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The 1920s

The 1920s. The clash of modern and traditional. The “Modern” World Arrives. Starts in Europe Rejection of formality, hierarchy, and social/cultural/gender barriers of Victorian World. Embrace of idealism based on science, intellectualism, technology, and the industrial world.

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The 1920s

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  1. The 1920s The clash of modern and traditional

  2. The “Modern” World Arrives • Starts in Europe • Rejection of formality, hierarchy, and social/cultural/gender barriers of Victorian World. • Embrace of idealism based on science, intellectualism, technology, and the industrial world. • Sees universal “humanity” improving towards these ideals

  3. Competing Interwar Ideals • Free Market Capitalism • Keynsian Economics • Socialism • Corporatism • Nationalism • Fascism

  4. “The Business of America Is Business” President Calvin Coolidge “The Business of Business is America” Henry Luce, Founder of Time Magazine In the U.S…..

  5. Those Easy Little Payments • Instead of saving for the entire cost of a house or car, it became more acceptable to take out a loan and pay off the amount. Broke with a long established American tradition of never going into debt. • Allowed for more people to purchase homes and other consumer goods.

  6. Automobiles In contrast to Henry Ford’s “you can have your car in any color as long as it is black:” - General Motors offered a variety of types from Cadillac to Chevrolet. - New styles for each year. Geared towards women as consumers. - Even offered (gasp!) colors!

  7. Other Industries (and the Kansas connection!) • Petroleum and Natural Gas (Such as in El Dorado and Hugoton) • Aviation (Cessna, Beech, Stearman) • Electronics and Consumer Goods (Coleman, Mentholatum)

  8. Hearing the future: • In 1919, the U.S. government lifted a ban on private operation of radio sets. • General Electric and Westinghouse organized the Radio Corporation of America. • By 1929, 80% of American families had radios.

  9. “The Nervous Generation”

  10. All that Jazz! • Into the 1910s, popular music consisted of waltzes, marches, the tango, opera, and love songs. • Ragtime and later Jazz challenged that musical world by using improvisation, rhythm, and syncopation.

  11. The Jazz Age • Originally, Jazz was confined to New Orleans but spread to New York, Chicago, and other places in the 1920s. • At first, its association with brothels, alcohol, and African American music forms made Jazz unpopular among whites, especially older generations. • Became more popular as Jazz musicians adapted and popularized the music for a white audience, especially the young.

  12. That’s Entertainment! • Movies became popular in the 1910s but really took off in the 1920s. • Movie industry moved from New York to Hollywood. • Companies expanded to include production, distribution, and theater operation.

  13. Stardom! • To attract moviegoers, the studios promoted stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Wichita native Louise Brooks (shown here) • The off-camera lives of the stars were promoted as much as their film work. • Some, such as Cecile B. DeMille produced grand epics such as “Ben Hur.”

  14. Prohibition • Nationwide prohibition forced drinking underground. • Venues to drink went by many times such as “speakeasies” and “blind tigers.” • Increasingly, organized crime gained a foothold in the smuggling of alcohol.

  15. Women’s roles • Note the difference between an 1800s woman on the right and a 1920s woman on the left in this photo. • Although not all women were like this, the stereotypical image of a 1920s woman is the “flapper” with: • Short, bobbed hair • Short skirts with no corset • Freedom to smoke and drive.

  16. Marriage and Family • Nationwide, there was a growing belief that marriage should be between two people who loved each other instead of married for economic or social reasons. • One facet of this was a growing interest in romantic love as an ideal to strive for. • Another result was an increasing divorce rate as women and men ended marriages because the romantic ideal did not match reality.

  17. Childhood • After World War I, there was an increase in the birthrate. There was a greater interest in catering to childhood. The idea that childhood should be free from work and devoted to play and school becomes common. This is the generation that grows up to serve in World War II.

  18. “The New Negro” The migration of African Americans to northern cities in the 1910s included large numbers of professionals and small businessmen and women. The result were dynamic communities such as Chicago or Harlem in New York City. In such places Jazz, drama, business, and art thrived.

  19. Reaction • African American communities were still vulnerable to white discrimination and violence. In 1921, a white mob destroyed the relatively prosperous African American neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. • Some African American leaders advocated a “back to Africa” movement or at least a greater awareness and pride in an African identity instead of trying to imitate European culture.

  20. The Ku Klux Klan • In the 1910s and 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was reconstituted. • For a while, it became a popular organization. • Although anti-African American, it was also an anti Catholic and anti-immigrant organization as well.

