Chapter 31 APUSH

American Life in the Roaring Twenties

Return to normalcy US turned inward---isolationism Decade notable for obsessive

interest in celebrities Sex becomes an all-consuming

topic of interest in popular entertainment

Eat, drink & be merry, for tomorrow we die

Jazz Age first modern era in the U.S.

• Red Scare, 1919 to 1921, was a time of great upheaval…U.S. “scared out of their wits".

• "Reds” as they were called, "Anarchists” or "Outside

Foreign-Born Radical Agitators” (Communists).

• Anti-red hysteria came about after WWI and the Russian Revolution.

• 6,000 immigrants the government suspected of being Communists were arrested (Palmer Raids) and 600 were deported or expelled from the U.S.

• No due process was followed

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

•The U.S. Government began to restrict certain “undesirable”

immigrants from entering the U.S.•Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and Immigration

Act of 1924• Kept out immigrants from

southeastern Europe.

• The U.S. Government began to restrict certain “undesirable” immigrants from entering the U.S.

• Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, in which newcomers from Europe were

restricted at any year to a quota, which was set at 3% of the people of their nationality who lived

in the U.S. in 1910.

• Immigration Act of 1924, the quota down to 2% and the origins base was shifted to that of

1890, when few southeastern Europeans lived in America.

Cartoon from 1919: “Put them out and

keep them out”

• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

were Italian immigrants charged

with murdering a guard and robbing a

shoe factory in Braintree, Mass.

• The trial lasted 1920-1927. Convicted on circumstantial evidence, many believed they had

been framed for the crime because of their anarchist and pro-union activities.

• In this time period, anti-foreignism was high as well.

• Liberals and radicals rallied around the two men, but they would be executed.

IKAImperial Klans of America

Rise of the KKK was due to the ever changing of a traditional America. 1925: Membership of 5 million1926: Marched on Washington.

Attack on urban culture and defends Christian/Protestant and rural valuesAgainst immigrants from Southern Europe, European Jews, Catholics and

American BlacksSought to win U.S. by persuasion and

gaining control in local/state government.

Violence, internal corruption result in Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930 but

will reappear in the 1950s and 1960s.

• Goal: was to reduce crime and poverty and improve the quality of life by making it

impossible for people to get their hands on alcohol.

• This "Noble Experiment" was a failure. • Midnight, January 16th, 1920, US went dry.

• The 18th Amendment, known as the Volstead Act, prohibited the manufacture, sale and

possession of alcohol in America. Prohibition lasted for thirteen years.

• So was born the industry of bootlegging, speakeasies and Bathtub Gin.

Most support for prohibition came from religious rural white Protestants

By 1917, more than half the states had passed laws restricting alcohol.

• People drank more than ever during Prohibition, and there were more deaths related to alcohol.

• No other law in America has been violated so flagrantly by so many "decent law-abiding" people.

• Overnight, many became criminals.

• Mobsters controlled liquor created a booming black market economy.

• Gangsters owned speakeasies and by 1925 there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City

alone.

Prohibition was doomed to failure because government did not have enough officers to enforce it. (Only 3,000 nationwide)

People made their own alcohol illegally, or got their doctor to prescribe it as medicine.

Prohibition allowed for huge smuggling operations. In 1925 government officials estimated that they stopped only 5% of all illegal alcohol entering the country.

The Golden Age of Gangsterism

• Chicago– Al Capone (“Scarface”)- Public Enemy #1– St. Valentine’s Day Massacre- seven members of a rival

gang were murdered after their weapons were taken away from them

• The Culture– 500 mobsters murdered in the gang wars of Chicago in the

1920s– By 1930, organized crime has an income of $12-$18 billion,

more than 4 times the income of the federal government

EDUCATION AND POPULAR CULTURE

During the 1920s, developments in education had a powerful impact on the nation.

Enrollment in high schools quadrupled between 1914 and 1926.

Public schools met the challenge of educating millions of immigrants

1925

The first major legal conflict between religion vs. science being taught in school was in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.

John T. Scopes

Respected high school biology

teacher arrested in Dayton,

Tennessee for teaching

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Clarence Darrow

Famous trial lawyer who represented

Scopes

William J. BryanSec. of State for

President Wilson, ran for president three times, turned evangelical

leader. Represented the

prosecution.

Dayton, Tennessee

Small town in the south became

protective against the

encroachment of modern times and secular teachings.

