The Roaring Twenties: Conflict and Discord

1. The Roaring Twenties: Conflict and Discord U.S. History Mr. Phipps

2. California State Standards 11.5.2. Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus Garvey’s “back-to-Africa” movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Anti-Defamation League to those attacks. 11.5.3. Examine the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the Volstead Act (Prohibition). 11.5.4. Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of women in society. 11.5.7. Discuss the rise of mass production techniques, the growth of cities, the impact of new technologies (e.g., the automobile, electricity), and the resulting prosperity and effect on the American landscape.

3. Era Characteristics • Disillusionment and anger about the horror of the Great War • Dynamic conflict between traditional values and modern values, gender stereotypes, immigration, political ideas, and race • High unemployment and an increasing gap between the rich and the poor • Unregulated and unchecked stock speculation and rampant consumerism • Federal laissez-faire and isolationist policy, and prosperity • Individual accomplishments challenging boundaries, borders, records • Rise in popular culture, including jazz, movies, fads, popular fashion and social decadence • The emancipation and suffrage of women

4. Vocabulary • Laissez-faire: “hands-off”, the belief that government should not intervene in business • War Contracts: contracts between private industries, factories, and business to make products for the government, which would be sold at a set price • Consumerism: the social focus and practice on spending money for non-essential/luxury goods • Nativism: “Americanism”, anti-immigrant racial superiority • Mass Production: the rapid production of goods using machines and assembly lines • Prohibition: period when the purchase of alcohol was made illegal • Secularism: when people seek answers to life’s questions using rationalism and science, rather than religion • Isolationism: foreign policy which seeks to remove one’s country from intervening in foreign affairs

5. A Return to Normalcy • At the beginning of the 1920s, the Federal government hoped to: • Integrate war veterans into society • Advertise peace and prosperity and forget the horror of war • Change factory production from military to consumer (which would increase unemployment) • Integrate African-American population (who had moved North for war productions jobs) into society • Streamline industry and mechanize

6. Labor Unrest and the Red Scare • American government fearedCommunism would spread to the U.S. through immigrants • Feared infiltration of • Anti-Capitalists • People who refused to work • Subversives • Critics of government • Supporters of “free speech” • Anyone who was “un-American” (pacifists, draft-dodgers, conscientious objectors) Propaganda poster (1921): “Lenin Lived, Lenin Lives, Lenin Will Live.” Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky started the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a violent and murderous overthrow of the Romanov Czars. The provisional government gave “power to the working class” on whose back the elite earned its wealth.

7. A Restless Labor Force • High unemployment followed WWI due to: • Manufacturing shift from military to consumer • Ended war contracts • 13 million workers in war production and armed services alone • Mechanization • African-Americans accepted jobs during the war • Overproduction required employment cuts • 13 million unemployed men (white) after war • Needed jobs and angry with government Anarchists, believing in abolishing all forms of government, were often equated with modern terrorists. They considered themselves the ultimate freedom fighters/libertarians.

8. Rising Anarchy • Increased labor violence (1919) • Seattle Shipyard Strike • Boston Police Strike • Steel Workers Strike • Palmer’s House Bombing Above, the 1919 version of “I’m Proud to Be an American.” Nationalism swelled in response to “domestic terrorism.” On the left, a picture of the Attorney General’s house after an anarchist bombing. This event helped galvanize support for Palmer.

9. Palmer Takes Action • Responding to “terrorist” mail bombs, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer begins raids (The Palmer Raids) • Rounded up suspects (mostly German-Americans, Russian-Americans, Italian-Americans, and any activist) • Tapped communication and opened mail • Over 6,000 arrested • **Against 4th, 6th, and 8th Amendments • Established Anti-Radical, General Intelligence Unit (the FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover Palmer targeted any dissident against the U.S. The Palmer Raids are often considered to be one of the worst abuses of American civil liberties targeting specific ethnic/racial groups.

