Life in the Roaring Twenties

1. Life in the Roaring Twenties Chapter 13: pp. 434 – 457 Ms. Garratt – American History

2. Triumph of Temperance Movement: Prohibition • 18th amendment • Volstead Act – difficult to enforce • Speakeasies • Led to lawlessness • Bootleggers • Organized crime – Al Capone • By mid-1920s only 19% supported Prohibition • The rest felt it caused more problems than it solved • Was repealed in 1933 by the 21st amendment

5. Religion: Fundamentalism • Literal interpretation of the Bible • Skeptical of scientific discoveries such as evolution • Religious revivals in the South & West • Evangelists “revived” spirituality • Billy Sunday • Aimee Semple McPherson

6. Billy Sunday

8. Aimee Semple McPherson

10. Scopes Trial 1925 John Scopes deliberately violated the Butler Act which made it illegal to teach evolution ACLA challenged it in the courts. Called “trial of the century” - broadcast over the radio Clarence Darrow & Wm Bryan Jennings

13. Twenties Woman • More independent • Rebellious • Flappers • New roles for women • New appliances & inventions lightened the load at home • Marriage romance-based

14. From Gibson Girl to Flapper

15. Public Education • Prior to 1920s education was for college-bound students • Now vocational training was offered • Enrollment skyrocketed • Americanization

16. Rise of Print Media • Increased leisure & literacy led to new magazines (Reader’s Digest, New Yorker) • Syndicates (chains of newspapers under centralized direction) proliferated • Tabloids (larger print ideal for subways) • Tabloids competed for readers which led to sensationalizing news & events. • Birth of major American publishing companies (Simon & Schuster, Morrow, Viking, Harcourt & Brace, • Book of the Month club

17. New Leisure Pastimes

18. Lindbergh • 1st person to fly across the Atlantic – 33 ½ hours • Became hero overnight • Son kidnapped & ransomed. • Became another “trial of the century • Lindbergh anti-Semitic and sympathetic to Nazis • Received a medal from Hitler

19. Lindbergh’s Solo Flight 1927

20. Entertainment of the 1920s • With more leisure came more entertainment • The Jazz Age • Movies • Sports • Dance Marathons and Charleston • Blues & Jazz • New board games – Monopoly • Harlem Renaissance

21. Movies 1920s

22. Harlem Renaissance • Black artistic expression of their own identity & anger toward racism. • Literary & artistic movement expressed itself in cafes & clubs in Harlem – would no longer accept 2nd-class citizenship • Notable AA writers emerged: • Langston Hughes, Claude McKay • Zora Neale Hurston

23. Harlem Renaissance

27. The Lost Generation • Writers began to attack materialism (more importance given to $ & material goods than intellectual & spiritual concerns) • Many writers left to live in Paris • Gertrude Stein told them “You are all a lost generation.” • Sinclair Lewis’ “Babbit” about a businessperson whose deepest obsessions are determined by advertising • Great Gatsby – about empty lives of those with too much $ who are purposeless

28. African-American Goals • Nat’l Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) fought for civil rights & anti-lynching laws • Founded by W.E.B du Bois

29. Marcus Garvey • UNIA

30. African American Performers

33. Prejudice + Hatred = KKK

36. Ku Klux Klan rises again • KKK flourished in small towns where prohibition & fundamentalism was strong • KKK added Jews, Catholics, Hispanics, Asians to its list • Cross burnings, tar & feathering • “Klan mainly provided a fellowship of prejudice for ill-educated men whose lives offered few other satisfactions.” • Klan was similar to fascist movements in Germany & Italy which emphasized nat’lm & racial purity