CHAPTER 22 Cultural Conflict Bubble and Bust 1919

CHAPTER 22 Cultural Conflict, Bubble, and Bust, 1919‒ 1932 Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I A. Racial Strife 1. White Violence - African Americans were determined to achieve citizenship rights after World War I; return of black war veterans and increase of black migrants to the North led to backlash by whites; lynchings in the South rose (48 in 1917, 78 in 1919); several black men were lynched in uniform. lynching in Rosewood, Florida, in 1921 led to black residents arming themselves, mobs of whites burned their houses and attacked black citizens with no intervention by police. 2. Competition - Large numbers of blacks, immigrants, and whites seeking work and housing increased tension in northern cities; deadly riots in East St. Louis (1917) and Chicago (1919). Blacks were also being lynched in the Midwest and well as the North.

I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I B. Erosion of Labor Rights 1. National War Labor Board - Increased workers’ expectations of what employers could do for them; postwar conditions changed, workers frustrated; during 1919 one in five U. S. workers went on strike; U. S. Steel hired Mexican and black workers to break strikes; new industries sought to hire nonunion employees. 2. Public employees - In 1919, Boston police force went on strike over the right to form a union; Governor Coolidge fired the entire force and was supported by the public and by anti-labor Supreme Court rulings; union membership fell from 5. 1 million (1920) to 3. 6 million (1929). 3. Welfare capitalism - Henry Ford and some other employers took on some responsibility for employees’ well-being, providing health insurance, old-age pensions, athletic facilities, and paid vacations, hoping this would build a loyal workforce and head off labor unrest; these plans covered only 5 percent of industrial workforce.

I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I C. The Red Scare 1. Bolsheviks - Fear of Russian Bolsheviks grew in the United States, coinciding with the rising cost of living (up 80 percent between 1917 and 1919); U. S. Communist Party was small (fewer than 70, 000 people) but the Bolsheviks’ founding of the Third Communist International in 1919 increased fears among Americans that they would seek a revolution in the United States. 2. Palmer raids -In April 1919, 34 mail bombs were sent to government officials; in June a bomb exploded outside the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer; Palmer established an antiradicalism division in the Justice Department (FBI) and named J. Edgar Hoover to direct it; in November, raids of radical organizations began. 3. Sacco and Vanzetti - In May 1920, Nicola Sacco (shoemaker) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (fish peddler) were arrested in Massachusetts for the murder of two men during a holdup; these self-proclaimed anarchists were convicted and sentenced to death despite lack of evidence and clear bias of prosecutor.

II. Politics in the 1920 s A. Women in Politics 1. Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act- Progressive women hoped voting rights would lead to passage of important legislation in the 1920 s; this act provided federal money for medical clinics, prenatal education, and visiting nurses. 2. Equal Rights Amendment - In 1923, Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party persuaded congressional allies to consider an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution which stated: “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States; ” opponents objected on the basis that it would threaten recently won protective legislation for women. 3. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom - International peace organization created in 1919; Jane Addams was a founding member; protested imperialism and the negative repercussions of militarism; criticized during Red Scare.

II. Politics in the 1920 s B. Republicans and Business 1. Warren Harding - Ohio senator who promised normalcy; scandals revealed, included leasing of oil reserves to private companies (Teapot Dome scandal). 2. Calvin Coolidge - – Wanted limited government, isolationism, and tax cuts for businesses; Republicans did not want to continue most progressive measures from the 1910 s, did not enforce antitrust laws.

II. Politics in the 1920 s C. Dollar Diplomacy 1. Foreign affairs - All three Republican presidents wanted private banks to make loans to foreigners, hoping to stimulate the U. S. economy by increasing demand for products; banks wanted government to ensure that loans would be paid back, even by unstable governments; banks gave loans with conditions such as oversight by bank commissions and military force by the United States; U. S. Marine occupation of Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Haiti began as part of forced repayment; Americans saw these lands as “possessions. ” 2. On the defensive -Critics denounced loan guarantees and military intervention as dollar diplomacy; African Americans criticized American involvement in Haiti; calls for isolationism forced presidents to defend these foreign relationships.

II. Politics in the 1920 s D. Culture Wars 1. Prohibition - Rural and native-born Protestants wanted prohibition, aided by calls that drinking German beer was “unpatriotic” during World War I; Eighteenth Amendment passed in 1917 and ratified by 1920; prohibited manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors. 2. Evolution in the Schools - State and local school boards in some areas wanted to mandate school curricula based on Biblical teachings; Tennessee took the lead on this by outlawing the teaching of any theory that did not hold Biblical teachings central to the existence of humans; American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) intervened in the case of John Scopes (high school biology teacher) who faced a jail sentence for teaching evolution; press called case “The Scopes Monkey Trial; ” jury took eight minutes to find Scopes guilty, Tennessee Supreme Court later overturned.

