Transcript Ch. 12 and 13 Notes

RETURN TO NORMALCY
(1920 - 1929)
CHAPTER TWELVE
AND
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Before We Move Forward,
Let’s Look Back…
⦿ What
war had just ended?
⦿ What were the MAIN causes of that war?
⦿ What was the outcome of the war?
⦿ Why is that war sometimes called “The War of
the Industrial Revolution?”
⦿ What is the legacy of that war for the U.S.’
economy? African Americans? Women?
⦿ Prediction: What do you think will happen in
the United States?
Roaring Twenties
Objectives
1.
trace the political and social
changes after
World War I
2.
understand such issues as
Prohibition and the changing
role of women
Chapter Twelve - OVERVIEW
Americans lash out at
those who are different
while they enjoy
prosperity and new
conveniences produced by
American businesses.
Chapter Twelve
Politics of the Roaring Twenties
Section One
Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues
Chapters in Brief
Events in faraway Russia had an effect on the United States after
World War I. Massive protests led the Russian ruler to step down
from the throne in March 1917. In November of that year, radicals
seized the government and established the world’s first
Communist state. Soon, this new government issued a call for
worldwide revolution. Its leaders wanted to overthrow the
capitalist system and abolish private property. About 70,000
people, called “Reds,” joined the new Communist party in the
United States. Though their numbers were small, their radicalism
and threats aroused fear among many people. As a “Red Scare”
swept the nation, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer decided to
remove the threat. Palmer formed a new agency in the Justice
Department to find and punish radicals. His agents arrested
Communists, Socialists, and anarchists, who opposed any
government at all. The agents often disregarded the rights of the
people they arrested. Hundreds of radicals were sent out of the
country without a trial. But Palmer never found evidence of a
conspiracy to overthrow the government, and the fear passed.
The U.S. was actually becoming isolationist again—pulling away
from world affairs. Dislike of foreigners resulted in a new
immigration law. With the Emergency Quota Act of 1921,
Congress limited the number of people admitted into the country
Chapters in Brief
Many suffered in the hysteria. A celebrated case involved
two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti. The pair—both admitted radicals—were arrested
for a double murder during a robbery in Massachusetts.
Although the case was not strong, they were convicted and
executed. Protests poured in from around the world. The
“Red Scare” revealed a general sense of unease in society, as
did the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan began to
flourish in the early 1920s. Klan leaders opposed African
Americans, Jews, immigrants, and Catholics. By 1924, KKK
membership numbered about 4.5 million, and the Klan
helped elect officeholders in many states. Its popularity
declined with increased criminal activity. The postwar
period also saw a revival of labor troubles. A strike of
Boston police officers was forcefully put down by
Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge. Violence erupted
over a massive 1919 steel strike, with workers demanding the
right to unionize. Steel makers labeled the workers as
Chapters in Brief
United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis was able to
win wage increases for coal miners. A. Philip Randolph also
successfully organized an African-American union of
railroad porters. Unions were not generally successful in
the 1920s, however, as union membership dropped from
about 5 million to about 3.5 million workers.
Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues
⦿
Postwar Trends
● World War I left much of the American public
exhausted
○ debate over the League of Nations divided
America
○ Progressive Era caused wrenching changes in
American’s lives
○ the economy had difficulty adjusting to modern
times
○ unemployment
●
●
returning soldiers needed work
women / minorities lost jobs to those returning
soldiers
Postwar Trends
Americans wanted to return to “normalcy,”
which was a reactionary result of the
progressives’ changes
⦿
The 1920s Involved Three Major Trends:
1.
2.
3.
renewed isolationism
resurgence of nativism
political conservatism (people were burned out
Postwar Trends
Isolationism: a policy of pulling away from
involvement in
world affairs
Nativism: prejudice against foreignborn people
Fear of Communism
●
U.S. sends troops to
assist the “Whites”
against the “Reds”
●
Communists take over
Russia and rename it
the Soviet Union
●
The Soviets were not
happy with the
United States
Fear of Communism
factory workers are a
natural supporter of this
new Communist
movement (“have nots”)
2. big business owners
natural enemy (“haves”)
3. radicals mail bombs to
government and business
leaders, which caused the
government to combat the
Communist movements
1.