10. The Courts Set an Example:The Sacco and Vanzetti Trial • Sacco and Vanzetti • Advocated philosophical anarchy • Italian immigrants • Were atheist draft dodgers • The Trial • Accused of murder and robbery • No forensic evidence and only circumstantial eyewitness evidence placed them at the scene • Given the death penalty in 1921, executed 1927 Many years after the trial, evidence suggested that the Boston judge who tried the case had been bribed to target Sacco and Vanzetti as examples. Also, contemporary evidence proves that both men were innocent.

11. A painting of Sacco and Vanzetti during their trial.

13. Public outcry following the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti was loud and vehement. Internationally, the U.S. was criticized as racist and corrupt.

14. Labor in the Twenties: In Sum • Increased gap between the rich and the poor: • 5% of Americans controlled 1/3 of all income • 71% of Americans earned less than a subsistence wage • Consumer debt increased from $3 billion in 1920 to over $7 billion in 1929 • Mortgage debt increased from $8 billion in 1919 to $27 billion in 1929 • Decline in union membership from 5 million in 1920 to 3.5 million in 1926 • Palmer Raids and Red Scare fizzled out by 1922, but returned in the 1950s

15. Traditional Christian, religious, fundamentalism The way things always were Consistency Anti-Immigrant, Nativist Strict social activity: no drinking, prostitution, dancing, smoking, etc. Women stay at home Modern Experimental Open to new ideas Looser social activity World travel Acceptance of new fashion Sexually active Women participate equally Rebellious Young A Clash of Values

16. The Politics of Race • The “New” Ku Klux Klan • Originally founded during Reconstruction (1866) to regain white power after slaves were freed • Officially dissolved in 1877 (the same year the NRA started) • Revived in 1915 due to: • The movie The Birth of a Nation • The creation of the NAACP six years earlier • The increased social access of African-Americans in the North • Nativist and anti foreign atmosphere The Birth of a Nation was one of the first major motion pictures produced by Hollywood. Griffith, the writer and director, quoted six popular historians who supported slavery and white supremacy as an American virtues. This was also the first movie shown in the White House, to Woodrow Wilson who raved about it. He called it “history written in lightening.”

17. Although taken in 1947, this picture indicates the continued scandal The Birth of a Nation produced. Protested here by the NAACP, civil rights activists and historians argued that the creation of the the United States should not be glorified in the context of slavery.

18. Red Summer: 1919 • Immigration quotas and African-American labor contributed to unemployment in Northeastern and Midwestern cities (Detroit, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York City) • Resulted in race riots throughout the North This picture, taken during a race riot in Oklahoma City in 1921 indicates the hostility toward African-Americans even in the racially “tolerant” North and Midwest. In Chicago, 27 African-Americans were stoned to death because he drifted into the white section of Lake Michigan.

19. “Strange Fruit” KKK Tactics • Burned crosses as a symbol of “holy vengeance” against the “savage” • Created lynch mobs and vigilante groups • Gained political control of seven states (as Senators, Representatives, and Governors) Considered, accurately by many as domestic terrorists, the KKK took credit for over 200 lynchings during the 1920s. The song “Strange Fruit” sung by Billie Holiday in the 1930s refers to the men and women who died at the hands of a lynch mob.

20. Back to Africa Marcus Garvey and the UNIA • United Negro Improvement Association challenged the NAACP and idea of racial equality • Criticized passivity of early Civil Rights activists Du Bois and Washington • Advocated militant racial separation and a return to the African homeland • Instituted Liberia, a home for freed slaves • Garvey, himself, was criticized for dividing the movement A Jamaican by birth, Garvey prompted thousands to leave the U.S. for Africa.

21. Marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, the same street on which the President lives, the Klan demonstrate their popularity in mainstream America. By 1926, Klan membership exceeded 4 million due payers. Passive supporters more than tripled that number. The KKK, like the Mafia, was finally brought down by money laundering and fraud, so called “white collar crimes”.

