The 1920: A Bi Polar Decade

1. The 1920: A Bi Polar Decade Oseas Romero APUSH Stafford High School Stafford, Texas

2. A Decade by Many Names • The New Era • Return to Normalcy • Jazz Age • Roaring 20’s • Harlem Renaissance

4. A New American Standard • U.S. developed the highest standard of living in the world • Europe would need time to recover from the devastation of World War I • America would be the only viable economy left • The 1920s and the second Industrial Revolution • Electricity replaced steam • Modern assembly introduced

5. Automobile Industry • Automakers stimulated sales through model changes, advertising • Modern Administrative system • GM and Alfred P Sloan • Auto industry fostered other businesses • Think vertical integration • Autos encouraged suburban sprawl

6. Business is here to stay • New technologies meant new industries such as radio and motion pictures • Structural change • Professional managers replaced individual entrepreneurs • Corporations became the dominant business form • Marketing and national brands spread • Big business weakened regionalism, brought uniformity to America

8. Some Economic Weaknesses • Railroads poorly managed • Speculation would be rampant • Coal displaced by petroleum • Dirty, expensive, and extremely limited • Farmers faced decline in exports, prices • Plight of the Farmers: use previous notes for refresher • Growing disparity between income of laborers, middle-class managers • Middle class speculated with idle money • People were not financially literate • Buying on margins

9. Women and the Family • Ongoing crusade for equal rights • “Flappers” sought individual freedom • Much of the feminism we know today is heavily influenced by this time • Women would no longer be afraid to try the new and unexpected • Most women remained in domestic sphere • Discovery of adolescence • Teenage children no longer needed to work • Indulged their craving for excitement • Many religious figures will point to this time when America becomes worldly and sinful

10. The Roaring Twenties • Sports, like golf and baseball, became much bigger part of national popular culture • Bobby Jones, Babe Ruth • Decade was notable for obsessive interest in celebrities • Charles Lindbergh Gertrude Ederle • Sex became an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainment • Sex, sex, and more sex

11. Artists felt alienation from 1920s mass culture • “Exiled” American writers put U.S. at forefront of world literature primarily in Paris • T.S. Eliot • Ernest Hemingway • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Black Writers- Harlem Renaissance Writers • Zora Neale Hurston • Claude McKay • Langston Hughes • WEB Du Bois

12. The New Negro Movement • This term was coined by Alaine Locke • Writing and creating a new history of the American Black • In 1915, Washington is going to die • Du Bois is going to become the primary leader of the American Negro • Talented Tenth • NAACP

13. A New Negro • The American Negro has changed. During the 1900’s and 1910’s we see a migration of African Americans from the South to the North and North East • Harlem is a neighborhood in New York • Cultural explosion in music, literature, poetry, and arts • Shuffle Along- Josephine Baker- 1st all Black cast in Broadway Musical • Cotton Club- popular New York nightclub. Prominent musicians would play at the club, but only white patrons were allowed • Poetry- Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” • Claude McKay, “If We Must Die” • Pan Africanism- Universal Negro Improvement Association • Marcus Garvey and the Black Star Line • Goal was to unite all Blacks in America and lead them back to the motherland, where they would live as a united people under one banner

14. Country Folk think the city is whack • Rural Americans identified urban culture with communism, crime, immorality • Progressives attempted to force reform on the American people • Upsurge of bigotry • An era of repression • 1919: “Red Scare” • Illegal roundups of innocent people • Forcible deportation of aliens • Terrorism against “radicals,” immigrants • 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti executed • Supposed anarchist and communist

15. The New Ku Klux Klan • Many people indeed felt ostracized by the modernity of the 1920’s. Many needed to feel welcomed and so the new Ku Klux Klan was created • 1925: Klan membership hit 5 million • Attack on urban culture, inhabitants • Defense of traditional rural values • Klan sought to win U.S. by persuasion • Violence, internal corruption resulted in Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930

17. More Fear • 1924: National Origins Act • 150,000 person quota on immigration • Quotas favored northern Europeans • Mexican immigrants exempted from quota • They were needed as agriculture laborers in the American Southwest • Sounds very familiar doesn’t it

18. Religion what is it good for? • Fundamentalism: Stress on traditional Protestant orthodoxy, biblical literalism • Billy Sunday • 1925: Scopes Trial discredited fundamentalism among intellectuals • Creationism vs. evolution • “Modernists” gained mainline churches • Decrease in the power of the Revival type churches • Fundamentalists strengthened grassroots appeal in new church • Late 20th century an increase of conservatism throughout the world

19. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover • Republican party apparently dominant • Urban wing of the Democratic party emerged as the most powerful force • Republican presidents appealed to traditional American values • Harding scandals broke after his death • Teapot Dome Scandal • Coolidge represented America in his austerity and rectitude • Hoover represented the self-made man

20. Return to “normalcy” • Tariffs raised • Corporate and income taxes cut • Spending cut • Coolidge blocked Congressional aid to farmers as unwarranted interference • Government-business cooperation

21. Democrats make a move • 1924: Urban-rural split weakened Democrats • Major shift in political loyalties • Will start seeing AA moving towards Dems and White Southerners moving towards Reps • Will become a permanent shift in Civil Rights Era • Democrats gained more Congressional seats than Republicans after 1922

22. Election of 1928 • Democrat Al Smith carried urban vote • Governor of New York • Roman Catholic • Republican Herbert Hoover won race • Midwesterner • Protestant • Religion the campaign’s decisive issue

24. The 1920’s • The 1920’s is fondly remembered as a Golden Age for music, literature, movies, musicals, etc. • 1920’s will lay the foundation for modern America • Increased science and technology • Political Scandals are still happening • The Great Depression is going to end the decade of prosperity and plunge America into an economic black hole