The 1920’s

Roaring, Soaring, and Clinging.

The Boom

• After the turmoil that immediately followed WWI, many Americans began to experience prosperity on a level previously unimaginable.

• The economy quickly took off, production increased dramatically, and stock prices soared.

• In this period, many Americans experienced a dramatic increase in their earnings, and as a result, their standard of living.

New Production Techniques

• As you learned earlier, the use of research and scientific management from people like Henry Ford, made it possible to produce goods faster than ever before.

• New technology, mass production techniques such as interchangeable parts, and the assembly line changed industry tremendously

• For example: It once took 12 hours to manufacture a Model T Ford. In the 1920’s it took 90 minutes.

Rising Wages and Better Hours

• Through the innovation of Henry Ford*, and the efforts of Organized Labor Unions, many industrial workers experienced a great increase in wages.

• Labor Unions had been fighting for better hours for years, but with little success.

• Henry Ford believed that by increasing his workers pay, and giving them Saturday and Sunday off, he would increase his productivity, and also create new customers in his own workers.*

• Some, but by no means most, other industrialists followed suit, and decreased their work weeks.

*Incidentally, Ford himself despised organized labor and fought unionization in his company by any means he could, even hiring strike breakers to violently thwart Unions.

A Consumer Revolution

• The 1920’s was period in which new technology and widespread availability of electricity brought new affordable goods to millions.

• Goods such as the electric washing machine, vacuum cleaner, radio, electric iron, and refrigerator became available to large numbers of people.

• With their new increased wages, many people began to buy more than ever before.

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• In the 1920’s, psychological research was being used to determine how best to get more buyers for a product.

• Advertisers used glamorous images to appeal to people’s desires.

• Many people became convinced that they could better themselves and their status if they only had the right product.

Installment Buying and Buying on Credit

• In the 1920’s, large numbers of Americans began buying products on credit through installment buying.

• This meant that consumers without ready cash, could make a down payment, and then pay the rest of the debt in monthly installments.

• In this way, people could purchase goods that they never would have been able to afford other wise.

The Stock Market

• The 1920’s was a tremendous bull market* for investors. A bull market is when the price of stocks rise.

• With all of the new goods to be sold, and new purchasing power for consumers, businesses were growing, and investors wanted to cash in on that success. This demand for stock, increased the value of shares. Many people made huge fortunes investing.

• Like other goods, stocks could be bought on credit, buy buying on margin. This is when a person a person paid as little as 10% for the stock, which he or she purchased from a broker. The buyer then paid the broker the rest of the cost over a period of months.

• If the cost of the price rose, there was no problem paying the broker back. If it fell, the broker would keep the stock, which was collateral.

• * A Bear Market is a period of lowered stock prices

Speculation

• Many people were willing to take great risks to make money, and engaged in speculation, or risky purchases of stock with no clear assurance of return.

• Many people in the 1920’s would hear a rumor about a hot new stock, and buy that stock on margin in hopes of big returns.

• One way clever businessmen found to make quick money was to purchase a lot of stock, and then let word “slip” about the new big thing. People would then rush to buy, and the businessmen would sell and make big profits.

• Despite the dangers, speculation was one factor that led to the boom of the 1920’s

Urban Growth, New Cars, and New Suburbs

• As you learned earlier, cities grew rapidly in the industrial revolution, and they continued to grow in the 1920’s, especially as farmers struggled and moved to cities, along with African Americans who took part in the Great Migration.

• As millions of Americans purchased cars, first the Model T, and then those of other companies. In 1919, 10% of Americans owned cars. By 1927, 56% did.

• The car made it possible for some Americans to purchase homes in communities outside major cities, and then commute to work by driving. These new communities were called Suburbs.

Cities, Cars, and Suburbs

The Harding Years• In the 1920’s the Federal Government was dominated by the Republican

Party.• Warren G. Harding of Ohio was elected president in 1920 under the

promise of returning America to “normalcy”, or away from the problems of the War years and their aftermath. He was Conservative in his politics, and wanted to un-do much of the progressive policies of the Roosevelt and Wilson presidencies.

• Harding was a social man, who was well liked, but his understanding of government was somewhat limited. He took a policy of delegating authority and relied upon trusted subordinates to make decisions.

• Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, worked with business leaders to advance Progressive.

• Andrew Mellon worked to reduce the income tax that had been established by the 16th Amendment, and reduce the taxes imposed on corporations and businesses. He cut the budget from a wartime high of $18 billion to $3 billion.

Harding Continued• Many of these subordinates were his close friends from Ohio, known

derisively as “the Ohio Gang”.• Corruption and scandal plagued Harding’s subordinates especially in the

Veterans Bureau. His Attorney General resigned when it was alleged that he took bribes from bootleggers.

• The Teapot Dome Scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, who arranged the transfer of oil reserves in Wyoming from the Navy Dept., to the Interior Dept.

• Instead of holding onto the reserves for the Navy, he leased them to private oil companies for “loans”, which of course, were bribes.

• While corruption was rampant in Harding’s administration, he himself was not personally involved, and when he died of a Heart Attack in 1923, he was extremely popular.*

*Harding was known to be a womanizer, and some speculated his wife poisoned him! There is speculation that he belonged to the KKK, though this is largely ignored by professional historians.

Warren G. Harding

Calvin Coolidge

• Coolidge seceded Harding and eliminated much of the corruption.

• Coolidge kept the policies of Sec. of Treasury Mellon in place. He believed in limited government, and thought that business should be left alone to operate freely, and his FCC appointments reflected this.

• Coolidge lowered taxes again, and reduced spending even further.

• The U.S. economy boomed during this time period, and Coolidge’s “laissez faire” policies received much of the credit.

Coolidge Continued

• “Silent Cal”, as he was called, did not have much sympathy for farmers, and opposed measures to aid them when farm prices fell.

• He also signed the National Origins Act that restricted immigration for people of Eastern and Southern European heritage and Asians.

• Coolidge also vetoed a bonus for WWI Veterans, but was overridden by Congress.

Foreign Policy in the 1920’s

In the 1920’s Several attempts we made to make the world more peaceful. The U.S. was of course involved, but the record is mixed:

1. The League of Nations was formed, but the Senate did not agree to join.

2. The World Court was was formed, and Harding agreed to join, but was blocked by the Senate.

3. The Washington Naval Conference sought to limit the build up of warships. The agreed to this.

4. The Kellogg-Briand Pact renounced war as a legitimate way to settle disputes. This was largely a symbolic measure, and was obviously ignored.

War Debt

• The U.S. government and U.S. banks had financed WWI, and with the war over, the U.S. demanded that debt be paid, especially by Britain and France.

• To pay the U.S., the British and French demanded the reparations from Germany be paid.

• Germany, who experienced hyper-inflation during this time because they were printing more money to pay the reparations, had trouble paying.

• The U.S. then passed the Dawes Act, that loaned money to Germany.

• Of course the money loaned to Germany, was sent to Britain and France, which they promptly sent to America.

1920’s Culture : The Clash of Old and New

• The decade of the 1920’s was a time of great change for America.• As you know, the economy surged as people used installment

buying to purchase new consumer products.• Stock prices soared, and many people became rich quickly.• People in industrial jobs and office jobs saw an increase in their

wages, and a decrease in the number of hours they worked, and the number of work days, from 55 hours a week to 45, and from six days a week, to five.

• At the same time, many people in rural and small town America did not see the prosperity of the 1920’s. In fact, as you have learned, times got tougher for them than before the decade, due to growing debt and decreased farm prices. They worked from dawn to dusk, often times seven days a week, just as they always had.

• Unlike their urban counterparts, these Americans longed for a return to the “good old days”.

Prohibition

• There had been a temperance movement in America going back as far as the early 1800’s (Temperance means choosing not to drink alcohol).

• Women especially worked to ban alcohol production, sale, and consumption, because they thought it was the root of many of the social problems in America.

• In 1919, the Temperance Movement succeeded in convincing states to ratify the 18th Amendment, which forbade the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol in the U.S.

• The Volstead Act was then passed to enforce the Amendment. • People that were in favor of the 18th Amendment were called

“drys”, and people that were against it were called “wets”.• Prohibition went into effect in January 1920, and would be in

place until 1933.

Problems with Prohibition

• While Prohibition was a noble idea, it was largely favored by people in rural areas, and mostly Protestant Christians.

