Ch 32 American Life in the Roaring Twenties

Ch. 32: American Life in the Roaring Twenties

Life cover, July 1, 1926 "One Hundred and Forty -three Years of LIBERTY and Seven Years of PROHIBITION. " (Private Collection) Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

I. GUIDING QUESTIONS What aspects of life created the reputation of the “Roaring 20 s”? In what ways and to what degree were the 1920 s a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on the one hand traditional values on the other? (Consider Race relations, immigration/ nativism, role of women, consumerism)

I. GUIDING QUESTIONS In what ways did economic conditions and development in the arts and entertainment help create the reputation of the 1920 s as the Roaring Twenties?

II. BUSINESS BOOM

BUSINESS PROSPERITY ECONOMIC PROSPERITY: productivity: up 50% real income: up 25% standard of living: indoor plumbing central heating electricity (2/3 by 1930) Gross National Product, 19201930 Unemployment, 19201930 CAUSES OF BUSINESS PROSPERITY: Increased productivity (scientific management, machinery) Increased use of oil and electricity Favorable government policy (tax breaks, antitrust)

Automobiles & Industrial Expansion Henry Ford 1913: car=2 yrs wages 1929: 3 mos. 1913: 14 hours to build awages new car 1928: New Ford off assembly line every 10 seconds Henry Ford (1863 -1947) Ford Highland Park assembly line, 1928 (From the Collections of Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village) “Trying out the new assembly line“ Detroit, 1913

Auto Manufacturing

PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS Income Distribution, 1929 1 % 40% of all U. S. families lived on <$1, 500 per year – in poverty range 5% 29% 65% Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970

III. SOCIETY, CULTURE & VALUES

Farm vs. Nonfarm Population, 18801980 1920 CENSUS: First time majority of U. S. population in urban areas (towns 2500 or greater) 1920: More workers in factories than on farms

CONSUMERISM (electric) appliances automobiles advertising (image vs. utility) buying on credit chain stores Consumer Debt, 1920 – 1931 General Electric ad (Picture Research Consultants & Archives)

CONSUMERISM: Impact of the Automobile Increase in sales: 1913 - 1. 2 million registered; 1929 - 26. 5 million registered Passenger Car Sales, 1920 -1929 (=almost one per family) Replaced the railroad as the key promoter of economic growth (steel, glass, rubber, gasoline, highways) Daily life: commuting allowed suburbs to sprawl outward Filling Station, Maryland in 1921

Impact of the Automobile: Trains and Automobiles, 1900 -1980 Jones, Created

Automobiles & Consumerism Dodge advertisement photo, 1933 < Ford ad: “Every family -- with even the most modest income, can now afford a car of their own. " “Every family should have their own car. . . You live but once and the years roll by quickly. Why wait for tomorrow for things that you rightfully should enjoy today? " (Library of Congress) Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved

Ford Motor Company showroom 1925 Chevrolet Advertisement 1925 CONSUMERISM & Automobiles

July 4, Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts, early 1920 s

MASS CULTURE: Radio New mass medium 1920: First commercial radio station By 1930: over 800 stations & 10 million radios Networks: NBC (1924), CBS (1927) The Spread of Radio, to 1939

MASS CULTURE: Movies Silent films 1903 -1927 “talkies” (1927) (Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library) 80 million tickets sold per week by 1930 (population: 100 million)

MASS CULTURE: Popular Heroes Thomas Edison Charles Lindbergh “Lucky Lindy” first to cross the Atlantic solo “Babe” Ruth Charles Lindbergh (National Archives)

ROLE OF WOMEN: the “New Woman” Women’s fashions, 1920

ROLE OF WOMEN – the “Flapper” the “flapper” – symbol of independence

ROLE OF WOMEN: Women and Politics Impact of 19 th Amendment League of Women Voters Alice Paul- National Woman’s Party Margaret Sanger Alice Paul

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART Literature “lost generation” F. Scott Fitzgerald Writings epitomized Jazz Age Philosophy Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald on the Riviera, 1926 (Stock Montage) Eugene O’Neill

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART African Americans Harlem Renaissance Proud of black culture, argued for a “New Negro” to be a social equal to whites Langston Hughes Louis Armstrong Zora Neal 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. “Zora Neal Hurston

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART African Americans Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? Langston

CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART Jazz “The Jazz Age” Louis Armstrong Duke Ellington Louis Armstrong & the Fate Marabel Louis Armstrong

IV. SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS

Religion “modernism” vs. “fundamentalism” Scopes Trial Clarence Darrow William Jennings Bryan

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Prohibition Rise of “speakeasies” Al Capone and “gangsterism” “wets” “dries” Government agents breaking up an illegal bar during Alphonse “Scarface”

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest Immigration Act of 1924 Designed to freeze American racial composition and keep out Southern and Easter Europeans deemed “inferior” Percentage of Population Foreign Born, 1850 -1990 Number of Immigrants and Countries of Origin, 18911920 and 19211940

Immigration, 1921 -1960

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest Communist International 3 rd International Goal (1919): promote worldwide communism Red Scare: harmed labor unions Palmer Raids (1920) Police arrest “suspected Reds” in Chicago, 1920 A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home bombed, 1920

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest Sacco & Vanzetti Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1921 HAVE A CHAIR! Worker from The Daily IS THE EMBLEM? from The Daily Worker

SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest Birth of a Nation - D. W. Griffith “new” Ku Klux Klan Anti foreign, black, Jewish, pacifist, communist Ku Klux Klan initiation, 1923. The Klan opposed all who were not “true Americans”. (c) 2000 IRC (Picture Research Consultants & Archives)

Black Population, 1920

Ku Klux Klan (mid 1920 s) (Private Collection Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington, D. C. , Sept. 13, 1926

SOURCES http: //www. wadsworth. com/history_d/special_features/image_b ank_US/1920_1930. html Brinkley, American History: A Survey Kennedy, American Pageant 13 e (History Companion) Faragher, Out of Many, 3 rd Ed. ; http: //wps. prenhall. com/hss_faragher_outofmany_ap/ Jones, et al. , Created Equal Nash America: Pathways to the Present