The Roaring 20’s

The Roaring 20’s

The Roaring 20’s

Economy 1919-1920

• BRIEF economic recession– Reduced demand after war– Soldiers return & want jobs

• Resulting labor unhappiness– 4,000 strikes in 1919– Almost 4,000,000 go on strike

• Good times Return by 1921

The 1920’s Economy

• Output rises by 60%• Per capita (per person) income rises by 1/3• Unemployment is fairly low

– Always less than 5%

• Inflation (prices) is minimal• Stock value increases 4x, 1921-1927• Auto production triples; construction, too

Weaknesses in 1920’s Economy

• Farm Crisis– 500,000 farms go bankrupt– Farmers earn 25% of average– Declining prices & profits

• McNary-Haugen Bill– Would have used government subsidies to

guarantee a minimum price for crops– Vetoed by President Coolidge

Weaknesses in 1920’s Economy

• Farm Crisis• Mining Industry• Growing rich/poor income gap• 2/3 of population at “minimum comfort level”

– ½ at “subsistence or poverty level”

• Average income 80% of “minimally decent standard of living”

• Purchasing power declines by 1927

The Red Scare

• Widespread fear of Communism & Radicals

• Causes:– Reaction to strikes of 1919– Success of Soviet Union (Russia)– Series of bombings in 1919

• Radicals & Suspected radicals arrested & harassed

The Palmer Raids, Nov. 1919

• Mass arrest of 10,000 suspected radicals

• Supposed mass conspiracy• Only a few pistols & some

pamphlets found• 247 deported

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

Sacco & Vanzetti

• Two men accused of a 1920 murder

• Little convincing evidence ever presented

• Both were executed

Sacco and Vanzetti Were…

• Italian immigrants• Open anarchists

•Probably victimsOf the “Red Scare”

Bias in Sacco & Vanzetti Case?

• "We must protect ourselves against them, there areso many reds in the country."

--Judge Thayer (left) The Jury Foreman was said to have remarked, "Damn them, they ought to hang them anyway."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

• Founded in 1920• Organization of lawyers• Goal was to protect constitutional rights

– Free speech– Freedom of (and from) religion

Labor Unions in 1920’s

• Significant decline in numbers & power• 5 million members in 1920; 3 million in 1929

– Strongly anti-union Republicans in power• Strike breaking & anti-union laws

– Reaction to the Red Scare– Businesses busted unions

• The “American Plan”

A. Philip Randolph, 1889-1979

• Formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union in 1925 – An almost entirely black

union– One union that actually

grew in the 1920’s

• Lifelong unionist & civil rights activists

The 1920’s

• Technology & Science– Radio, planes, cars,

skyskrapers, modern war

• Booming economy• “Flappers” the modern

woman• Jazz Music• Great Migration• International outlook

• Radicalism

• Fundamentalism– Creationism & Scopes trial

• Farm poverty & income gap• Conservative politics

• Racism & KKK• Red Scare• Isolationism– Attempt to withdraw from world

• Prohibition

Modern / Action Tradition/Reaction

Progressive Reforms

• Opposite approach of Jane Adams & Settlement Houses

• Goal was to end immigration– “watering down” of culture– Led to slums & crime– Took jobs from “natives”

• Dillingham Report (1915)– Senate report recommending limiting

immigration by nationality– Suggests non-Anglos are less able to assimilate

Anti-Immigration

Anti-Immigrant Movement

• Fears that immigrants were “taking over”• Belief in “eugenics”

– Non-science that said some races were inferior

• Fear of “radical” foreign ideas– Communism– Anarchism

• Red Scare/Palmer Raids/Sacco & Vanzetti

Eugenics

• A pseudo-science of using controlled breeding to create a superior race

• Madison Grant’s “The Passing of the Great Race” (1915)

Madison Grant

Immigration Laws

• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882• Otherwise, no real restrictions until• Immigration Acts of 1921 & 1924

– Limited number of newcomers– Used a “quota system”

• Limited number by nationality• Especially limited “undesirable” immigrants

Immigration Laws

• Immigration Law of 1921– Each nationality limited to 3% of its US

population as of 1910

• Immigration Law of 1924– Even stricter– Each nationality limited to 2% of its US

population as of 1890• Fewer overall & fewer new immigrants

– Law existed until 1964

Immigration by Nationality after 1924

• Germany—51,000 per year• England—35,000 per year• Italy—3,500 per year• Russia—2,200 per year• Yugoslavia—671 per year• Greece—100 per year• Japan—100 per year

Prohibition

• The attempt to ban alcohol• Reasons why:

– Health (physical & mental)– Morality– Crime– Corruption– Women’s safety– Racial & ethnic considerations

• Many new immigrants gathered at the bars

Prohibition

• 18th Amendment (1920)– Banned all alcohol sales & use in US

• Volstead Act (1920)– Enforced the amendment– Created funding for law enforcement

Effects of Prohibition

• Positive– It did seem to cut use somewhat

• NEGATIVE– Drinking never stopped– Organized crime grew to provide alcohol

• Al Capone, as example

– Led to corruption of law enforcement

• Overall a miserable failure• Overturned by 21st Amendment in 1933

Prohibition Vocabulary

Flapper– the Gangster-- Speakeasy “modern party girl” organized crime illegal bars

“bootlegger” during prohibition

Al Capone

Race in the 1920’s

The Great Migration

• Southern blacks moving North• Begins during WW I• Continues afterwards

– Chicago– Detroit– Cleveland– HARLEM (part of New York)

Cab Calloway Zora Neale Hurston

Duke Ellington Langston Hughes

The “Harlem Renaissance”

• Community of African-American writers, poets, jazz musicians, singers, artists, etc.

