The Roaring 20’sAmerica After WWI

Politics of the 20’s

“A Return to Normalcy”

• This became Warren G. Harding’s campaign slogan when he accidentally messed up the word, “Normality”

• Americans loved it and elected him

Fighting the Recession

• After WWI, 2 million soldiers were looking for work

• Factories were closing because they were no longer getting orders for wartime goods from European nations

Republicans Rule the 1920s

• “HARD”-”COOL”-”HOOV”• All the presidents of the

1920s were Republican• The names of the 3

presidents are Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover

• Warren G. Harding died in office, probably due to shock

Warren G. Harding 1921-1923 (died in office)

Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929

Herbert Hoover 1929-1933

President Harding’s Corrupt Cabinet

• Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew Mellon, a wealthy financier

• Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover, famous for his food raising efforts during WWI

• Charles Forbes: Head of the Veteran’s Bureau, One of Harding’s old buddies, Stole millions of dollars from the bureau

• “Ohio Gang”: Harding’s old friends from Ohio who were corrupt and stole money from the government

Harding’s ethics

“I can take care of my enemies all right, but my…friends, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floors at night!” –Harding

Harding was very hard-working and honest, but his friends were not

After a bunch of betrayals, Harding died of a heart attack in August, 1923

The Teapot Dome Scandal

• Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall accepted a bribe to lease government land to oil executives

• One of these areas was called “Teapot Dome” in Wyoming

• Fall was sent to prison

Vice President Calvin Coolidge Becomes President

• “Silent Cal” spoke and spent little (Harding loved to throw parties and give long speeches)

• He forced corrupt officials to resign

• He was re-elected in 1924 with the slogan “Keep Cool With Coolidge”

From War Goods to Consumer Goods

• Coolidge cut regulations on businesses

• Americans’ incomes rose• People began to buy

refrigerators, radios, vacuums, and other appliances

• Businesses began to advertise their products

““Coolidge Prosperity”Coolidge Prosperity”

““The business of America is business. The business of America is business. The man who builds a factory builds The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there a temple. The man who works there worships there.worships there.• Calvin CoolidgeCalvin Coolidge

What does President Calvin Coolidge What does President Calvin Coolidge believe American Prosperity rests on?believe American Prosperity rests on?

American Foreign Policy in the 1920s

• Most all Americans (including Harding and Coolidge) wanted to remain “isolationist”

HOWEVER:

1. The U.S. still needed to protect economic interests in Mexico

2. The U.S. gave $10 million in aid to Russia during a famine

3. The U.S. still signed the “Kellogg-Briand Pact” with 61 other nations (which outlawed war)

“Hopeful that, encouraged by their example, all the other nations of the world will join in this humane endeavor and by adhering to the present Treaty as soon as it comes into force bring their peoples within the scope of its beneficent provisions, thus uniting the civilized nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy”

-Section of the Kellogg-Briand Pacthttp://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm

Women Gain the Right to Vote

• 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right to vote

• Carrie Chapman Catt set up the League of Women Voters

• This group tried to educate voters and ensure the right of women to serve on juries

Ana Roque de Duprey Fought for the right to

vote for women in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican women got the right to vote in 1929

Life Changes for Women

• Women were told to go back home when the men came home to the factories after WWI

• Many women stayed in the workforce as typists, cleaners, cooks, servants, seamstresses, teachers, secretaries, and store clerks

• Many women bought ready-made clothing instead of making their own

• Many women bought appliances to help them with housework after working a full day outside of the home

Economics of the 20’sEconomics of the 20’s

Buying on Credit

• Installment Buying= Buying on Credit (Buy now, pay later)

• Demands for goods jumped, but so did Americans’ debt

“If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problems whatsoever, except that perhaps some day to have to pay for them.”

–Comedian Will Rogers

Soaring Stock Market

• By the late 1920s, more people were investing in the stock market

• People became rich overnight

• Bull Market: Period of rapidly increasing stock prices

• Prices of stocks rose more quickly than the value of the companies themselves

Impact of the Automobile

• Car sales grew rapidly in the 1920s because Henry Ford’s assembly line made them so cheap

• General Motors also became a popular seller of cars

Changing Lifestyles Due to the Automobile

• Millions of jobs were created through factories, oil refineries, roads, highways, truck stops, gas stations, restaurants and tourist stops

• Many Americans began to move to the suburbs to escape crowded conditions in cities

Mass Culture

• Radio

• Movies

(Above, lines outside a movie theatre)

(Left, family listening to the radio

The Jazz Age• Fashion Fads,

flappers• Marathon Dancing

More FadsMore Fads

Flagpole sittingFlagpole sitting: : Where young Where young people would sit people would sit for hours and even for hours and even days on top of a days on top of a flagpole. (The flagpole. (The record: 21 days!)record: 21 days!)