Fear of Communism
●
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer takes action
against “The Reds”
○ J. Edgar Hoover was appointed as director of
new “anti-radical” division of the Justice
Department.
○
Purpose is to hunt down suspected communists
and radicals - Civil Rights Violations?
○
Eventually known as the FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Fear of Communism
● According to A. Mitchell
Palmer, the Attorney General,
what was “eating its way into
the homes of the American
working man, its sharp
tongues… licking at the alters
of our churches…” was
Communism and Radicalism
● Palmer believed in protection
from political radicals
● Palmer staged raids, but no
evidence of a revolutionary
Fear of Communism
Sacco and
Vanzetti
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
both were immigrants
from Italy
they known
communists/ anarchists
they were arrested for
the crimes of murder
and robbery
the case against them
was based on
circumstantial evidence
(suspects “looked
Italian”)
they were not given a
fair trial (they had alibis
and the judge made
prejudicial statements)
still, a jury found them
Limiting Immigration
●
“Keep America for Americans” becomes the
prevailing attitude in the United States
Limiting Immigration
Two Key Events Happen
KKK rises again
> devotion to 100%
Americanism
> wanted to keep African
Americans
“in their place,” destroy
saloons,
oppose unions, and drive
Catholics, Jews, and
foreigners out
of the country
Quota System
> established the maximum
number
of people who could enter
World War I has ended. As Americans struggle to
rebuild broken lives, the voices of angry workers
can be silenced no longer. Despite public criticism,
many risk losing their jobs to strike and join
unions. The streets become a battleground for fair
pay and better working conditions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Would you strike and risk your family’s welfare?
Do city workers have a responsibility not to go on
strike?
Should the government intervene in disputes between
labor and business?
Does the success of a strike depend on you? What
happens if individuals do not participate?
A Time of Labor Unrest
●
●
●
●
●
postwar conflict festered between labor and
management.
during the war, workers could not strike; nothing
could interfere with the war effort.
1919: more than 3,000 strikes
4,000,000 workers walked off the job
Workers wanted more money and the ability to
join unions.
Three Main Strikes
1. The Boston Police Strike
2. The Steel Mill Strike
3. Coal Miner’s Strike
A Time of Labor Unrest
● in spite of limited gains,
the 1920s hurt the labor
movement badly.
● union membership
dropped dramatically
from five to 3.5 million
people
● work force consisted of
immigrants willing to
work in poor
conditions
● language barriers led to
difficulty in organizing
● previous farmers were
Essential Question
Do you think Americans were
justified in their fear of
radicals and foreigners in the
decade following World War
I?
Justify your answer.
Chapter Twelve
Politics of the Roaring Twenties
Section 2
The Harding Presidency
Chapters in Brief
In the presidential election of 1920, Republicans nominated
Warren G. Harding, a pleasant man of little ability. Harding and
Calvin Coolidge swept into office in a landslide victory. In the
1920s, the United States promoted word
peace. A 1921 conference in Washington produced a historic
agreement among five major naval powers to dismantle some of
their naval ships. For the first time, nations had agreed to reduce
their weapons. In 1928, virtually all the world powers signed the
Kellogg-Briand Pact. In doing so, each nation renounced war.
