Roaring Twenties PDF

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Roaring Twenties and a Conservative Reaction Outline The thesis of any essay coming of this question is the thesis of this documentary. The Century: America’s Time – 1920s 18th amendment: prohibition and illegalization of alcohol. Nobody payed attention to prohibition. Liquor was sold behind closed doors. Control of illegal liquor and led to gangs and guns. Prohibition was the perfect symbol of the 1920s. As modern America became of age, technological, geographical, and social traditions were shattered. America was about to leave its rural past and the progress had its price. At the dawn of the 1920s, America was entering a new era of a new urban culture. There was an eagerness to embrace the new, especially in New York. Moving to cities after WWI. Urban centers more people than in countryside. Broadway, Madison Avenue, Wall Street. Wall St was where the action was. Fifth Avenue. Number of billionaires jumped 400% during the 1920s. New music of jazz. Capitol of jazz was Harlem. Louis Armstrong, Bessy Smith, Edward Ellington (Duke). Cotton Club. Harlem was contributing music, political, science, and economic. Immigrants: making 9 or 10 dollars a week and 6 days a week. Most mixed city (NYC) racially and ethnically. Change was centered in the cities. People still lived as farmers and liked it that way. Quite easy life. Throughout 1920s, new technologies transformed daily life. America was electrified in the 1920s and opened up new possibilities for work and play. Surge of new power cam first to the cites and eventually, majority of Americans had electricity. Cars gave Americans a sense of freedom to escape the city, or to go on a vacation. One billion dollars spent by the American government on construction of roads by mid 20s. The new Negro and someone who stood up for the Negro and was proud to be black. Harlem was a promised land for blacks. Road sign advertising came as a side effect. Advertising changed the culture and came with the idea of credit. “buy now, pay later” Radio came a nationwide phenomenon. Albert somebody. 1920s, night station transmits… every stores were selling radios. Social patterns in place also began to shift. Expanding job market for women. Throughout the 1920s, women would assert freedom and independence. 19th amendment. Flappers. Women began to live for themselves instead of their families. Religion was apparently the basis of the U.S. as cities grew, many pe0ple I small town America saw a threat as they had “alien” ideas. Tennessee: most famous courtroom battles. Teaching Darwinism which was against the law in Tennessee. William Jennings Bryan came to prosecute. Scopes Trial: science or religion? John T. Scopes was found guilty and was fined 100 dollars. Reason of science seemed to be a threat of religion. People wanted the benefits of the future and the comfort of the past. Creates psychological tension. Goes into hatred towards immigrants and into the KKK. KKK membership soared to 4 million in the 1920s. opposed blacks and Catholics and Jews, etc. went to people’s houses: lynching and intimidation. Actively recruiting in northern states. Black children seized by KKK. Lynching. Estimated 200 people were lynched by the Klan and came so powerful that they had political control. 50,000 member marched in Washington. People in the 1920s were hungry in heroes. Sports celebrities. Babe Ruth. Airplanes. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh, spirit of st louis for Paris. No one had flown solo across the Atlantic. Thousands came to watch him take off. Once he was out of side, it seemed as if all of America hold its breath. 33-and-a-half-hour flight. He landed in Paris. 100,000 greeted him. His flight represented a mastery of modern technology with traditional customs. Everybody loved Lindbergh. One continent for the airplane to conquer: Antarctica. Fly over the South Pole. 120 men connected with this expedition. 2-year mission was to conduct research and responsibility to be getting onto the interior of Antarctica. After midnight, 1929, 500 feet above the south pole. End of the 1920s: anything seemed possible. 20s: pandemic of optimism and the future of the country was unlimited. Wealth: stock market. Boom in buying stock market prices. Investors began to cash in their stocks. On October 29, 1929, it was obvious that things were wildly amiss. At 9:30, the market crashed. Crowds gathered out on the streets and by 3:00… 30 billion dollars vanished. 1930s: trying to start over. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There are two things that needs to be understood about the 1920’s. The first is that it is a time of INCREDIABLE prosperity and economic growth. American average family earnings grew. It is a time of remarkable technological transformation and social transformation. With