The Dance Craze• The Charleston• Has a quick beat• Dancers kick out

their feet• Popular dance for

Flappers: Women who wore short skirts (to the knees), bright red lipstick, hair cut short, smoked and drank in public, and drove fast cars

New Music

Jazz: Born in New Orleans, created by African Americans, combination of West African rhythms, African American songs and spirituals, European harmonies

Listen to the song “Heebie Jeebies- What different rhythms can you recognize?

Famous jazz musicians: Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, “Jelly Roll” Morton

Prohibition”

“The Noble Experiment”

18 =

A New Generation of American Writers

• Depressed about their awful experiences in World War I

• Criticized Americans for being obsessed with money and fun

• Many became expatriates (people who leave their own country to live in a foreign land) and moved to Europe

Ernest Hemingway

• Wrote about experiences of Americans during WWI and in Europe

• Wrote A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man in the Sea

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wrote about wealthy young people who go to constant parties but cannot find happiness

He wrote The Great Gatsby

His characters had flappers, bootleggers, and movie makers

Sinclair LewisSinclair Lewis Grew up in a small Grew up in a small

town in Minnesota town in Minnesota and moved to New and moved to New York CityYork City

He wrote books He wrote books about rural people about rural people from a city person’s from a city person’s perspective (making perspective (making them look stupid)them look stupid)

Wrote Wrote Main Street Main Street andand Babbitt Babbitt

The Harlem Renaissance

• In the 1920s, many African American artists settled in Harlem, New York City

• Black artists, musicians, and writers celebrated their African and American heritage

Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance PoetsPoets

Claude McKay:Claude McKay: From Jamaica, From Jamaica, wrote the poem, wrote the poem, “If We Must Die” “If We Must Die” that condemned that condemned lynchingslynchings

Countee Cullen:Countee Cullen: Taught high Taught high school in Harlem, school in Harlem, wrote of the wrote of the experiences of experiences of African AmericansAfrican Americans

Zora Neale HurstonZora Neale Hurston

Write novels, short Write novels, short essays, short storiesessays, short stories

Traveled throughout Traveled throughout the South in a the South in a battered car battered car collecting folk tales, collecting folk tales, songs, and prayers songs, and prayers of black southernersof black southerners

Published these in Published these in her book, “Mules her book, “Mules and Men”and Men”

Langston HughesLangston Hughes• Most well-known of Most well-known of

the Harlem the Harlem Renaissance poetsRenaissance poets

• Also wrote plays, Also wrote plays, short stories, and short stories, and essaysessays

• First poem, “The First poem, “The Negro Speaks of Negro Speaks of Rivers”Rivers”

• Encouraged African Encouraged African Americans to be Americans to be proud of their proud of their heritageheritage

• Protested racism and Protested racism and acts of violence acts of violence against blacksagainst blacks

“The night is beautiful,

So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,

So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful also, is the sun.

Beautiful also, are the souls of my people.”

-Langston Hughes, “In My People”

Heroes of the 1920’sHeroes of the 1920’s

AthletesAthletes– Bobby Jones: Won nearly every golfing Bobby Jones: Won nearly every golfing

championshipchampionship– Jack Dempsey: Heavyweight boxing Jack Dempsey: Heavyweight boxing

champion for 7 yearschampion for 7 years– Bill Tilden and Helen Willis: Tennis Bill Tilden and Helen Willis: Tennis

championschampions– Gertrude Ederle: 1Gertrude Ederle: 1stst woman to swim the woman to swim the

English ChannelEnglish Channel

Babe Ruth

• Grew up in an orphanage

• Often in trouble as a boy

• Hit 60 homeruns in one season, and 714 overall

• Called the “Sultan of Swat”

Charles Lindbergh

• The greatest hero of the 1920s

• The first person to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean alone

• Flew from New York to Paris

• Called “Lucky Lindy” because he had to fly for 33 ½ hours and didn’t carry a parachute, a radio, or a map

American Century on YouTube

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foooDFF9Dgs