• Harlem is the northern end of New York City

• A direct result of the Great Migration– 1st time many blacks had the freedom &

resources to focus on art, music, writing

Langston Hughes’ “Montage of a Dream Deferred”

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it just explode?

Civil Rights in the Early 1900’s• One issue that progressives rarely touched

Conditions for African-Americans:• Political: Disenfranchisement

– poll taxes, literacy tests, violence, etc.

• Economic: Desperate poverty– Most were sharecroppers or low paid workers

• Social: Continued segregation– Jim Crow laws in force in the South

• 90% of all blacks still lived in the South

Ida B. Wells

• Activist for racial justice and women’s suffrage

• Known mostly for her crusade against lynching– Between 50 & 100 known

lynchings a year in early 1900’s

Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois

Washington DuBois

Washington vs. DuBois

• Raised in slavery• Argued that blacks must

accept their bottom position• Focus on economic

improvement• Gradual steps to equality• “cast down our buckets

where they are”• Founded The Tuskegee

Institute• Considered by whites to be

the voice of blacks

• Raised free & middle class• First black PhD from

Harvard• Demanded immediate and

total social and political equality

• Co-founder of the NAACP• The “talented tenth”

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey

• Formed the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

• Taught that blacks must separate from whites– “go back to Africa”

• Eventually jailed for tax evasion & deported• Influenced later leaders like Malcolm X

Racist Backlash Against the Great Migration

The Second Ku Klux Klan

• Reformed in 1915• 4,000,000 members by 1920’s• Not just in South• Not just anti-black

– Anti-Jewish & anti-Catholic– Anti-Mexican & anti-immigrant– Anti-radical

• Anti-anything that isn’t domination by white protestant males

KKK Influence in 1920’s

• Totally controlled government of Indiana• 1924 Democratic Convention

– Proposal to formally condemn the KKK is VOTED DOWN

– Strongest power in the Democratic Party

40,000 “person” KKK March on Washington, 1925

“Birth of a Nation”

• 1915 epic film that glorified the Klan

• Partly responsible for rebirth of KKK

VOCABULARY

The belief that all in society must be based

upon a literal interpretation of the Bible (or

other religious doctrine)

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalist Movement in 1920’s

• To be seen as a REACTION to– The War– The Red Scare– Technology & change– Growth of science– The “modern” woman– urbanization

John Scopes Clarrence Darrow & William Jennings Bryan

The Scopes Monkey Trial

• Tennessee law prohibited teaching evolution• Teacher John Scopes violated the law• Brought to trial in 1925

– Followed by millions on radio– Symbolic of “old” vs. “new” values

• Result:– Scopes convicted & fined $100– But fundamentalist view looks foolish to many

The Republican 1920’s

Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover 1921-1923 1923-1929 1929-1933

Politics in the 1920’s• Dominated by Republicans• Progressivism Dies

– Too much change in previous decades?

• A return to “Laissez-faire”– Government plays minor role– Big business is allowed to run free– Record profits

• But growing poverty

• A sort of “2nd Gilded Age”?

Warren G. Harding, 1921-1923

• Promised a “return to normalcy”– The “good old days” after two

decades of change

• Not smart; just a “handsome face”• Total laissez-faire• Administration filled with scandals

– Teapot Dome Scandal

• Dies in 1923

Harding Scandals

• White house officials accused of bribery• Gambling & drinking parties in White

House– Remember Prohibition????

• Teapot Dome Scandal– Harding official took bribes to sell federal land

in Wyoming

Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929

• Harding’s Vice-President• Ultimate laissez-faire, pro-

business president– Little regulate– Tax cuts for businesses

• “Silent Cal”• “He who builds a factory,

builds a temple”• “The business of America

is business”

The Election of 1928

• Republican• Very popular & well-

known• Economy looked great• Republicans were

dominating country

• Democrat• Irish-Catholic• Religion cost him any

chance at election– KKK worked against him

in the South

Herbert Hoover Al Smith

Election of 1928

Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933• Well-known & much respected

– “the smartest man in America”– Helped stopped post-WW I starvation

• A Republican, but not as conservative– NOT strictly laissez-faire

• Took power with boom economy– “We are on the verge of eliminating poverty

forever”

• Economy collapses in October of 1929