everything from cars to radios to movies, all of these things really change the US and create the foundations ‘modern American culture’, but there is also a darker side to the 1920s. One of frustration, in which rabid racism and nativism, sought to exclude from the roaring side of the Roaring Twenties, entire groups of people based on their skin color and ethnicity. These people were forced to create their own prosperity within their own community. (Harlem Renaissance). You see the terrorism of the KKK, the rapid nativism that results in a closing of the US to new immigration starting in 1920. You see the tensions between the rapid changes and the progressivism of the 1920s with that conflict between fundamental Christianity and conservatism, which breaks out into The Scope’s Trial. I.

Politics and Prosperity: The Roaring Twenties a. The Harding-Coolidge Years i. The prosperity of the 1920s was largely built on two fundamental bases: governmental policy and the fact that the economy of the US had expanded greatly during the wartime years. During the presidency of Warren G. Harding, who is elected in the 1920 election, dies of a stroke and then succeeded by Calvin Coolidge, who wins his own term in office in 1924 and serves until Herbert Hoover is inaugurated in 1929. The Government policy towards the economy was one of a turning away of the progressive mentality, back to a much more traditional republican policy towards the economy, which was a Laissez-faire government. Harding and Coolidge roll back government and basically let business handle itself, which removed regulatory oversight. This allowed business expansion on a large scale. They also focus on pro-growth policies, like lowering taxes and increasing tariff policies. b. The Business Boom of the 1920s 1. The second foundation was the fact that the economy of the US had expanded greatly during the wartime years. The American economy had experienced the boom as Britain and France had increased their purchases of American manufacture. You began to see a huge surge in American exports to Britain and France. By 1919, when war ended, there were a lot more American factories. Those new factories focused on the production of consumer products. Now the 1920s business cycle began to expand so exponentially that it focused an almost 10 years of unremitting and rapid growth, which causes a cycle that is the ‘roaring’ part of the Roaring 20s. That cycle was built on a foundation that had one fatal flaw. c.

Technology and Industrial Advances i. Taylorism – Henry Ford 1. American businesses began in the 1920s to focus on new techniques and new technologies which focused on increasing worker productivity. It focused on a concept known as ‘Taylorism’. This is a term borrowed from a guy name Fredrick Taylor, who in the early 1910s, published a book called ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’. This taught that any industrial process could be managed in a scientific way to maximize worker productivity. Basically, any process could be broken into its incremental parts. The famous example of this concept is the assembly line. This was Henry Ford’s idea. Before this, cars had been custom manufactured, from the ground up. Then he had the idea to simply move the car along an assembly line and every worker would do one step of the process. This led to mass production. Mass production matters to a business because it allows for lower prices. Lower prices meant increased sales, which helped businesses profit. Better profit allow businesses to expand production and invest into new factories, but that means they would need more workers. The better profit also allows higher worker wages. Higher wages and more people making more money mean consumers can spend more. As consumers spend more and more money, leads to more mass production and the cycle goes on. Unfortunately, if consumer spending decreases then the whole cycle would fall apart. This is exactly what happens in 1929. Something happens to shake consumer confidence in always having a job and better wages. Although, throughout the 1920s there certainly was a positive attitude. ii. The Psychology of Consumption The growth of consumer spending focused on the growth of many new technologies that began in many ways to reshape American culture. The 1920s became all about the application of technology to day to day life. In the 1920s you saw the introduction of all kinds of technological gadgets that changed American lives in fundamental ways. There was everything from toasters to refrigerators to vacuum cleaners to electric washing machines. This is the decade in which most Americans have electricity. Three technologies in particular transformed America. 1.