However, new conflicts arose. The U.S. wanted Britain and
France to pay their war debts. This was difficult, since Congress
had enacted a high tariff that made it impossible for them to sell
their goods to the United States. The two countries pressured
Germany to meet its payments for reparations, but Germany’s
economy was destroyed. A series of U.S. loans to Germany left
Britain and France angry. On the home front, President Harding’s
cabinet choices were just as burdensome. While some of his
Cabinet appointments were distinguished, a number were soon
found to be engaged in bribery and corruption. The biggest
scandals involved tracts of public land called Teapot Dome and
Elk Hills. The lands held oil, and Secretary of the Interior Albert
Harding Struggles for Peace
⦿
Warren G. Harding President
● good looking, good
natured, and calming
● not the best, the smartest,
nor the most exciting, but
Americans loved him.
● Americans were tired of
progress, and wanted
normalcy.
⦿
In 1921 Harding invited
several major powers to the
Washington Naval
Conference; excluded Russia
because of its Communist
government
Harding Struggles for Peace
⦿
Settling War Debts
● France and Britain could not repay loans to the U.S.($10 billion)
● Britain and France looked to Germany to pay their debts
(Germany was experiencing inflation, so they couldn’t pay)
● Dawes Plan: U.S. investors loaned Germany $2.5 billion to repay
Britain and France
● Britain and France then used this money to pay back the U.S.
● the United States was essentially being repaid with its own
money
Harding Struggles for Peace
⦿
1928 Kellogg-Briand
Pact
1. fifteen countries
signed
1.
weak agreement
to renounce war
as a national
policy
1.
had no way of
enforcing
Scandal Hits
Harding’s
Administration
⦿
Charles Evans Hughes was appointed Harding’s
Secretary of State (good); eventually becomes Chief
Justice of Supreme Court
⦿
Other Cabinet appointments came from “The Ohio
Gang”
● Harding’s old supporters and poker playing cronies
(not so good)
● the Ohio gang caused a great deal of embarrassment.
● Harding did not understand many issues, which
Scandal Hits Harding’s Administration
⦿
Teapot Dome Scandal
● Government set aside oil-rich
public lands for the use of the
United State’s Navy
● Albert Fall, the Secretary of
the Interior, actually sold U.S.
owned oil reserve land to
private companies and
pocketed the money!
● Fall was eventually convicted of taking
more than $400,000 in bribes (first
Cabinet member convicted of a felony
while holding a Cabinet position).
● Harding stated, “I have no trouble with
my enemies… But my… friends…, they’re
Essential Question
Summarize President Harding’s
scandals while in office.
Answer the question in three complete sentences in your
summary section
Chapter Twelve
Politics of the Roaring Twenties
Section 3
The Business of America
Chapters in Brief
American business was transforming American society, and the
automobile led the way. America became a car culture. By the late
1920s, about 80 percent of all motor vehicles in the world were in
the United States. States and cities built an elaborate network of
new roads and highways. As cars made it possible for workers to
live farther from their homes, cities grew larger. Cities in Ohio
and especially Michigan grew as major centers of automobile
manufacturing.
The airplane industry grew as well. Planes carried the nation’s
mail, and passenger service was introduced.
Another major change was the spread of electricity. Whereas
electricity had been found only in central cities before, it now
stretched to the suburbs although farms still lacked electric
power. Electrical appliances—radios, washing machines, and
vacuum cleaners among them—began appearing in homes across
America. To convince people to buy these new appliances,
businesses adopted new methods of advertising. No longer
content only to give information
about products, they now used ads to sell an image. Widespread
advertising meant that certain brand names became nationally
known. A new form of mass entertainment—radio—provided
Chapters in Brief
First, the business scene was not completely healthy. As
workers produced more in the same number of hours,
businesses grew, sometimes producing more goods than
they could sell. Chain stores spread across the nation. With
this growth, however, the difference in income between
business managers and workers grew. Also, mining
companies, railroads, and farms were suffering.
Second, consumer debt rose to alarming levels. Businesses
helped promote consumer spending by allowing customers
to buy on credit. By making the payments low and
spreading them over a long period of time, businesses made
it easy for consumers to decide to purchase all the goods
that the businesses were producing.
