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Chapter 38. Troubled Years: America After the Great War 1919–1923. Postwar Tensions: Labor, Reds, Immigrants. A year of strikes Wages not keeping up with prices 3,600 strikes in 1919 Americans not sympathetic with strikers Marines put down general strike in Seattle Steelworkers
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Chapter 38 Troubled Years: America After the Great War 1919–1923
Postwar Tensions: Labor, Reds, Immigrants • A year of strikes • Wages not keeping up with prices • 3,600 strikes in 1919 • Americans not sympathetic with strikers • Marines put down general strike in Seattle • Steelworkers • Have extremely long hours • Make subsistence wages • Boss convinces public that strike was caused by radicals • Strike fails
Postwar Tensions: Labor, Reds, Immigrants (cont.’d) • Boston Police Strike • Creates jump in crime • Police underpaid • Have little public support • Calvin Coolidge refuses to help them • Red Scare • American xenophobia • Reaction to Bolshevik Revolution • Fear of third international • Few immigrants and ethnics radical
Postwar Tensions: Labor, Reds, Immigrants (cont.’d) • Palmer Raids • Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer • Illegally deports immigrants • Arrests 6,000 on little-to-no evidence • Red Scare fizzles after May Day • Sacco and Vanzetti • Italian radicals charged with murder • Do not receive unbiased trial • Found guilty • World wide protest, but executed
Postwar Tensions: Labor, Reds, Immigrants (cont.’d) • Immigration restrictions • Felt new immigrants would never be assimilated • 1921 Congress sets up quota system • 1924 quota system becomes tighter • Quotas favor Western Europeans • Asians completely excluded
Racial Tensions • Race riots and lynchings • Several major race riots • Chicago 1919, 120 dead • Tulsa 1921 city-wide with 100 dead • Increase in lynching • Congress fails to pass Dyer bill • Middle class Southerners help stop lynchings • Ku Klux Klan • Revived founded 1915 by William Simmons • Becomes money-making racket • Against anything except WASPs • Declines after leader convicted of murder
Racial Tensions (cont.’d) • Marcus Garvey calls for racial separation • Universal Negro Improvement Association • Black pride, create new nation • Declines after Garvey imprisoned
Prohibition and Fundamentalism • Prohibition • Violation of Prohibition common • Drys more common in South and rural areas • Wets more common in North and cities • Illegal activities gave immigrants opportunities • Moonshiners and Bootleggers • City versus country • Bible belt south was dry as was Oregon and southern California and Midwest • Much violation • Speakeasies existed everywhere and alcohol available • Businessmen gangsters • Al Capone saw himself as businessmen • Gang wars erupted in Chicago • Gangs often involved immigrants • Illegal activities gave immigrants opportunities
Prohibition and Fundamentalism • Anti-Semitism • Old resentment of Jewish businessmen remained • Henry Ford anti-Semitic • Myths that Jews controlled banking • Hollywood • Film industry booming • Foreign-born Jews dominated business • Protests against moral standards in films • Hollywood chose self-censorship in Hays Code
Prohibition and Fundamentalism (cont’d) • Evolution controversy • Traditional values vs. new worldliness • Fundamentalists insist on literal truth in Bible • Tennessee makes it illegal to teach evolution • John Scopes charged with teaching evolution • Media descends on Dayton, Tennessee • William Jennings Bryan aids prosecution • Arthur Garfield Hays leads defense team • Clarence Darrow assists • Darrow puts Bryan on stand • Bryan fails to defend Bible • Scopes found guilty, Bryan dies • Dayton reaps in the profits
“The Worst President” • Warren G. Harding • Too eager to say yes • Works his way up Ohio politics • Helps friends find jobs • Least effective senator
“The Worst President” (cont.’d) • A decent man • Tries to be “best liked” president • Pardons Eugene V. Debs • Convinces U.S. Steel to have 8-hour days • Laughs off enemies • Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover • Extremely smart • Radio Act of 1927 • Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes • Treaty of Washington • Arms race one cause of World War I • Five major naval powers agreed to limit fleets • Each gains something • Hughes’s biggest accomplishment
Discussion Questions • What sort of president was Warren Harding? What did he accomplish? What were the scandals of his administration? • What effect did the Treaty of Washington have on U.S. foreign and military policy at the time? Will it have longer reaching consequences in the future? • What led the to revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s? Was it successful? Did it have any affect of American society? • What was the issue of Scopes Monkey trial? How did it conclude? Is this trial relevant today? Why or why not? • Explain the postwar racial violence and anti-immigration views that swept the nation.