The Roaring Twenties

1. The Roaring Twenties Chapter 9

3. FACTS about this decade. • 106,521,537 people in the United States • 2,132,000 unemployed, Unemployment 5.2% • Life expectancy:  Male 53.6,   Female 54.6 • 343.000 in military (down from 1,172,601 in 1919) • Average annual earnings $1236;  Teacher's salary  $970 • Dow Jones High 100  Low 67  • Illiteracy rate reached a new low of 6% of the population.  • Gangland crime included murder, swindles, racketeering • It took 13 days to reach California from New York  There were 387,000 miles of paved road.

4. Getting on with Business • Did You Know? • Born in Austria, Felix Frankfurter was the only naturalized citizen to ever sit on the Supreme Court. Excesses during the Red Scare led Frankfurter, along with others, to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920.

5. Postwar Turmoil • I. Sacco and Vanzetti • Trial marked by serious breaches of fairness by the judge and foreman of the jury. • The defendants were denounced for their immigrant backgrounds and beliefs in anarchy. • Both were executed. • Began riots about injustice worldwide. • 50 years later their names were cleared by Michael Dukakis.

6. II. The Red Scare • Communism had just begun in Russia, and there were Communist uprisings in Hungary and Bavaria. • Two small communist parties had formed in the U.S.

7. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer • He was a pacifist Quaker under President Wilson who despised Bolshevik theory that promoted violent revolution. • The explosion of bombs in eight cities on June 2, 1919 confirmed Palmer’s fears of a Bolshevik plan to take over the world.

8. The Palmer Raids • With funding by Congress, Palmer established the General Intelligence division within the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation. Under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, the division launched the so-called Palmer raids. • The raids resulted in the arrests of thousands of people, most of whom were released because they had nothing to do with radical politics.

9. FBI J. Edgar Hoover: America’s Number 1 Policeman

10. By the mid-1920’s, the raids and deportations demoralized American radicals. • Business owners also used a fear of revolution to break a rash of strikes that broke out in 1919.

11. The Red Scare was caused by a fear of Communist revolutions. The Red Scare demoralized American radicals. Caused a lack of support for striking workers. Cause and Effect

12. Discussion • What fairly recent events might be similar to the situation faced by Sacco and Vanzetti, The Palmer Raids, and the Red Scare? See next slide.

13. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/11/60minutes/main3357727.shtmlhttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/11/60minutes/main3357727.shtml Ramzi Yousef Zacharias Mousoui Unibomber Shoe Bomber “A Clean Version of Hell.” Super Max Prison ADX (Administrative Maximum). Florence, CO Have you thought about the events of 9/11 and the first World Trade Center bombing?

14. III. The Great Migration • A. Between 1916 and 1920, 500,000 African Americans left the South for new jobs in the North. ( i.e. Meatpackers, metalworkers and autoworkers, all for more pay than they made in the South). • B. Northern whites were no more eager to share power and opportunity with African Americans than Southern whites. • Few cities escaped racial violence.

15. The Harlem Renaissance 4 Genre’s Poetry and Prose Literature Art Performing Arts

16. 1920’s signaled the beginning of the Jazz Age

17. C. Radical African American groups sprang out of this ferment. The “Back to Africa” movement by Marcus Garvey became the most famous. The Great Migration

18. D. Garvey’s “Back to Africa” plan failed. However, Garvey instilled a sense of pride and power among poor African Americans. The Great Migration

19. IV. Progressivism Endures • A. The twenties begin with two Progressive Era Reforms: prohibition and women’s suffrage. • 1. 18th amendment was enforced by the Volstead Act (a law declaring beverages containing one-half of 1 percent of alcohol intoxicating. • 2. 19th amendment did not grant full equality to women. However, suffrage allowed women to win passage of the Towner Maternity Act of 1921, improving maternal health care. This act was not renewed by Congress in 1929.

20. B. Despite these victories, a number of forces worked against progressivism: • 1. A hostile Supreme Court that struck down protective labor laws. • 2. Lack of confidence in political solutions to social problems after the brutality of WWI. • 3. Violent strikes and radical political ideas that caused many middle-class progressives to side with big business. Chief Justice William Howard Taft

21. The Republicans Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover

22. Coolidge Hoover Harding

23. I. Harding and the Teapot Dome • A. In 1920, Harding promised a “return to normalcy.” Harding won in a landslide over Democrat James A. Cox as a rejection of Wilson’s internationalism. • B. Harding relied on a group of friends from Ohio … some of these friends lined their own pockets with money.

24. Teapot Dome • C. Of the many scandals, this became the most famous. • D. Albert Fell, Secretary of the Interior, leased government oil fields to wealthy friends for bribes. • Investigations into the scandals left Harding depressed. He fell ill and died in 1923. He was the sixth President to die in office.

25. Fell and Harry Sinclair Formerly Mammoth Oil, now Sinclair Oil

26. II. “Silent Cal” Coolidge • Erased the damage of the Harding scandals with his unquestioned honesty and Yankee background. • Following Harding, he rejected programs that helped ordinary citizens and promoted programs that benefited big business.

27. Harding and Coolidge boosted business in 3 ways: • 1. Appointed businesspeople to commissions that were supposed to regulate business. • 2. Selecting anti-progressive Supreme Court justices. • 3. Named conservatives to powerful cabinet positions.

28. Served all 3 Republicans. Overturned almost all progressive tax policies of the Wilson years. Cut government spending, corporate taxes, and taxes on those with high incomes. Gov’t should interfere with business as little as possible. Andrew Mellon, Sec. of Treasury

29. Famous Quote: "The business of America is Business." Calvin Coolidge, 1925 How did his policies reflect this belief? Is this similar to the George W. Bush Administration?

30. III. Herbert Hoover, The Wonder Boy • Secretary of Commerce under Harding. • Expanded the department to regulate airlines, radio, and other new industries.

31. Hoover supported a number of reforms • 8 hour work day • Improved nutrition for children. • Conservation of resources. • Control of coastline oil pollution.

32. Hoover’s Hopes and Dreams • Volunteer effort and free enterprise. • Hoped business would show a new spirit of public service. • “Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce dies.” • Hoover linked gov’t control of business with despotic rule and communism. He linked free enterprise to self-government.

33. Republican Foreign Policy • Business encouraged to expand internationally. • Charles Dawes “Dawes Plan” allowed banks to negotiate loans to Germany to pay war reparations. Germany used the loan to pay European countries which paid off their U.S. war debt. • Signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war.

34. More Foreign Policy • Continued to protect economic interests in Latin America. • Marine presence in Nicaragua from 1909 – 1933. Driven out by Augusto Cesar Sandino.

35. Business and the Economy • Advertising and Big Business Boomed! • Assembly Line increased productivity. • The need for office space created vertical growth with city skyscrapers and horizontal growth with the creation of suburbia.

36. New Industries • Light metals – aluminum • New synthetics • Motion pictures (United Artists) • Radio manufacturing (KDKA) • Automobiles Henry Ford