American
Industries
Flourish
●
Presidents Coolidge and Hoover favored policies
that would keep taxes down and profits up
●
They wanted to keep government involvement in
business to a minimum
●
For most of the 1920s, their approach seemed to
American Industries Flourish
⦿
Impact of the Automobile
1.
Literally changed the
American landscape
○ construction of new
paved roads (Route
66)
○ Changed architectural
styles
○ Gas stations, motels,
etc.
1.
Liberated isolated rural
families (they can now
American Industries Flourish
3.
Allowed for greater
independence for
young people
3.
Created the urban
sprawl (workers can
live further away from
their jobs)
3.
Cars become a status
symbol, yet still
affordable enough that
they were attainable by
America’s Standard of Living
Soars
● Americans owned 40% of
●
●
●
●
the world’s wealth.
Average income up 35%
(from $522 to $705 average
salary)
People found it easy to
spend their increased
income.
Advances in alternating
current allowed the power
grid to extend out to
many more people.
New electric machines
○ Some had irons,
refrigerators, ranges,
America’s Standard of Living
Soars
⦿
Modern Advertising
● Psychologists were
consulted to help
focus appeal on
people’s desire for
youthfulness, beauty,
health, and wealth
● Brand names became
familiar and luxury
items were made to
seem like necessities
● Businesspeople
America’s Standard of Living
Soars
● Advertising made people
want things
● Installment plans (paying a
little each month, with
interest rates low) allowed
people to buy goods they
otherwise couldn’t.
● Advertisers pushed the idea
of installment plans.
● “You furnish the girl, we’ll
furnish
the home!”
America’s Standard of Living
Soars
** Prosperity of the 1920s was superficial
1. major industries like steel,
automobiles, and
home construction were suffering
2. the number of products purchased on
credit
rose substantially
3. more than 80% of the American
people
earned less than $3,000 per year, yet
they
A Superficial Prosperity
⦿
The Paradox
● Coolidge stood for economy and a frugal way of
life, but he was favored by people who “lived in
the now.”
⦿
Problems on the horizon
● Some economists thought buying on credit
could get out of hand.
● Growing income gap between workers and
managers
● Oversupply in some industries drove down
prices (and profits!)
⦿
Still, life seemed easier and more enjoyable for
Marketing Advertisement
How would you use modern advertising to market
these items? Create an advertisement for one of the
items below:
⦿Double Boiler: $1.19
⦿Coffee Pot: $1.19
⦿Western Electric Clothes Washer: $125.00
⦿Electric Toaster Green: $6.75
⦿Aluminum Coffee Percolators: 98¢
⦿Electric Table Stoves: $1.95 to $12.50
⦿Wind up Gramophone: (phonograph) $85
⦿Gas Ranges: $88
**($100 in 1920 = about $1000 today)**
Essential Question
How did changes in
technology in the 1920s
influence American life?
Explain.
Answer the question in three complete sentences in your
summary section
Chapter Thirteen - OVERVIEW
During the 1920s, rural
America clashes with a
faster-paced urban culture.
Women’s attitudes and roles
change, influenced in part
by the mass media. Many
African Americans join in
the new urban cities.
Chapter Thirteen
The Roaring Life of the 1920s
Section 1
Changing Ways in Life
Chapters in Brief
The 1920 census revealed that for the first time more
Americans lived in towns and cities than in the country.
The 1920s sped that process of urbanization. New York,
Chicago, and Philadelphia became huge cities, and 65 others
had more than 100,000 people. As 2 million people a year
left their farms, city values—not small-town values—began
to dominate the nation. The transition was not always easy.
One clash concerned Prohibition, favored by many rural
people and opposed by many city dwellers. In 1920, the
Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution took effect and
Prohibition became law. However, the effort to stop
drinking was doomed. The government did not have
enough law officers to enforce the law. Illegal nightclubs
sprang up across the country. People began making their
own illegal liquor. Others bought from “bootleggers”—
Chapters in Brief
The country also saw a revival of Christian fundamentalism.