Automobiles a. Leading the way to make automobiles attainable to the average guy was Henry Ford. Now Ford had invented his Model T and had introduced the concept of the assembly line all the way back in the early 19-teens. Only one thing interrupted Fords effort to extend automobile to the average man, WWI. As America is more focused on war, this interrupts the introduction of automobiles to the American consumer. However, once the war is over, the automobile becomes phenomenous in American lives. The Model T was affordable to an average consumer. By 1929, there was one automobile for every five Americans. The automobile had significant side effects on the economy and society. It leads to roads, bridges and high demands for gas. This lead to more jobs and the whole cycle. Also it brought a change to family life and they could go on vacations. You also began to see the developments of completely new industries like motel and restaurants. The 1930s put a hold on American becoming a full-mobile country, but it picks back up after WWII. In the 1950s, America really begins to become a car-culture

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Radio a.

The second invention that greatly impacted America was the radio. The radio had been invented back in the late 19th century, but it had been perfected by the 1920s because of WWI. The first commercial radio broadcast occurred in 1920 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Very quickly, the price of the average radio plummeted because of the idea of the assembly line. By 1922, Americans were buying about 3 million radios per year. By the end of the 20s, almost every American household had a radio. The radio became a defining part of American culture. Radio began to feature comedies, dramas, music shows and this drew America together as a culture. With radios came advertising, and this lead to a great increase in consumer spending. This feeds into the whole consumer culture.

Movies a. The last innovation that really redefined American culture was the motion picture industry, movies. The moving picture was created by Thomas Edison. After WWI, the rapid economic increase quickly made motion pictures the next big American culture phenomena. By 1924, motion pictures theaters were selling about 40 million tickets per week and by 1929, it was 100 million tickets per week. Movies had the same cultural influence that radios did. It made Hollywood an overnight investment boom town and several major American figures made money in investments in Hollywood, like the Kennedy’s (JFK). Motion pictures transformed America. It brought new ideas, but it affected the country side as well. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II. Frustration and Prosperity Side by Side a. A “Return to Normalcy” i. After WWI ended, there was a sharp economic downturn. It featured massive layoffs, rise in unemployment, and a lot of labor strikes, as well as political strikes. In midst of all this, Woodrow Wilson was off in France, doing his 14 Points, and it reached the height of the Progressive Era with the 18th and 19th Amendments being passed. By 1920, America was undergoing what always happens when you have a period of political transformation, American politics and public opinion worked like a pendulum. Anytime it swung too far one way, there’s a backlash and a conservative reaction. There was a pullback. There were a lot of themes to this reaction. There was a roaming distrust of radical ideology, socialism, and communism. There was a boiling point on foreign immigration, so much that by 1920, the government is going to pass the first stops of immigration, they closed the gates. You saw a feeling in many white American to have to return back to fundamental Protestant. Finally, there was an agreement among a lot of white, middle-class Americans that the government had gone too far in regulating business, and getting involved in America’s day to day life. Up until 1900, there had always been the sense that the government didn’t have to do that much. In the progressive era, Americans wanted some attention from the government, but the progressive era had done so much that by 1920 there was a backlash. Then people said that they wanted the government out of their lives, which is one of the reasons Harding and Coolidge implement policies of pulling back on regulation and oversight by government. All of these things begin to play out in a lot of different events. The first and earliest seen fear of radical ideology was The Red Scare. b. The Red Scare i. It is driven by what is going on in the world starting in 1918. In 1917, the Russian Empire had signed a treaty withdrawing from WWI and surrendering massive amounts of territory to the Germans. In 1918, a communist revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, Lennon was the leader of the Bolsheviks. Lennon was an ardent follower of communism. Communism was put into written form by a German philosopher named Karl Marx. The basic idea was that it was a rejection of western style capitalism and the belief that capitalism would automatically result in a communist revolution that would take ownership of all property and all business and give it to the hands of the people. With the Bolshevik Revolution, the new western style Russian government is faced with a Civil War that is going to go through all the way through 1921, and as part of this Revolution, Lennon announced the formation of a group he called The Communist International. They publically announced their goal of exporting communism worldwide. As acts of terrorism, several terrorists’ activities sent waves of fear, so much so that the government began a noble roundup of suspected communists and socialists, which resulted in many arrests. By 1921, when the revolution ends with the Bolsheviks success, the prosperity that was beginning once again in the US allayed the fear. However, throughout the rest of the 1920s, there was always going to be a fundamental fear of political radicalism. c. The Height of Nativism – Sacco and Vanzetti i. Another major theme of this time period is the serious nativist reaction, a nativist backlash that can be seen in isolated incidents like the court case of Sacco and Vanzetti, as well as in broader movements like the rise of the new KKK. Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants living in Massachusetts, in 1921, when they were arrested and charged with robbery and murder. They were put on trial, in which the punishment Senate requested was death. Very quickly, the court case began to capture national headlines, as people began to notice that most of the trial testimony linking Sacco and Vanzetti, who were both known socialists, there really no hard evidence, but it was focused on their political leads and the fact that they were immigrants. Nationally, they began to percolate up a feeling that S and V were being put on trials just because they were outsiders. When the trial ended with a guilty verdict, many newspapers in the country protested, and over the course of four years it began to obvious that the trial was not about murder. In Massachusetts, there was Nativist movement going on, but then S and V were executed. Massachusetts and New York had always been a large nativist area since the creation of ‘the know-

