normalcy” after WWI and championed isolationist beliefs. Pro black equality but his anti-lynching Act died in the Senate. 

  • Initially gained popularity due to strong opposition for L.O.N (dem lead)

  •  Lost popularity after his death bc of the Teapot Dome Scandal

    • The Ohio gang: Harding and his unqualified cronies who he appointed as his secretaries. Namely, his secretary Albert B. Fall was exposed for accepting bribes by oil drillers & permitting oil drilling on forbidden land, +300k dirty money

Calvin Coolidge - “silent cal,” 1920s economic boom can be attributed to his laissez-faire & tax cutting (namely inheritence & income) approach. Also approved high tariffs that weakened foreign markets and motivated buying local

  • Left foreign policy decisions to his Secretary of state Kellogg known for the Briand-Kellogg act

Herbert Hoover - won election of 1928 bc/ of the fact he was rep & successful secretary of commerce under Coolidge; people believed Coolidge prosperity would continue under his presidency. 

  • Stark prohibition supporter “a noble experiment” 

  • Modernized the  department of Commerce & seen as an instrument of prosperity

Duke Ellington - musician who revamped  jazz into a respectable art form. Key figure in Harlem renaissance. Defined sound of jazz 

  • Brought jungle sound (exotic jazz) and innovative jazz

Babe Ruth - cultural icon who popularized baseball. Baseball brought Americans together. First sports superstar & made sportswatching an economic powerhouse

Charles Lindbergh - made the first overseas flight. Boom national pride & airplane manufacturing. Embodied 1920s  Adventure 

  • NY to Paris 

  • Lindergh Boom in aviation

  • First “Man of the Year”

Amelia Earhardt - first woman aviator who crossed overseas & inspired women and advocated for womens rights

Langston Hughes - black american poet who wrote about black living “poet of the people.” leading literary figure in the Harlem renaissance & wrote about inequality

Hiram Evans - sold Klan idealism to the  general public through his literary works. Also became national leader of the KKK & brought the Klan into politics. WASP supremacy
JC Leyendecker - added queerness to adverts. Prominent in 1920s gay culture & depicted flamboyant men sharing homoerotic gazes (and got away with it)

Anna May Wong - first asian american (chinese)  movie star who broke the yellowfacing tradition. Challenged racism

Sessue Hayakawa - first big screen s3x symbol; heartthrob; highest paid performer. First asian love interest. Anteceding Sessue, Asian men were emasculinated in media 

  • White women swooned over him 

Al Capone - prominent gangster in Chicago who profited off of bootlegging and other various illegal activities. Had some control over local politics & demonstrated how powerful gangs were in the 1920s. Was only caught for tax evasion and died of syphilis outside of jail. 

Louis Armstrong - relevant jazz figure who sported solo improvisation, scat singings, and broke from traditional jazz. Key artist in Harlem Renaissance

Some Key Terms

Palmer Raids - justice department sets up faction that raided the homes of alleged subversives & charged them with anarchy and arrested / deported thousands of innocent people (mostly born overseas) 

  • Lost favor after May 1 1920, alleged doomsday (socialist holiday) which many thought subversives would bomb and riot everywhere resulted to be a totally normal day 

  • NY fired all elected socialists 

Red Scare - the fear that communism will overthrow democracy in the US. emerged after the Bolshevik rebellion. This fear led to extreme nativism & xenophobia, specifically towards eastern europeans & witch hunts for subversives. Sacco & Venzetti court case and Gitlow V. New York (published red newspaper). 

  • It didn’t help that bombings (in-mail and wall street) were occurring 

  • Bolsheviks succeeded in overthrowng Hungary and attempted to overthrow Germany j  

Jazz - cultural fusion between black & white, influenced party culture and uplifted women & black artists 

Assembly Line - Ford made a new system of manufacturing where every worker did one step and so it drove the price of production down & inventory rose so ordinary citizens could buy cars for cheap 

Laissez-Faire economics - ik this       

Volstead Act - law that enforced the 18th amendment - prohibiton

Tariffs - high tariffs on foreign goods, protectionist, which did help local trade but created problems with foreign trade

  • Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 (Harding) - increased tariffs on agricultural foods which helped farmers post-WWI, hindered global trade

  • Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act in 1922 -  VERY high tariffs on foreign imports, caused complications to foreign nations, and hindered the process of paying back war debts 

Prohibition - outlawed alcohol which skyrocketed alcohol use & benefitted bootlegging gangs because as the demand for alcohol grew, so did the price & profits

Art Deco - leading architectural style of the 1920s, bold geometric shapes & modernism. Good example: chrysler building

18th Amendment - established prohibition

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre - allegedly orchestrated by Al Capone’s gang members (south siders), who dressed up like police officers and shot 7 opposing gang members (Moran’s north siders). While Al Capone was never convicted for this (cold case), it brought national awareness of the horrors gangs caused & built public resent against gangs

Harlem Renaissance - renaissance of black art (jazz, blues, art) which sparked after the great migration & celebrated blackness. Enriched American culture & influenced civil rights movements 

Kellogg-Briand Pact - 15 (60 eventually) countries agree to not use war as a threat to other countries but it was unrealistic to outlaw war. Kellogg - Coolidge sec of state 

Isolationism - everyone was sick of being  

Dawes Plan - granted U.S loans & mercy to germany, to aid Germany to recover economically

Immigration Act of 1924 (National Origins Act) - reduced the  “quota” on how many people from other countries could come into the U.S 

  • Reduced the quota from %3 to %2

  • Prohibited Japanese entry entirely 

  • Influenced by the red scare