Christian fundamentalists believed that every word in the
Bible was literally true. Religious revivals and preachers
drew large crowds, especially in the South and West. Soon
fundamentalists clashed with science in the Scopes trial.
Fundamentalists, who rejected the scientific theory of
evolution, persuaded some states to outlaw teaching of that
theory in schools. Teacher John Scopes protested the law by
openly teaching the subject. The trial brought famous
attorneys and large crowds to a small Tennessee town. After
Scopes was found guilty, the state Supreme Court reversed
the conviction.
Rural and Urban Differences
● “Cities were the place to be, not to get away from.”
● Cities rise to prominence and formed the new urban scene
○ New York (5.6 million), Chicago (3 million), Philadelphia (2
million) are the largest cities in the United States
○ They had a diverse population and were busy all the time
(fast paced life)
○ Cities revolved around the 3 “I’s” = Immigrants, Industry,
and Indecency
Prohibition
● Lasted from 1920-1933
● 18th Amendment banned the
●
●
●
●
manufacture, sale, and
transportation of alcohol
Some thought alcohol led to
crime, abuse, accidents, and
social problems
Drinking did not disappear, it
just went underground to
Speakeasies.
Bootleggers smuggled alcohol
in from other countries
Others distilled and sold their
own alcohol, or obtained a
prescription for alcohol use
Organized Crime
⦿
An unintended consequence
of Prohibition was the
contribution to organized
crime
⦿
Al Capone
● Headed Chicago criminal
activity by age 26
● He made $60 million per
year through his empire.
● Killed off competition (522
gang killings)
⦿
By the mid 20’s, 19% of
Americans favored
Al Capone Mini Biography
⦿ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzf
WQ7TRF8w
Science and Religion Clash
● American
Fundamentalism
○ Believed in a literal
interpretation of the
Bible
○ Fundamentalists
rejected Darwin’s
theory of evolution
● Scopes Monkey Trial
○ John Scopes taught
Science and Religion Clash
○ Scopes was supported by the
ACLU, and they hired the
famous lawyer Clarence Darrow
to defend him
○ William Jennings Bryan was
chosen as special prosecutor
○ High point is the cross
examination of Bryan as an
expert on the Bible.
○ Bryan admits that the Bible
might be interpreted in different
ways
This clash over evolution,
Prohibition, and
urbanization were evidence
of the changes and
conflicts occurring during
the 1920’s. This led to
women redefining their
role in society….
Essential Question
Explain how the overall
atmosphere of the 1920s
might have contributed to the
failure of prohibition.
Answer the question in three complete sentences in your
summary section
Chapter Thirteen
The Roaring Life of the 1920s
Section 2
The Twenties Woman
Chapters in Brief
The new urban culture influenced many women to demand
greater freedom, symbolized by the “flapper.” These young
women wore shorter skirts, shorter hair, and more jewelry than
was customary before. They also smoked cigarettes and drank
alcohol. Not all young women were flappers, of course. Many felt
caught between the old values and the new. Many women across
America were adopting new roles at work. More women worked
outside the home than before the war. They took many different
jobs, but hundreds of thousands became teacher and nurses,
secretaries, or sales clerks. Wherever they worked, though,
women faced discrimination. The 1920s began trends that
continue today: identifying jobs as women’s or men’s work and
paying women less than men.
Most married women did not work. Those who did found it
difficult to juggle the demands of both job and family. Women
also experienced changes at home. Married women had fewer
children than before. Ready-made clothes and labor-saving
devices made housework easier.
Chapters in Brief
With prosperity and the need for a more educated workforce,
more students received a high school education. High schools
changed, offering vocational training for future workers and
home economics for future homemakers. Educators met the
challenge of teaching millions of children of immigrants, many of
whom did not know English. As a result, an increasing number of
people could read. With these increased demands, schooling
costs rose dramatically.