The trial is conducted in a carnival-like atmosphere. The

people of Dayton are seen as ‘backward’ by

the country.

The right to teach and protect Biblical

teachings in schools.

The acceptance of science and that all

species have evolved from lower forms of

beings over billions of years.

Outcome of the Scopes Trial

Scopes found guilty and fined $100- the fine was later revoked by the Tennessee Supreme Court on a technicality in the procedure of the trial

The Butler Act would not be formally repealed until 1967

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS?

The Second Industrial Revolution

U.S. develops the highest standard of living in the world

The twenties and the second revolution– electricity replaces steam – Henry Ford’s modern assembly line

introduced Rise of the airline industry Modern appliances and

conveniences begin to change American society

The Automobile Industry Auto makers stimulate sales

through model changes, advertising

Auto industry fostered the growth of other businesses

Autos encourage movement and more individual freedom.

“Pink Collar” Jobs

Gave women a taste of the work world.

Low paying service occupations.

Made less money than men did doing the same jobs.– Examples of jobs:

• Secretaries• Teachers• Telephone

operators• Nurses

THE FLAPPER These women challenged

traditional American values.– Characteristics of a

Flapper:• Short, bobbed hair• Short hems on their

skirts • Listened to Jazz

music• Wore makeup• Drank hard liquor• Smoked cigarettes• Treated sex in a more

casual manner• Were opposed to the

conventional social and sexual norms

MODERN FAMILY EMERGES

Marriage was based on romantic love. Women managed the household and finances. Children were not considered laborers/ wage earners anymore.

Seen as developing children who needed nurturing and education

Mass Media Increases in Mass media during the 1920s

– Print and broadcast methods of communication.• Examples:

– Newspapers– Magazines– Radio– Movies

Newspapers: 27 million to 39 million

Increase of 42%

Motion Pictures: 40 million to 80 million

Increase of 100%

Radios: 60,000 to 10.2 million

Increase of 16,983%

• Westinghouse Radio Station KDKA was a world pioneer

of commercial radio broadcasting.

• Transmitted 100 watts on a wavelength of 360 meters.

• KDKA first broadcast was the Harding-Cox

Presidential election returns on November 2, 1920.

• 220 stations eighteen months after KDKA started. • $50 to $150 for first radios

• 3,000,000 homes had them by 1922.

• Radio sets, parts and accessories brought in $60

million in 1922…

• $136 million in 1923

• $852 million in 1929

• Radio reached into every third home

in its first decade.

• Listening audience was 50,000,000 by 1925

ENTERTAINMENT AND ARTS

Even before sound, movies offered a means of escape through romance and comedy

First sound movies: Jazz Singer (1927)

First animated with sound: Steamboat Willie (1928)

By 1930 millions of Americans went to the movies each week.

Walt Disney's animated

Steamboat Willie marked the debut of Mickey Mouse. It was a seven minute long black and

white cartoon.

AMERICAN HEROES OF THE 20s

In 1929, Americans spent $4.5 billion on entertainment. (includes sports)

People crowded into baseball games to see their heroes.

Babe Ruth was a larger than life American hero who played for Yankees

He hit 60 homers in 1927.

WRITERS OF THE 1920s

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the phrase “Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s

Fitzgerald wrote Paradise Lost and The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby reflected the emptiness of New York elite society

It wasn’t call the “Jazz Age” for nothin’.

Jazz moved up from New Orleans to Northern cities during the Great Migration. Early pioneers: W. C.

Handy- “St. Louis Blues”, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band

Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington would steal the show.

“If I had to choose between Harlem and heaven, oh-ho-ho, Harlem would win every time.”

Harlem Renaissance: Cultural renaissance of

African American art, literature, music, and pride.

The “New Negro”- proud, a full citizen, and EQUAL to whites!

Song of the Towers- Aaron Douglas

Contributors to African American Culture in the 1920s

Authors Langston Hughes- poems with

tempos that echoed jazz and blues. “Strange”

Claude McKay- Cane one of first full-length publications of Harlem Renaissance

Zora Neale Hurston- portrayed lives of poor, Southern blacks. “The greatest cultural wealth of the continent.”

The poet laureate of Harlem

African American political leadersMarcus Garvey Created the United

Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)Promoted

resettlement of Africa

Keep black dollars in black communities