Think About It To what extent did

Think About It ► To what extent did developments during the Roaring Twenties maintain continuity and foster change in American politics and society? Consider the reforms of the Progressive Era.

The Roaring Twenties Unit 8 A AP U. S. History

Election of 1920 ► Warren G. Harding (R) § “A Return to Normalcy” James M. Cox (D) ► Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) ► § Received 913, 664 votes despite incarceration

Warren G. Harding (R) (1921 -1923) ► “A Return to Normalcy. ” ► Emergency Quota Act (1921) ► Fordney-Mc. Cumber Tariff (1922) ► Washington Naval Conference (1922 -1923) ► Teapot Dome Scandal ► Harding died in office § Calvin Coolidge assumed presidency

Foreign Policy-Washington Naval Conference AKA: Four Powers Treaty ► In 1921 Harding would invite Great Britain, France, Japan, & Italy to Washington to discuss naval disarmament (getting rid of weapons) ► The US offered to scrap 30 war ships, and other nations soon followed suit. ► The Washington Naval Conference limited the production of large war ships, but many nations got around this by building more small war ships. ► Harding would die in 1923, his VP takes over

Teapot Dome Scandal ► Many of Harding’s political appointments took bribes and were suspected of serious crimes ► Harding’s friend (the Secretary of the Interior) convinced Harding to give his office control over the nation’s oil reserves. ► This man then leased the reserves to two companies for $360, 000 to do with as they pleased. ► This scandal shook the public’s trust in how the government was being run

Sacco & Vanzetti-1920 ► April 15, 1920 the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory in Braintree, MA was robbed. The company payroll was stolen and 2 men were killed by two bandits with hand guns who “looked Italian. ” ► Three weeks later Sacco & Vanzetti, known to the police as radicals, were arrested by the police. Both were carrying hand guns with ammunition.

During the trial: S & V had fled to Mexico instead of being drafted, both were anarchists, both were Italians, and both had lied about the weapons. ► Both men had alibies saying that they were not around the scene of the crime, and neither had a criminal record. ► The defense of S & V was largely paid for by working class people who were members of Unions ► The Prosecutor kept going back to the fact that the men were Immigrant Anarchists (Paranoia-> RED SCARE) ► The men were found guilty and sentenced to death (Even after someone confessed to the crime), and the case was appealed numerous times. Sacco and Vanzetti would die on July 27, 1927 ► Sacco & Vanzetti- The Trial

Revived KKK ► The Nativist feelings of the time led to the rebirth of the KKK. ► The Birth of a Nation portrayed the clan as heroic, chivalrous, individuals who fought to save society ► By 1920 Klan membership would reach 3 -4 million, and actually win political offices in numerous southern states ► This time however the Klan became equally anti-immigrant, anti-African, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, antiwoman, and anti-union (Only liked WASPs), and continued to push their political agenda through terror & intimidation.

1920 s Culture Wars Ku Klux Klan

Election of 1924 ► Calvin Coolidge (R) § Booming economy and conservatism ► John W. Davis (D) § Democrats split between conservatives and liberals (La. Follette)

Calvin Coolidge (R) (1923 -1928) ► “The business of the American people is business. ” ► National Origins Act (1924) ► Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)

Foreign Policy- Kellogg-Briand Pact ► In 1928 Herbert Hoover is President of the USA ► The US will sign the Kellogg. Briand Pact with 61 other nations. ► The Pact effectively outlawed war, and rejected conflict as a form of “national policy” ► The US had returned to their isolationist ways that they held in the early 1900 s

Foreign Policy- Dawes Plan ► By 1923 Germany had stopped payment on their reparations from WWI. ► Dawes will step in: The US loaned money to the Germans (with a low interest rate), who paid the British and French, who repaid their loans to the US. ► The circular flow of money was known as the Dawes Plan, and would work until 1929

Election of 1928 Herbert Hoover (R) ► Al Smith (D) ► § First Catholic major party candidate

Herbert Hoover (R) (1929 -1933) “Given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon… be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. ” ► Great Depression ► Volunteerism Stock Market Crash of 1929 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930) § Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) § Bonus Army (1932) § § §

American Consumer Society ► Welfare Capitalism § Real income increases Higher rate for owners, managers, skilled labor ► Minimal increased rates for unskilled labor and working class ► § Insurance, profit-sharing, worker safety § Decreased influence of unions ► Mass Production § Wide variety and availability of consumer products at affordable prices § Model T § Domestic appliances Installment Plans (36 easy payments of $499. 99) ► Impact of the Automobile ►

Consumer Ads

► The availability and cheap prices of almost everything led to advertising. ► This becomes the rise of a consumer culture in the USA ► For the first time people had the ability to buy on credit

1920 s Society Blacks ► White Resentment § Lynchings increased especially in the South ► Universal Negro Improvement Association § Marcus Garvey § Economic solidarity and advancement for blacks § Failed attempt of mass migration to Africa § Inspired black pride and nationalism

1920 s Society Immigrants ► First Red Scare and Nativism ► Quota Laws § Emergency Quota Act (1921) ► 3% of 1910 Census § National Origins Act (1924) ► 2% of 1890 Census ► Sacco and Vanzetti Trial (1920 -1927) § Two Italian immigrants executed for murder despite little evidence

