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Chapter 25

The Roaring Twenties

(1919-1929)

Why would people be against alcohol?

• Violence in the family• Crime• Health problems• Financial concerns for families

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II. New Ways of Life - ProhibitionA. Prohibition - ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor

1. Eighteenth Amendment - banned the use of liquor in the U.S.

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Prohibition – A Noble Experiment or a Failure?

2. Evading the law

a) Made their own.

b) smuggled it from Canada & Caribbean.

i. Smugglers hid it in their boots = bootleggers.

c) Speak-easies opened

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3. Organized crime

a. provided liquor for speak-easies

b. Crime = big business.

c. divided up cities -forced speak-easy owners to buy from them.

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4. Repeal - cancellation

a) Prohibition reduced drinking - never stopped it.

b) In 1933 Twenty First Amendment - repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.

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B. New Rights for Women

1. Women Voters

a) League of Women Voters – worked to educate voters, guarantee rights (jury service)

b) Voted like men – not as thought

c) 19th Amendment

2. Equal Rights Amendment – equality not denied based on gender

a. Never ratified

Suffragettes

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1. Changes for Women Workers

a. Worked outside home in jobs of men off at war

b. Poor joined by middle class

c. Life at home changed – appliances, ready-made clothes

i. Second shift at home

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C. Impact of the AutomobileThe invention of the automobile had a great impact on Americans in the 1920’s.

• Car sales grew rapidly during this period.

• Auto industry played a big role in the business boom of the 1920’s.

• Jobs, Steel, rubber, metal, tires, paint, glass, oil, paved roads, built highways, gas stations, garages, car dealers, motels, roadside restaurants, mechanic shops

• Car prices also fell because factories became more efficient.

• Henry Ford – assembly line (14 hours to 93 minutes)

• The cost of the Model T dropped from $850 to $290. Americans do not need to be rich to buy a car.

• Americans traveled to more places thanks to the automobile.

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With the low cost of the Automobile people moved outside of the towns, called suburbs. A suburb is a community located outside the city. With cars people could drive to their job in the city even though it was miles away.

A suburb

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Affordable • Did not need to be rich

to own a car (was $850 dropped to $290).

Economic

• 4 million jobs – steel mills, tires, paint, glass, oil, roads built, gas stations, garages, car dealers, motels, roadside restaurants, mechanic shops

Social

• Suburbs sprang up• No longer had to live in

the city to work in the city

• Women drivers• Brought people closer to

towns

Effect

Car sales grew rapidly

AUTO BOOM

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What, as a country, do we do that is uniquely American?

• Baseball hats• Gum chewing• Jeans• Car size• Food (burgers)

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• With travel easier, people learned more about different parts of the country = national cultural.

• New forms of entertainment also added to a national cultural (more money & time for leisure)

• RADIO• Shows – comedies, westerns

• Classical music, jazz

• News, sports broadcasts

• MOVIES• Millions of Americans went to the movies. The

first movies had no sound and were in black and white. A pianist played music that went with the action (1927 = “Talkies”)

• Westerns, romance, adventure, comedies

• Hollywood movie stars – Charlie Chaplin

New Ways of Life – Creating a Mass Culture