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The 1920s

Explore the 1920s in America, a period of economic recovery after World War I, as well as political scandals, labor unions, the Red and Black Scares, race riots, and the controversial Sacco and Vanzetti trial.

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The 1920s

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  1. They Were a’Roarin’ The 1920s

  2. The Return to Normalcy • After World War I ended America hit an economic snag. War usually helps economies as government is forced to become a consumer. The end of war, therefore, tends to hurt economies. Unions that had agreed not to strike during the war suddenly went on strike left and right. Soldiers returning home had a hard time finding work. • In 1920 Wilson’s Vice President was defeated for the Presidency by Ohio Governor Warren G. Harding, who promised a “return to normalcy”.

  3. What Normalcy Looked Like • The economy boomed under Harding. He would have been a tremendously popular President if he hadn’t appointed his poker buddies to Cabinet positions. They proceeded to steal everything they could find. • The major Harding scandals: • In the decade where Prohibition was the law of the land, Harding made sure the Treasury Department enforced it everywhere but the White House, which was fully stocked with bootleg liquor.

  4. Blowing His Teapot Dome • Teapot Dome Scandal: The Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, took a bribe of $400,000 and leased America’s strategic oil reserves to a private company. Eventually he went to prison, and is the source of the term “the fall guy”. • Affairs: Harding passionately hated his wife, and was having an affair (literally) in the Oval Office with an 18-year old named Nan Briton. He fathered her child. • Fortunately for Warren, he died of a massive heart attack before any of this came out.

  5. Red and Black Scares • The period 1917-1924 was known as the 1st Red Scare (the second would occur right after World War II). American media became obsessed with the idea that labor unions were run by Communists intent on a Russia-styled revolution. It was overblown, though same unions of course WERE run by Communists. Many states passed tough anti-union laws as a result. • The 1920s also saw the rise of the new, bigger, more Northern Ku Klux Klan (***1925 march on Washington***) • The late teens and 20s were also a period of the most frequent race riots in America, as black men who had been treated as equals in France and England returned home to be second-class citizens and didn’t care for it much. (****1919 Chicago Riot***)

  6. Sacco and Vanzetti • In the first of half a dozen trials the American media would call the “Trial of the Century”, two admitted anarchists named Sacco and Vanzetti were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for murder committed during an armed robbery of a business in Massachusetts in 1921. • The trial featured open anti-immigrant and anti-Italian rhetoric and Red Scare paranoia, leading many people to believe that S&V were being framed. • Protests and marches against their conviction were held in every major American city, and they became martyrs of the labor movement when they were executed in 1927. • Later ballistic tests showed that Sacco was likely guilty and Vanzetti was likely his accomplice.

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