• Many Americans who lived in the cities opposed Prohibition. Many of those people were the sons of Irish, German, Polish, or Italian immigrants, or immigrants themselves. To these people, alcohol was a common part of their culture.

• Of course their were many people in the cities, especially Progressive Activists, who were “dry”, and there were many people in the rural areas who enjoyed alcohol, or were wet.

• Regardless of what part of the country people lived in, many people still wanted to drink, and the new laws would not stop them.

Bootleggers

• To provide people with alcohol, many people engaged “bootlegging”, or the illegal selling of alcohol.

• Many of the people involved in bootlegging were former beer brewers or liquor distillers who saw the opportunity to continue their business tax free. Other people operated homemade distilleries and breweries.

• Some of the people involved in bootlegging were organized criminals who ventured out from their normal activities and rackets (gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, etc.) to join in the potential for making large amounts of tax free money.

• The most famous organized crime figure of the Prohibition era was Al Capone, who controlled many of the Chicago Rackets.

• His men battled other gangsters for control of Chicago’s bootlegging. Similar battles took place in cities across the country, including Cincinnati and especially, Newport Kentucky.

• In the South, bootleggers used “Hot Rod” cars to avoid the police as they ran illegal booze from place to place. These cars would eventually pave the way for the birth of NASCAR.

Speakeasies

• During the Prohibition Era, the illegal bars developed across the country where people could go to get a drink and socialize.

• These places were called “Speakeasies”.• Some speakeasies were just basement hangouts

with a few stools and a rickety bar. • Others were located in luxurious hotels, or fancy

buildings and their operators scarcely attempted to hide them.

• Often times speakeasies also offered gambling and other vices.

Images of Prohibition

Gangsters and Bootleggers

Film In the 1920’s

• In the 1920’s the film industry took off in America like never before.

• While motion pictures had been somewhat popular in the early 1900’s, during the 1920’s, Hollywood was producing 800 feature films a year.

• Between 60 to 100 million Americans attended the movies every week.

• In 1927 The Jazz Singer, the first talking film in history was produced.

• Stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Buster Keaton, and Clara Bow helped influence how people dressed, talked, and acted.

Film Stars of the 1920’s

Jazz • One of the most influential styles of music that became popular in the

1920’s was Jazz.• Jazz was developed in the early 1900’s by African Americans in New

Orleans, Louisiana. The music was a blend of Rag Time, Blues, and traditional African rhythms, with some European musical traditions and instruments.

• When African Americans moved North, they brought Jazz with them, and it became hugely popular with both white and black audiences in cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Kansas City.

• As Jazz became popular, it became trendy for white audiences to go to Jazz Clubs, or to have Jazz bands play at their homes for parties.

• Jazz spawned popular new forms of dancing, including the Charleston, the Black Bottom, and the Shag.

• Famous Jazz performers of the 1920’s included Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Bessie Smith.

Jazz Images

Changes For African Americans• As you know, many African Americans moved North during the Great

Migration.• Many African Americans gained a college education during this time,

and began to enter professions such as medicine, law, business, and industry.

• Black communities developed in Northern cities where their culture flourished.

• While race riots were not uncommon, and discrimination faced them in their jobs and careers, many African American people worked to better their lives and joined groups such as the NAACP.

• One African American, Marcus Garvey, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which argued that blacks should work for a separation of their society from white society. Garvey believed that blacks should support their own businesses and communities, and be proud of their heritage.

• This movement was called the “Back to Africa” movement.

Marcus Garvey

Harlem Renaissance

• In the 1920’s African Americans, especially in New York cities Harlem area, began to show increased pride in their heritage while voicing outrage at discrimination.

• The term, “New Negro”, came to describe African Americans of this time, who challenged the status quo.

• Many authors, intellectuals, and other artists expressed these sentiments in books, poems, and in Jazz music.

• Writers such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and many others contributed to this period, which came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, or the intellectual and cultural growth and renewal of the African American community in the 1920’s.

