1920s: Society in Conflict

1920s: Cultures in Conflict

• Old vs. Young

• Urban Modernists vs.

Rural Fundamentalists

• Wets vs. Drys

• Nativists vs. Foreign Born

Nativism & Anti-Radicalism

• Red Scare 1919-1921– Palmer Raids

• Sacco & Vanzetti

• Quota Laws– 1921 & 1924

• Labor Unions

PRESIDENTS OF THE 1920s

Warren G. Harding 1921-1923

Return to NormalcyLeague of Nations

Fordney-McCumber Tariff

Ohio GangTeapot Dome

Albert Fall

Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929• Silent Cal

• Laissez-Faire?

• McNary-Haugen Tariff

• The Roaring Twenties

“The business of America is business”

1928 Election

• Candidates

• Issues

• Results

•Democrat•Catholic•NYC•Wet•Reform

•Republican•Self-Made•Technocrat•Dry

Signs of Realignment? Midwest Farmers, Blacks, Northern Cities…

Herbert Hoover

• Humanitarian, Engineer, Republican

• American Individualism 1922

• Business cooperation

• Volunteerism

• Opposed government intervention

Trotter’s Opinion

• Although not the vacuum guy, Hoover did suck.

Using you notes from Tuesday, identify two major economic changes in America in the

1920s.

You have two minutes to write your response.

QUESTION

The 1920s were a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on one hand and traditional values and nostalgia on the other. What led to the tension between the old and new AND in what ways was this tension manifested?

1920s: A New Culture

• 1920 Census

• The Jazz Age– Radios– Phonographs

• Consumerism– Electric Appliances– Advertising– Credit– Chain Stores

1920s: A New Culture• Automobile

– Economic Impact– Social Impact

• Entertainment– Radio

• NBC & CBS

– Hollywood• The Jazz Singer

1920s Popular Heroes

Gertrude Ederle

Gender Roles & Families• 19th Amendment

• Women at Home

• Women in Labor Force

• Revolution in Morals– Sigmund Freud– Margaret Sanger– Flapper– Divorce

Religion• Fundamentalism vs. Modernism

– Tradition• Literalism & Creationism• Morals

– New• Social Gospel & Science• Biblical Criticism• Darwinism

• Revivalists– Billy Sunday– Aimee Semple McPherson

Literature of Alienation

• The Lost Generation– F. Scott Fitzgerald– Ernest Hemmingway– Sinclair Lewis

1920s Art

The Radiator Building at Night 1927 Night in the City 1926

East River From Shelton 1927

Automat 1927

Pharmacy 1928

Chop Suey 1929

QUESTION

The 1920s were a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on one hand and traditional values and nostalgia on the other. What led to the tension between the old and new AND in what ways was this tension manifested?

Harlem Renaissance• Black Migration

– 20% African-Americans in North 1930– Harlem

• Poets & Writers– Langston Hughes– James Weldon Johnson – Claude McKay

• Musicians – Bessie Smith– Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong

Marcus Garvey & UNIA

• Black Nationalist Movement 1914

• Pan-Africanism

• Mass appeal

• Backlash

"... that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." 

- Butler Act 1925 (TCA)

Fundamentalism • Science vs. Tradition

• Liberal Protestants & the Social Gospel

• Fundamentalists

• Anti-evolution laws

• Scopes Trial 1925

–Issues, results, effects

Prohibition

• Highlighted cultural conflict

• Wets vs. Drys

• Widely opposed and/or un-enforced

• Al Capone

• 1928 Election

• Repealed in 1933

Immigration Restrictions

• WW I promoted like-minded, cultural homogeneity

• Emergency Quota Act 1921

• National Origins Act 1924– Quotas revised in 1929– Goals and results

• Mexican immigrants“America must be kept American.”

– Coolidge

Reemergence of KKK

• Reaction to social/cultural changes

• Birth of a Nation 1915• Financial scheme• Goals

– 100% Americanism

• Why so appealing? • Collapsed in 1925

QUESTION

The 1920s were a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on one hand and traditional values and nostalgia on the other. What led to the tension between the old and new AND in what ways was this tension manifested?