The Roaring 20’s

After World War I

• April 8, 1919 Wilson brings peace treaty to the Senate

• Senate voted against treaty because of –League of Nations

–Wanted Monroe Doctrine Enforced

After World War I

• Wilson went on a speech tour to win support for the treaty

• Suffered a stoke – paralyzed half his body

• Ended presidency in seclusion• July 2, 1921 – Congress voted to

end war with Central Powers

Presidents During 1920s

• Warren G. Harding • Calvin Coolidge• Herbert Hoover

Warren G. Harding(1921-1923)

Foreign Policy

Isolationism, avoid political & economic alliances with foreign countries.

Disarmament, a program in which nations voluntarily give up their weapons.

The Harding Presidency

Foreign Policy

Quota (number limit) on immigrants

Refused to join the League of Nations

The Harding Presidency

Domestic Policy

Normalcy - Harding’s campaign promised a return to pre- WWI peacefulness

Red Scare – American fear of communism & other extreme ideas

The Harding Presidency

The Red Scare1920 – Russia becomes Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics (USSR) or Soviet Union

• Gov’t owned land & property• Single Political Party• No rights for citizens• Spread Communism to the World

Palmer Raids

• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

• Driven by fear of Communism – And hopes of one day being president…

• Held suspects without evidence

IWW (“Wobblies”) Headquarters after a Palmer Raid

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Suspected militant anarchists• Convicted of murder• Many felt they did not receive a

fair trial because of their political ideas and ethnicity.

Bartolomeo Venzetti and Nicola Sacco

Scandals of the Harding Administration

• Mostly related to the company his friends – “the Ohio Gang” friends he gave gov’t jobs too

• Teapot Dome Scandal – the most infamous

The Teapot Dome Scandal

• Secretary of the Interior secretly gave drilling rights to two private oil companies in return for illegal payments.

• Strain over scandals may have cause Harding’s Death

• April 2, 1923 – Harding Dies

This 1924 cartoon shows the dimensions of the Teapot Dome scandal

Coolidge becomes president.

“Silent Cal”

Calvin Coolidge

1923-1929

Coolidge’s Presidency

• Continues Harding’s programs & policies

• Believed in Laissez-faire• Re-elected in 1924

Election of 1928Rep. – Herbert HooverDem. – Alfred Smith (Catholic)Hoover used Smith’s

religion against him Hoover Wins!

Herbert Hoover

• When Hoover takes office the US economy seemed to be doing well

• Oct 29, 1929 Black Tuesday – Stock Market Crashed beginning the Great Depression

African Americans• Great Migration = Blacks moved

north to take advantage of booming wartime industry

• Black ghettoes began to form, i.e. Harlem

African Americans

• Harlem Renaissance – African Am literary awakening

• Alain Locke – The New Negro celebrated growing African Am culture

• Langston Hughes – poet, writer, & playwright who wrote about being African Am in the 1920’s

The Jazz Age• Jazz, a style of music that grew out of the

African Am music of the South, became highly popular during the 1920s.

Jazz became so strongly linked to the culture that the decade came to be known as the Jazz Age.

African Americans• Marcus Garvey (Jamaican) favored racial

segregation b/c of Black superiority• Garvey believed Blacks should return to Africa• Gov't charged him with w/fraud & found guilty• Deported to Jamaica, but his organization

continued to exist

Prohibition• 18th Amendment took effect on January

16, 1920, made the manufacture, sale, and transport of liquor, beer, and wine illegal.

• Many Americans turned to bootleggers - suppliers of illegal alcohol.

Speakeasies – illegal, underground bars

Bootleggers expanded their business into other illegal areas

Organized Crime

• The profit from selling illegal liquor helped lead to the rise of organized crime.

• As rival groups fought for control in cities, gang wars & murders became common.

HOMICIDE

1

11

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Homicide Rate dramatically rises, then peaks in 1933 – the year prohibition ends!

One of the most notorious criminals of this time was Al “Scarface” Capone, a gangster who

rose to the top of Chicago’s organized crime network.

Issues of Religion• Fundamentalism

supported traditional Christian ideas and argued for a literal interpretation of the Bible.

• Worked to pass laws against teaching the theory of evolution in public schools.

• A science teacher named John T. Scopes agreed to challenge such a law in Tennessee. His arrest led to what was called the Scopes trial.

1920’s Fads

1. Motion Pictures – promoted common values & created trends

• 1st sound film – 1927

1920’s Fads

2. Radio – unified the nation, featured news, sports, ads, soaps, & other shows

• Helped to unify the nation• National Broadcasting Co. -

1st national network

1920’s Fads

• Automobile – Henry Ford made the car more affordable by using the assembly line

• Assembly line – process where each worker does one task in the making of a final product

Ford Model T

• “Tin Lizzy” – was the most popular model

By 1928 a record 15 million Model-Ts

were built -- a mark not broken until Volkswagen passed it 1971.

Painted in only one color -- black -- Ford could produce the Model-T in vast numbers.

How did the car effect society?

• Stimulated growth of suburbs• Created shopping centers• Criminals used Drive-bys• Changed leisure activities• Shaped sexual behavior in the young