American tastes were shaped by mass media. The number of
people who read newspapers increased sharply, and national
magazines flourished. The most powerful of the mass media,
though, was radio. It grew into national networks that offered
programming to many millions.
The growing prosperity of the 1920s gave Americans more money
to spend—and more leisure time in which to spend it. Fads
swept the nation. Many entertainment dollars were spent on
tickets to sporting events as athletes in many sports set new
records. Chief among them was baseball’s Babe Ruth, a long-ball
Chapters in Brief
Americans by the hundreds of thousands found entertainment in movie
theaters. For most of the decade, the movies were silent. In 1927,
Hollywood released The Jazz Singer—the first major talking picture.
Movies, like magazines and radio, helped create a national culture.
Many artists contributed to a flowering of American culture. Playwright
Eugene O’Neill dramatized family conflicts. Composer George
Gershwin wrote music that combined jazz rhythms with classical forms.
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win a Nobel Prize in literature,
wrote best-selling novels taking a critical look at the shallow life of
middle-class Americans. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels showed the dark
underside of the flashy life of the 1920s. Dorothy Parker, Edith
Wharton, and other women writers added a unique perspective in their
work.
In the 1920s, hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved to the
cities of the North. Many left the South for big cities in search of jobs.
By 1929, 40 percent of all African Americans lived in cities. Racial riots
erupted in the North, however. W. E. B. Du Bois, president of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
protested racial violence. Another NAACP official, James Weldon
Johnson, spearheaded the organization’s effort to get Congress to pass a
law to put an end to lynching of African Americans. While the law
Chapters in Brief
Harlem, a section of New York City, became home to a
flowering of African-American culture called the Harlem
Renaissance. Writers Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and
Zora Neale Hurston—among others—wrote moving poems,
plays, and novels portraying the difficulties and pleasures of
black life. Paul Robeson won renown as an actor. Musicians
Louis Armstrong, “Duke” Ellington, and Bessie Smith
delighted audiences with jazz and blues. This great decade
of social and cultural change, though, would soon be
overshadowed by an economic crash
Young Women Change the Rules
⦿
Flappers
● become a symbol of a free young woman
who embraced new fashion and urban attitudes
● Style
○ Skirts above the knee!
○ Short, boyish hair
○ Wore “kiss-proof” lipstick
Young Women Change the Rules
● Women become more assertive (began smoking and
drinking in public, more willing to talk about sex)
● The Double Standard
○ Women were expected to observe stricter
standards of behavior than men
○ Casual dating increased, but men only officially
“courted” women who they would marry
Women Shed Roles
● New work opportunities
○ Nurses, teachers, secretaries,
librarians, social workers
○ Unequal treatment and wages
○ Male view that women really
belonged in the home
● The Changing Family
○ Lower birthrate from increased
birth control information
○ Marriages from personal choice
rather than family
○ Teenagers spent more time with
other kids their age, and less
with family
○ Child labor laws limit house
Education and Popular Culture
⦿
Popular Culture
● Newspaper and mass circulation magazines rose in
circulation
● Radio was most powerful communication method in the
1920s (allowed the shared national experience of hearing
news live)
● Babe Ruth was glorified as a superhero
Education and Popular Culture
● Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo
flight across the Atlantic Ocean
● movies begin to appear with sound in them
● it is one of the richest eras in American literature
The Harlem Renaissance
⦿
The Harlem Renaissance was a
literary and artistic movement
celebrating African-American
culture.
⦿
African-American ideas, politics,
art, literature, and music
flourished in Harlem (and
elsewhere)
⦿
Politics: Marcus Garvey
Writers: Claude McKay, Langston
Hughes
Performers: Paul Robeson
Musicians: Louis Armstrong,
“Duke” Ellington, Bessie Smith
⦿
⦿
⦿
Essential Question
During the 1920s, a double standard
required women to observe stricter
codes of behavior than men. Do
you think that some women of this
decade made real progress towards
equality? Support your answer.
Answer the question in three complete sentences in your