American Life in the Roaring Twenties 1919 1929

American Life in the “Roaring Twenties” 1919 -1929 Unit 10: The Jazz Age, Depression, and New Deal

Chapter Themes • A disillusioned America turned away from idealism and reform after World War I, and toward isolationism in foreign affairs, domestic social conservatism, and the pleasures of prosperity

Chapter Themes • New technologies, mass-marketing techniques, and new forms of entertainment fostered rapid cultural change along with a focus on consumer goods. But accompanying changes in moral values and uncertainty about the future produced cultural anxiety, as well as sharp intellectual critiques of American life

Post War Duality • Disillusionment over the peace • Economic downturn • Overproduction • Fear of foreigners • Isolationism • Increased standard of living • New consumerism • Leisure opportunities • Entertainment • “Endless” prosperity

Red Scare • Bolshevik Revolution 1917 • Fear of spread to the U. S. • Anti labor sentiment • Billy Sunday • Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer – “The Fighting Quaker” • Buford (the Soviet Ark)

Reactions to the Red Scare • Denial of political office for Socialists • American plan (antiunionism) • Criminal syndicalism laws • Curtailment of civil liberties • Sacco and Vanzetti

KKK • Similar to the Nativist movement of the 1850 s • Opposed virtually everyone who was not a “Native” Anglo. Saxon, Protestant America • Secret rituals • Collapsed in the late 1920 s

Limiting Immigration • Emergency Quota Act of 1921 • Immigration Act of 1924 • Favored Northern Europeans • No Japanese immigration

Differing Opinions • Cultural pluralism • Horace Kallen • Randolph Bourne • Trans-nationality • Cosmopolitanism • Birth of multiculturalism

Prohibition • Eighteenth Amendment 1919 • Volstead Act • Limited enforcement ability • Attack on personal liberties • Speakeasies, bathtub gin, bootleggers

Rise in Organized Crime • Rise of the black market for alcohol • Bribery • Rival gangs • Racketeers

Scopes Monkey Trial • High school graduation requirement • John Dewey • Scientific advancements • Darwinism • Trial of John T. Scopes for teaching evolution • Defended by Clarence Darrow • William Jennings Bryan– prosecutor • Fundamentalism

Economic Growth • 1922 -1929 period of sustained economic growth • Tax policies favored capital investment • Technological change

Automobile • Automobiles and related industries • Machinery • Increase in productivity • Assembly line • Fordism • $5 day • Scientific Management • Frederick Taylor

Mass Consumerism • • Advertising Sports Celebrities Buying on credit • Credit risk

The Gasoline Age • By 1930 – auto industry employed 6 million people • Increased speed to market • Freedom and equality • Consolidation of school districts • “The public be rammed”

Continued Advances • Airplane • Radio • Movies • Talkies • Mass media • Loss of Old Country culture • Formation of working class political coalition

Social Change • National Woman’s Party • Alice Paul • Birth Control • Margaret Sanger • Religious Modernism • Flappers and the new sexual morality

The Jazz Age • Blues + Ragtime = Jazz • New Orleans roots • African American origins • Soon co-opted by all white jazz bands

The Harlem Renaissance • African American racial pride • Arts movement • Marcus Garvey • UNIA • Back to Africa movement

Cultural Liberation • New vibrancy in American literature • • • Fitzgerald Hemingway Sherwood Anderson Sinclair Lewis Gertrude Stein William Faulkner Ezra Pound T. S. Eliot Eugene O’Neill

Wall Street • “The business of America is business” • Stock speculation • Buying on margin • Bureau of the Budget 1921 • Tax reductions (for the wealthy) • Numerous bank failures annually • Signs of trouble ahead?