1920 s Society Women ► Nineteenth Amendment and Voting ► Employment ► Margaret Sanger ► Flapper Girl § Usually voted as husbands § Politicians catered to femalefriendly legislation and programs § Clerical, teachers, nurses, domestic servants § Lower wages and no managerial positions § American Birth Control League § Established Planned Parenthood § Young women of the Jazz Age § Short hair, short hemline, cosmetics, cigarette

1920 s Culture Wars Prohibition ► Eighteenth Amendment and Volsteadt Act § Supported by middle-class progressives and rural Protestants especially in South and West § Generally ignored in urban centers ► Bootleggers/Rumrunners § Smuggling of alcohol § Rise of organized crime ► Al Capone ► Speakeasies § Underground saloons

1920 s Culture Wars Religion ► Fundamentalism § Literal view of Bible; Creationism § Attacked urban lifestyle and culture § Revivalists ► Billy Sunday ► Aimee Semple Mc. Pherson ► Modernism § Liberal view of religion § Acceptance and coordination of science and context with faith ► Scopes Monkey Trial (1925) § Law against teaching of evolution in Tennessee public school § Creationism ► William Jennings Bryan § Evolution ► Clarence Darrow

1920 s Culture Wars Hero Worship ► Athletes, celebrities, innovators famed for individual accomplishment ► A personification of American individualism § § § Babe Ruth Charles Lindbergh Gene Tunney ► Fueled tabloid and gossip columns in newspapers and magazines

1920 s Culture Wars The Jazz Age Inspiration of rebellious youth and liberal reaction to conservatism and fundamentalism ► Song and Dance ► § Jazz ► Louis Armstrong ► George Gershwin § Speakeasies § Dance Clubs ► Waltz to Foxtrot to Charleston ► Josephine Baker § Flappers ► Radio § Mainstream medium § Networks: NBC, CBS ► Cinema § Talkies ► The Jazz Singer § Nickelodeons § Charlie Chaplin

1920 s Culture Wars Literature ► The Lost Generation § Disillusioned by World War I, consumerism, and modernism § Ernest Hemingway ► The Sun Also Rises ► A Farewell to Arms § Sinclair Lewis ► Babbitt § F. Scott Fitzgerald ► The Great Gatsby

1920 s Culture Wars Harlem Renaissance Fueled by the Great Migration ► “Black is beautiful” ► § Black nationalist themes challenged racial stereotypes § Promote social and racial integration Langston Hughes ► Zora Neale Hurston ► § “Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me. ” ► The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925)

H. L. Mencken Critiques America; A Critique of H. L. Mencken – “On Being American” (1922) ► Apparently there are those who begin to find it disagreeable – nay, impossible. Their anguish fills the Liberal weeklies and every ship that puts out from New York carries a groaning cargo of them, bound for anywhere to escape the great curses and atrocities that make life intolerable for them at home… [T]he government of the United States, in both its legislative and its executive arm, is ignorant, incompetent, corrupt, and disgusting. . . It is a belief no less piously cherished that the administration of justice in the Republic is stupid, dishonest, and against all reason and equity. . . It is another that the foreign policy of the United States – its habitual manner of dealith with other nations, whether friend or foe – is hypocritical, disingenuous, knavish, and dishonorable. . . And it is my fourth conviction that the American people constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goosesteppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages, and grow more timorous, more sniveling, more poltroonish, more ignominious every day. Catherine Beech Ely – “The Sorrows of Mencken” (1928) ► Mencken deplores our antiquated regard for the sacredness of home, church, and history. We are so slow to learn that there is no such word as tradition in the lexicon of modern thought. Tradition implies affection for the past, whereas the Mencken school would have us understand that we have no past and no future worth cherishing, only the present for donning harlequin’s attire and proclaiming the farcical futility of human endeavor… For the Mencken school faith is demoded, aspiration a weak delusion. Yet America refuses to repudiate religion. She makes it the foundation of her institutions, the motive-power of her charities, the keynote of her progress. Mencken sorrows over America’s narrow conformities, so contrary to the selfsufficiency of intellectualism. The American bourgeois blunders onward and upward instead of reclining at full length in the dry lands of Rationalism.

Stock Market Crash: October 1929 ► The “Roaring” Twenties will die in late October 1929 ► Almost EVERYONE “played” the market in the 1920 s. Stocks always seemed to go up, so people continued to put more and more money into the market (Buying on Margin) ► The educated bankers realized stock prices were grossly inflated, and started to sell their stock. ► This caused a panic, and on Black Thursday Oct 24 the Market will lose 11% of it’s value

► Prominate bankers and families will buy large quantities of stock on Friday to temporarily stabilize the market. ► On Black Monday Oct 28, stocks crash again dropping 13% of their value, and on Tuesday Oct 29 th lose 12% of their value. ► Entire fortunes will be lost in a matter of minutes. ► Banks had invested people’s savings into the stock market to earn money for further investment, and when people went to pull on their savings there was no money…

Smoot-Hawley Tariff ► In addition to the Market Crashing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff would be signed into law. ► President Hoover, trying to protect US farmers, wanted a tariff placed on foreign goods to make imported products more expensive. ► This led to retaliatory Tariffs by nations such as Canada, Britain, France, & Germany ► The Tariff caused international trade to drop catastrophically ► US exports declined by 66%, and the nations GDP dropped by over 50% (other nations were similar or worse) ► The Great Depression had begun