Claude McKay- If We Must Die

If we must die—let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,Making their mock at our accursed lot.If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honor us though dead!Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!What though before us lies the open grave?Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Langston Hughes- A Negro Speaks of Rivers

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I danced in the Nile when I was oldI built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.“”from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1920),in The Weary Blues (1926) r

Sports

• In the 1920’s the sports world entered a golden age.• Boxing produced huge stars like Jack Dempsey and Gene Tuney,

who fought in front of over one hundred thousand fans.• Football produced Harold “Red” Grange of the University of Illinois,

and Knute Rockne coached legendary Notre Dame teams.• Most famously, baseball, which had been a hugely popular

spectator sport even before the 1920, got even bigger with the star slugger George Herman “Babe” Ruth, perhaps the biggest sports celebrity in history. Jimmy Foxx was another huge star.

• Millions of people flocked to see athletic contests, followed on the radio, and most importantly, read dramatic articles in newspapers.

• As you might have expected, these athletes were so enormously popular that advertisers used them to appeal to consumers.

1920’s Sports Icons

Charles Lindbergh

• In May 1927, Charles Lindbergh, a young American pilot, flew from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France in his single engine plane, The Spirit of St. Louis.

• The trip lasted 33 hours.• He was the first person to fly solo, non-stop

across the Atlantic Ocean.• As a result of his trip, he became a world

wide celebrity, and a national hero.

Charles Lindbergh

Changes for Women

• In the 1920’s, things began to seriously change for women.

• The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, which they exercised for the first time in the 1920’s.

• Many women began to enter the workforce in office jobs, especially as secretaries, telephone operators, and stenographers.

• Even for women who didn’t work out of the home, new consumer products such as the the electric vacuum, the electric iron, and the washing machine made house work easier, which increased time to pursue other interests.

The New Woman

• In the 1920’s, some women began to challenge conventional morals and traditions.

• Many young women began to put on more make-up, wear their hair short in a “bob” cut, and wear short skirts and dresses, and sometimes even galoshes, or black boots with a buckle. These women were called “Flappers”.

• As much attention as these women drew with their clothes, the most remarkable thing about these women were their attitudes and actions.

• Many flappers drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, and had permissive attitudes regarding sex.

• While there were actually few true flappers, many of their styles and attitudes influenced other women on a smaller scale.

Flappers

Rural Reaction

• Many people in rural areas rejected the fast-paced, care-free life of the 1920’s, and wished for a return to simpler times.

• During this time period, many Americans felt like their traditional beliefs, especially their Christian morals, were being undermined.

• These people believed very much that the Bible and everything in it was the literal truth, and that all of the fundamentals in it could be used to answer all of life’s questions. This belief is called fundamentalism.

Scopes Trial

• In 1925, Tennessee passed a law making it a crime to teach evolution to school children.

• The A.C.L.U. convinced John Scopes to challenge the law, and teach evolution in his biology class in Dayton, Tennessee. He did, and was arrested.

• Clarence Darrow, a famous attorney defended Scopes, and argued against William Jennings Bryan, who served as an expert for the prosecution.

• The case became national news, and was referred to as the “Monkey Trial”.

• Scopes was convicted and forced to pay a $100 fine, but the real significance of the case was the conflict growing between the old traditional Christian Values and the new values of modernism and science.

Fights Against Immigration

• Many Protestant Americans resented the millions of immigrants that came to the U.S. from other parts of the world, especially people of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish faiths.

• The people who held anti-immigrant beliefs were called Nativists.• The National Origins Act of 1924 set up a quota for immigrants

coming to America. • The number of immigrants coming to America could not exceed 2%

of the number of people of that nationality living in America in 1890. The year 1890 was picked because few people from Southern and Eastern Europe, or Asia had been in America prior to that year.

• The law also continued to exclude most Asians, who had been previously excluded by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892.

Return of the Ku Klux Klan

• For many Americans, newly arrived immigrants of different faiths, and the new sense of pride in African Americans in the 1920’s was a threat to their traditional, Protestant beliefs.

• In 1915 a new Ku Klux Klan was formed in Stone Mountain, Georgia.• This new Klan branched out from simply being anti-black, and aimed

their hate and terrorism at Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, as well as blacks.

• The new Klan was a powerful political force in many areas of the country, even in parts of the North and West.

• In fact, the Klan came to dominate state politics in Indiana, where even the Governor of the state was a member.

• At its height, the new Klan had around 5 million members.• Political corruption, and the efforts of the NAACP and the Jewish Anti-

Defamation league eventually led to a decline of the Klan once again.

Rebirth of the Klan