Chapter 3 0 : The Roaring 20s

Chapter 30: The Roaring 20s

America After War - shunned diplomatic commitments to foreign . countries - denounced foreign ideals - condemned un-american lifestyles - discontinued tolerance of immigrants - sealed off economy - relied on ‘homegrown prosperity’ - average income and living standards rose - new technologies, products, forms of . entertainment

Seeing Red - began to fear Red Russia - feared nation itself - feared result of Bolshevik Revolution (1917) - didn’t want it giving Americans idea of revolution - spawned communist party in America - strike in Seattle (1919) - small and orderly - mayor still requested military interference to prevent . . . .. .. . Russianresult - red scareresulted in crusade against left wingers - Attorney General A. Mitchell = “Fighting Quaker” - extra enthusiastic about finding and arresting suspects anti-americanism

Seeing Red (cont.) - 1919-1920, legislatures passed criminal syndicalism laws - advocacy of violence to ensure social change became illegal - freedom of speech was limited, sometimes taken completely - conservatives used red scare to break labor unions - dubbed unions as “soviets in disguise” to get rid of them - judicial lynching case (1921) - Sacco (shoe factory worker) - Vanzetti (fish peddler) - two were convicted of murder of a Mass. paymaster and his guard - liberals and radicals rallied against ruling - found guilty and electrocuted (1927), became martyrs

KKK - resembled anti-foreign nativism of 1850s - groups they hated - groups they liked - foreigners - anglo-saxons (W.A.S.P.’s) - catholics - “native americans” (not indians) - blacks - protestants - jews - pacifists - communists - internationalists - evolutionists - bootleggers - gamblers - adulterers - those who used birth-control

KKK (cont.) - their ideas spread quickly - especially in the Midwest and the “Bible Belt” South - peaked in 1920s - reached 5 million members - Knights of Invisible Empire - used flag bearing parades and burning crosses to intimidate - collapsed in late 1920s - many people recoiled from them because of fear - embezzling by Klan officials launched investigation - made whole organization collapse

Stemming Foreign Flood - 800,000 immigrants from 1920-1921 - two thirds from Southern and Eastern Europe - Congress plugged breach with Emergency Quota Act - 1921 - number of newcomers allowed in based on quota - quota = 3% nationality who were US Citizens in 1910 - favored S/E Europeans because a lot of them already arrived - replaced by Immigration Act (1924) - quotas were cut to 2% - no Japanese (led to ‘hate America’ rallies in Japan) - Canadians and Latin Americans were exempt from rule - they were easier to send back

Stemming Foreign Flood (cont.) - 1931, immigration dwindled to a trickle - quotas = sacrificing of tradition of freedom and opportunity - immigrant tide left ethnic communities in America - separated from each other and larger society - separated by language, religion, customs - labor unions were founded based on ethnic diversity - uncommon languages created problem for effectiveness - employers used ethnic rivalries to their advantage to stamp out unions - cultural pluralists’ argument - let more immigrants in, ‘melting pot’ would eliminate cultural differences - Horace Kallen (philosopher) and Randolph Bourne (critic) - defended newcomers’ right to practice their own customs - advocated cross-breeding

Stemming Foreign Flood (cont. again) - hoped America would be considered protector of foreign rights - we’d be liked, involved, powerful

Prohibition Experiment - supported by churches and women - 18th amendment (1919) = dry amendment - implemented by Volstead Act - made world safe for hypocrisy - popular in South and WEst - South supported it because they didn’t want their black citizens drinking - feared they’d burst out of their place - West appreciated attack on - public drunkenness - prostitution - corruption - crime

Prohibition Experiment (cont.) - opposed by East - their society was built around beer - gov. rarely enforced laws opposed by the people - wets = those opposed to dry law - believed repeal came when you violated the unwanted law - jazz age youth began bootlegging (illegally selling alcohol) - feds were understaffed and underpaid - easily bribed by bootleggers - people began making their own - home brew and bathroom gin - very dangerous

Prohibition Experiment (cont. again) - prohibition = noble experiment - bank savings rose - absenteeism lowered (everyone’s sober)