22. The Noble Experiment • Prohibition Legislation • The 18th Amendment • The Volstead Act • Made it illegal to sell or buy alcohol in the United States • Purpose: • Increase public morality • Target ethnic groups who socially used alcohol Prohibition only made the sale of alcohol illegal, not the consumption of alcohol. Consumption, in fact, triple during Prohibition.

23. Legislating Morality Problems: • Never consistently enforced • Bootlegging: illegal sale of alcohol • Bars turned into speakeasies, secret nightclubs • Corruption of police and government officials • Expensive to prosecute • Alcohol consumption increased 300% Carrie Nation, an aggressive Temperance advocate often entered private property to destroy alcohol paraphernalia. There is a now a bar named for her in San Jose.

24. Hunted down and prosecuted by a special unit of the FBI, the “Untouchables”, led by Elliot Ness, raided and captured numeorus stills and stashes

25. The FBI breaking a still.

26. Once the alcohol had been confiscated, it had to be destroyed. Most often kegs and bottles were broken at the raid site and poured down city gutters. Just as often, conscientious, law-abiding citizens were waiting down the street with empty jars, bottles, and buckets to collect the wasted moonshine.

27. The Mafia: The Original Gangster Organized Crime • Specialized in providing hard-to-find material: ALCOHOL (and gambling, narcotics, and prostitutes) • Average annual income exceeded $14 billion (2-3 times more than federal income) • Sprouted in the big cities: New York and Chicago Al Capone, “Scarface”, seen here on the right, was one of the most notorious gangsters of Chicago. A lifetime affliction of syphilis prevented him from ever drinking. Lesions on his brain caused dementia, which became exaggerated with alcohol, and ultimately caused his death while in prison.

28. News photo from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a shooting spree in which Capone eliminated all competition in the bootlegging business in Chicago. Capone was so well protected by the Mafia organization that the police and the FBI were never able to prosecute his criminal activities. Instead, he was arrested for tax evasion.

29. Secularism and Science Evolution v. Creationism • Debate started because of: • Increased religious fundamentalism • The easy access to Darwin’s Origin of the Species, which described evolutionary science • Loosening of social customs/”modernism”

30. Evolutionists Supported by rationalists and scientists Claimed that humansevolved, like all other animals Contended that humans evolved from apes Challenged the belief that humans were created by God, and were divine Defended by Clarence Darrow, an eminent defense lawyer Creationists Supported by conservatives, Christians, and fundamentalists Believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible Contended that humans were descended from Adam and Eve Challenged the “un-Biblical” practices of drinking, divorce, and lax social behavior Defended by William Jennings Bryan, a former failed presidential candidate The Scopes Trial

31. The Trial Dayton, Tennessee (1925) • John T. Scopes arrested for teaching evolution theory • Trial symbolized the debate between traditional and modern values • Scopes was found guilty and fined $25, but later overturned • Became a media frenzy, with a circus-like atmosphere Pitting two famous trial lawyers, Darrow on the left and Bryan on the right, the Scopes’ defense focused on illustrating the hypocrisy of a literal interpretation of the Bible. Although William Jennings Bryan won the case, he died a few months later, made a fool on national radio because of his desperate attempt to defend his religious views.

32. Margaret Sanger A New Feminism • First to advocate sex education for women • Advocated the use of birth control • Considered it essential for women to have control over their own bodies • Created a major debate over the role of sex in marriage, in relationships, and in society Sanger, here seen muzzled, attempted to describe how women are forcibly silenced by men and by a male dominated society. Sanger, a vocal Feminist, drew much negative attention because of her attitudes toward sex. She was, for many women, the first person to demystify menstruation and pregnancy. She was, however, also a believer in eugenics, a theory in selectively breeding better (white) humans.

33. In Sum • Debates raged over: • Freedom of speech and belief (Red Scare, Sacco and Vanzetti) • Race and racial equality (The New KKK, Marcus Garvey) • The appropriate use of alcohol and legislating moral behavior (Prohibition • Education and what should be taught to children (Scopes Monkey Trial) • A woman’s right to choose (Margaret Sanger and birth control) • Fundamental debates focused on challenging traditional values