  21. An odd mix in Wichita • In 1925 the baseball team from the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan played the Monrovians, the local Negro Leagues baseball team here in Wichita. • White Catholics were umpires. • The Monrovians won.

  22. Revival! • The 1920s saw the rise of a number of major traveling evangelists including Billy Sunday. • Amiee Semple McPherson was the first major female evangelist.

  23. Religion and Science • The 1910s and 1920s saw a growth in both scientific research and a movement among some religious figures to maintain the inerrancy of the Bible, including the creation accounts of Genesis. • J. Frank Norris and others help found the World Christian Fundamentals Association in 1919. • Some states, such as Tennessee, passed laws against teaching evolution.

  24. The Scopes Trial • John Scopes was a high school teacher who was charged with teaching evolution. The result was a trial in Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925 sometimes known as the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” • The two leading attorneys were Clarence Darrow for Scopes and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution. • Bryan dies before he can make his final speech. The court rules in favor of the state against Scopes. However, the negative publicity of the trial tarnished the image of literalists as backward and foolish. Biblical literalists would not recover from this stereotype until after World War II.

  25. The Lost Generation • Many of the popular authors at the time were disillusioned with the conformity and traditionalism of popular culture. • Included writers such as H.L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sinclair Lewis. • Several artists and writers chose to live abroad in Paris because they felt the city was open and cosmopolitan.

  26. The Red Scare • In the wake of the Russian Revolution and communist activity elsewhere in Europe, there was a fear that communist revolutionaries would try to undermine the United States as well. • Socialists expelled from New York assembly in 1920 • Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti arrested for the murder of a paymaster at a shoe factory in Massachusetts in 1920. Executed in 1927 even though many felt they were convicted more for their anarchist views than an actual crime.

  27. Immigration and Immigrants • Coincided with an anti-immigrant sentiment that resulted in immigration restrictions in the mid-1920s. After that, each country had a quota of immigrants allowed in, with countries from eastern Europe and Asia having lower quotas than western European countries. • Immigrants and their children struggle to balance identities.

  28. Politics A deceptively stable landscape

  29. Canadian Stability Liberal William Lyon MacKenzie King becomes PM in 1921 and remains in office until 1930 with a brief exception of 1926.

  30. Government in Mexico: Caudillos and Cristeros • Revolution is institutionalized under with the creation of a national political party, now called the PRI. Faced strong resistance from both the far left but primarily from the far right. • Included the religious-oriented Cristero movement (their slogan was Cristo Rey!) along the Pacific Coast, attempting to create a rebellion against the government. • In 1927, a Cristero group dynamited the Mexico City-Guadalajara train, killing 100 people. • President Plutarco Calles attempts to establish a strong law and order version of the Revolution. • In 1928, Obregon runs for re-election and wins but is killed by a young Catholic activist. Some suspected Calles was behind the murder but he did not attempt to retake the presidency but continued to exercise a controlling influence behind the scenes.

  31. U.S. Politics • Represented a shift away from Progressive Era idealism in favor of laissez-faire pro-business stances. • The presidents were pro-business Republicans. It was often in their political opponents where major trends in social and political attitudes were the most visible.

  32. The Presidency: • Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) Republican • Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) Republican • Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) Republican

  33. Scandal: The Harding Administration • The Harding Administration became infamous for its scandals. • The best known involved Albert Fall, Secretary of Interior. • Fall got Navy oil reserves such as Teapot dome in Wyoming to be transferred to the Department of the Interior. Fall then leased the land to Mammoth Oil Co. and the Pan American Petroleum Co. Fall had been bribed to do it. Fall was convicted of bribery in 1929.

  34. The 1924 Election • Election between Republican Calvin Coolidge and Democrat John Davis. • Progressive Robert La Follette made important showing as well as a third party candidate. Represented the last major gasp of Progessive Era activism in politics

  35. The 1928 Election • Herbert Hoover (Rep.) vs. Al Smith (Dem.) • From New York, Al Smith was the first major presidential candidate to be of immigrant stock and Catholic. Although he lost, the election was relatively close and represented the start of a shift in the Democratic Party from dominance by white Southerners towards a greater influence of northern, immigrant, labor perspectives. • Congressional elections, too, started showing a greater labor/liberal Democratic presence, a presence that Franklin Roosevelt would later cultivate.

  36. From the 1928 election

  37. “We are nearer today to the ideal of the abolition of poverty and fear from the lives of men and women than ever before in any land.” Herbert Hoover - 1928

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