Gangsterism - prohibition spawned crimes - profits of illegal alcohol were used to bribe police - wars between rival gangs - usually in immigrant neighborhoods - arrests and convictions were few - all gangsters covered for each other - Chicago was the worst - ‘Scarface’ Al Capone = booze distributor (1925) - prostitution, gambling, narcotics - honest merchants were forced to pay thugs to keep themselves safe - 1930- $ brought in by organized crime = $12-18 billion - 1932- kidnapping for ransom of Charles Lindbergh’s son

Gangsterism (cont.) - congress passed Lindbergh law making interstate abduction a death-penalty offense

Monkey Business in TN - more states were requiring education till 16/18/graduation - 1 in 4 17-year-olds graduated high school - professor John Dewey (Colombia U 1904-1930) - formed foundation of progressive education - learning by doing - public health program - launched by Rockefeller Foundation in South (1909) - wiped out hookworm in 1920s - better nutrition and health care = greater life expectancy - fundamentalists presented a problem - religionists charged with teaching Darwinian evolution - goal = destroy faith in God and Bible

Monkey Business in TN (cont.) - many attempts at passing laws prohibiting teaching of evolution - TN = heart of the Bible Belt South - monkey trial (East TN, 1925) - biology teacher, John Scopes, indicted for teaching evolution - defended by nationally known attorneys - William Jennings Bryan = Presbyterian Fundamentalist = prosecutor - Clarence Darrow (Scopes attorney) = embarrassed Bryan - Scopes was still found guilty and fined $100 - set aside fine on a “technicality” - hollow fundamentalist victory - caused ridicule on their cause - still remained strong in Baptist Church and Churches of Christ (1906) *for more, watch Drunk History Episode

Mass-Consumption Economy - economic prosperity after WWI kicked off Roarin’ 20s - Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon - created tax policies that favored expansion of capital investment after war - machines powered by cheap energy - newly tapped oil fields - increased productivity of laborer - assembly line perfected by Henry Ford = automobiles!! - electricity industry - machines needed power - especially cars - Americans owned 30 million cars by 1930 - production problems solved = consumers addressed - advertising became huge industry

Mass-Consumption Economy (cont. again) - founder of industry = Bruce Barton (Madison Avenue Firm) -The Man Nobody Knows - written by Barton - set forth idea that Jesus = best adman ever - sports became a big business - thanks to advertising, sports were more frequently viewed than state matters - buying on credit - “possess today and pay tomorrow” - many dug themselves into deeper debt buying new marvels - refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars, radios

Putting America on Rubber Tires - automobile heralded new industrial system - based on assembly line and mass-production techniques - Americans adapted gasoline engine based on European design - 1910- 69 car companies rolled out 181,000 cars per year - Detroit became motor car capital of America - Frederick W. Taylor - father of scientific management - sought to eliminate wasted motion saving money and time - Henry Ford - Model-T = cheap, rugged, reliable - came up with concept of assembly line and standardization (Fordism) - people’s choice for presidential nomination in 1924 - 1 vehicle for every 4.9 Americans by 1929

Advent of Gasoline Age - new era employed 6 million people by 19 30 - industries strengthened by automobile age - rubber industry - glass - fabrics - steel - gas - petroleum development - oil derricks shot up in CA, TX, OK - railroad octopus was being hard hit by competition

Advent of Gas Age (cont.) - perishable foodstuffs industry grew - enriched outlying farms who provided for city dwellers - new roads built to accommodate new transportation - often paid for by taxes on gas - cars went from luxury to necessity and badge of freedom - autobuses consolidated schools and churches - suburbs spread further - led to nation of commuters - became a bunch of speed demons - 1951- more Americans were killed in car accidents than in all America’s wars up to date - Indiana juvenile court judge labeled cars as ‘houses of prostitution’ - gangsters could now make quick getaways

Humans Develop Wings - Wright brothers flew in 1903 - martyrs of the air = stunt fliers - “flying coffins” used in WWI - private companies began operating passenger lines - NY to San Francisco (1920) = first transcontinental airmail route - Charles Lindbergh - first to fly over Atlantic, west to east, alone - gave birth to new industry - by 1930s and 40s, travel by air was significantly safer than highways

Radio Revolution - Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy in 1890s - used for long-range communications during WWI - 1920- KDKA (Pittsburgh radio station) - broadcasted news of Harding Landslide - led to phonographs radiotelephones television - advertising over radio (commercials) - another vehicle for American free enterprise - stimulated and affected many other industries - sports