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nothing party’, but it arose more in the 1920s. Where S and V was an isolated case, the rise of the KKK again was a national movement. d. The “New” KKK i. The KKK (the new Klan) from its formation from main nativist sentiment and against those of other ethnicity other than Anglo-Saxons protestants. The new KKK borrowed its name from the original clan that had started in 1865 by Nathan Forrest, but the old clan was local and they were against only black and white republicans, and the new one was more violent and national. The new Klan was created by Joseph William Simmons, and they were active politically. By 1920, the group had grown to about 100,000, and by the end of the 1920s the group had about 4 million members. The Klan’s main stream was in the Deep South and in the West. Also, by the end of the 1920s, the Klan had lead the huge 75,000-member march down the heart of Washington showing their numbers and pride, and the also gained complete political control of seven states. The Klan was mainly interested in protecting white supremacy. The Klan is going to remain a power all the way through the 1930s. WWII begins its destruction, because as so many young men began to travel overseas and encounter different ethnicities, they weren’t interested in the KKK anymore and America had changed fundamentally from the 1920s to the 1930s. By the 1970s and 80s, it turns into a radical group whose numbers are miniscule. e. Fundamentalism v. Science – The scopes Trial i. Another theme in conflict during the 1920s is that of fundamentalism vs science. This is best encapsulated by The Scopes Trial. In 1925, John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution theory in his class, in Tennessee. Quickly, the trial becomes world famous and people fled into Dayton, Tennessee to watch it. William Jennings Bryan volunteered he noted former politician and by this time, his early 80s, Arden Evangelical volunteers to lead the prosecution. Nationally famous, trial lawyer Clarence Dairo (I can’t understand wtf he says his name is) volunteers for the defense. It becomes the trial of the decade and John Scopes was found guilty, charged $100 fine. The fact that it became such a spectacle focused on fundamentalism vs modernism, Urban vs World. The 1920s was a high point of the popularity of the Evangelical Protestant ministers, continuing that Social Gospel moment. The most famous is Billy Sunday, who took new ways to communicate, like the radio. f. Harlem Renaissance and Prosperity on Their Own i. Of course, racial tensions are a basic part of the frustration and division of America during the 1920s. As by large, African Americans are excluded from the prosperity and advances that most Americans are enjoying. This is largely the fact that you continued to have the majority of the African American population in the rural South where they were subjected to Jim Crow Laws and poverty. The 1920s through WWII is the beginnings of phenomena of African Americans called The Great Migration. Starting in the 1920s, increasing numbers of AAs began to take the opportunity to leave the South, moving into the growing urban areas of New York, Chicago and other cities where they were able to find a prosperity of their own and the most famous example of this is Harlem, New York. This was where The Harlem Renaissance occurred, where a cultural explosion of music, literature, poetry, no...