II. Politics in the 1920 s D. Culture Wars (cont. ) 3. Nativism – Fears about unrestricted immigration by nativeborn Protestants who believed them to be the cause of problems in United States; Catholics and Jews were targets of hostility; Coolidge: “America must be kept American; ” arguments that immigrants undermined Christianity and imported anarchism and socialism; the National Origins Act (1924) used the 1890 census to determine how many people could enter from individual nations; further restricted immigration from Europe in 1929; immigrants from Western Hemisphere were unrestricted leading to increasing numbers of Latin American immigrants, including 1 million Mexicans; Great Depression led to cuts in immigration from Mexico; hostility towards Asians grew in California which passed a law making it illegal for noncitizens to own property.

II. Politics in the 1920 s • D. Culture Wars (cont. ) 4. The National Klan - Following Birth of a Nation (1915 film) the KKK grew, targeting Jews and Catholics; ran for political offices and won; more than 3 million members at height. - 5. The Election 1928 - Catholic Governor Al Smith (D-NY) ran against Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce; opponents: “No Governor can kiss the papal ring and get within gunshot of the White House; ” Hoover won 58 percent of popular vote and 444 electoral votes.

III. Intellectual Modernism A. Harlem in Vogue 1. Black Writers and Artists - Writers like Langston Hughes, and Claude Mc. Kay published works that championed black pride; Zora Neale Hurston documented black folklore, songs, and religious beliefs that she incorporated into short stories and novels. 2. Jazz - Most visible piece of Harlem culture for most Americans; started in New Orleans before World War I; combination of blues, ragtime, and other musical forms; improvised solo made trumpeter Louis Armstrong a star; radio helped grow the nationwide popularity of jazz; 1920 s saw advent of companies producing race records for black audiences. 3. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA - Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) formed in 1920 s in Harlem; Garvey: born in Jamaica, advocated black separatism, claimed to have 4 million followers; published Negro World and sought to create a steamship company to bring blacks back to Africa, Black Star Line; Garvey imprisoned for mail fraud and deported in 1925; symbol of emerging pan. Africanism.

III. Intellectual Modernism B. Critiquing American Life 1. The Lost Generation - Post-World War I voices proclaimed growing dissent: Gertrude Stein called those who survived the war the Lost Generation; John Dos Passos criticized the war in The Three Soldiers (1921), as did Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms (1929). 2. The dark side - Examinations of the dark side of human beings: Eugene O’Neill in Desire Under the Elms (1924) and The Emperor Jones (1920); Sinclair Lewis criticized conformity in Babbitt (1922); Lewis was first American to win Nobel Prize for literature in 1930; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) criticized the pursuit of pleasure and wealth.

IV. From Boom to Bust B. Consumer Culture 1. The Automobile - Mass production led to Americans spending $2. 58 billion on automobiles in 1929; other industries were stimulated: steel, petroleum, chemical, rubber, and glass; suburbs grew and new shopping centers were developed; hurt the railroad industry; changed the way people spent leisure time. 2. Hollywood - By 1910, moviemaking industry was growing in California on cheap land; young people followed the fashions of movie actors and actresses, including flapper Clara Bow; flappers represented social and sexual emancipation for women.

IV. From Boom to Bust A. The Coming of the Great Depression 1. Corporate monopolies - By the 1920 s, corporations were the major form of business in the United States; a few major producers were at the top of most markets (oligopoly); mergers between banks made Wall Street the financial center of the United States; 2. Inflation was followed by two years of recession with 10 percent unemployment; between 1922 and 1929, although national per capita income rose. Over production of consumer goods would also down prices, while good for consumers it was bad for business. 3. Languishing industries - Despite boom, U. S. economy had weak agricultural sector due to falling prices; coal and textile industries languished for similar reasons; rural Americans did not benefit from prosperity.

IV. From Boom to Bust C. The Coming of the Great Depression 4. Too much lending on credit to consumers ($7 billion per year by 1927); drop in consumer spending as credit became more difficult to get. 5. Global economic problems; loans from allies were not paid back, in fact, the U. S. lent another 6 billion to Germany (total of 9 Billion had been given to Europe) to revamp their economy and they gave it to GB. and France who demanded it for reparation payments. Effects - During the first four years, industrial production fell 37 percent, construction fell 78 percent, and, by 1932, unemployment had reached 24 percent; Americans cut back dramatically and falling demand deepened the crisis; bank failures; desperate people turned to private charity for aid; couples delayed marriage; birthrate fell to a historic low; African Americans were affected more deeply than whites.