Radio Revolution (cont.) - politics - news - music

Hollywood’s Filmland Fantasies - 1903- first movie sequence reached screen - was “The Great Train Robbery” - shown in five cent theaters = nickelodeons - D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” - 1915 - glorified KKK of Reconstruction era - defamed blacks and northern carpetbaggers - Hollywood became movie capital of the world - movies started out very inappropriate and nude - public demanded some form of censorship - used to showcase anti-German propaganda during WWI

Hollywood’s Filmland Fantasies (cont.) - “The Jazz Singer” = first movie with sound (talkies) - industry was universally entertaining - broke down some cultural barriers between immigrants and “natives”

The Dynamic Decade - 1920 census revealed more Americans lived in urban areas - Women continued to find employment in cities - tended to cluster in low-paying jobs - retail clerking/office typing - Margaret Sanger led birth-control movement - Alice Paul’s National Women’s Party - began in 1923 - led campaign for equal rights amendment in Constitution - Fundamentalists lost ground to Modernists - churches tried fighting joyriding automobiles - tried to reach young people through religious movies

Dynamic Decade (cont.) - America’s clock struck “sex o’clock” - advertisers used sex appeal - modest maidens are now “flappers” - Dr. Sigmund Freud - argued that sexual repression was responsible for various ills - pleasure and health demanded sexual gratification’ - jazz migrated north from New Orleans, became our anthem - Blacks migrated with it - Handy Morton and Joseph King Oliver birthed the genre - white man adopted it - broke some cultural differences

Dynamic Decade (cont. again) - new racial pride blossomed in black community - Harlem in NYC held largest black population - from it came Langston Hughes (poet who wrote “The Weary Blues”) - Marcus Garvey = politician (founded United Negro Improvement Association) - sponsored black stores to keep black $ in black pockets - Garvey was convicted of mail fraud (1927)

Cultural Liberation - new generation of writers emerged - new ethnic and regional backgrounds - exhibited energy of youth, ambition of outsiders, resentment toward “betrayers” - H. L. Mencken = “Bad Boy of Baltimore” - wrote monthly “American Mercury” in which he assailed - marriage, patriotism, democracy, prohibition, Rotarians, Puritans - war made writers step out of norm - new codes, morals, forms of expression, writing styles - F. Scott Fitzgerald- “The Other Side of Paradise” (1920) - became a Bible for the young - then “The Great Gatsby” - commentary on ideal of self-made man

Cultural Liberation (cont.) - Theodore Dreiser- “An American Tragedy” - explored pitfalls of social striving - Ernest Hemingway, most affected by war - “Sun Also Rises” (1926)- disillusioned, spiritually numb American expatriates in Europe - “A Farewell to Arms” (1929) - committed suicide in 1961 - Sherwood Anderson- “Winesburg, Ohio” (1919) - Sinclair Lewis- “Main Street” (1920) and “Babbitt” (1922) - William Faulkner “The Sound and the Fury” (1929), “As I Lay Dying”(1930) and “Absalom, Absalom!”(1936) - notable poets - Ezra Pound - T. S. Eliot

Cultural Liberation (cont. again) - Robert Frost - E. E. Cummings - notable playwrights - Eugene O'Neill - won Nobel Prize in 1936 - cultural renaissance after war - ushered in by Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, .. .. Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake - architecture was affected, too - gave rise to Empire State Building - no longer based on Greek inspiration

Big Bull Market - economic joyride will end in crash - real estate speculation- Florida Boom (1925) - underwater lots were sold for ridiculous prices - all collapsed after West Indian Hurricane - stock exchange - became gambling den - Washington did nothing to curb money-mad speculators - conservative money management suggested diversion of funds reduce debt - 1921-Republican Congress created Bureau of the Budget - director of bureau was to assist president in preparing estimates of receipts and expenditures … for submission as annual budget - designed to prevent extravagant appropriators

Big Bull Market (cont.) - Secretary of Treasury Mellon - though high levies forced rich to invest in tax exempt securities instead of in .. .. . .. factories that paid people - high taxes discouraged businesses and brought smaller returns - Mellon’s tax reductions (1924-1926) - congress repealed excess profit tax, gift tax - congress reduced excise tax, surtax, income tax, estate taxes - Mellon shifted tax burden from wealthy to middle-class

Chapter 3 0 : The Roaring 20s