THE ROARING TWENTIES – Outline Notes
I. POSTWAR AMERICAN ATTITUDES
A. DISILLUSIONMENT OF THE POST-WAR YEARS
1. With the end of WWI, the world was turned upside down for many young men. Particularly true among veterans, artists, and intellectuals, the innocence of the pre-war world was lost. Nicknamed the Lost Generation, these writers and artists felt that Americans had become obsessed with material things and that Americans were drifting through life without any real purpose. Many displayed this in their writing. (EX: Ernest Hemingway)
2. Still, the Lost Generation was only a small percent of Americans because most Americans enjoyed great success and wealth during the 20s and were happy to spend their money.
B. FEAR OF COMMUNISM
1. Success of the Russian Revolution combined with numerous workers strikes frightened Americans into a ‘Red Scare’ mentality in 1919-1920. The ‘Red Scare’ is the nickname given to the fear of Communism.
2. 6000 suspected radicals were arrested and many deported following several bombings throughout the early part of the 1920s. (ex: Wall Street Bombing of 1920)
C. FEAR OF FOREIGNERS
1. Over 800,000 immigrants came to America in 1920-21, with 2/3 coming from southern and eastern Europe. Americans feared that they would bring communist ideas with them and disease. Remember that about 50 million people died from a massive outbreak of the flu in the two years that followed WWI.
2. New quotas were set up to restrict immigration. The largest of these was the National Origins Act of 1924, which set the number of immigrants allowed here so low that barely any immigrants came here after 1924.
3. Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants who were anarchists, were tried for murder and hanged. The case never really proved their guilt but Americans were fearful of foreigners and their hanging is symbolic of the fear that Americans had of foreigners during the 20s.
D. RISE OF THE KKK
1. The KKK was more anti-foreign than anti-black in the 20s although hatred of African-Americans was still a backbone to their beliefs. The KKK’s strength was in the Midwest and Southern states, as it is today.
a) Targets: foreigners, Jews, Catholics, pacifists, communists, evolutionists, and African-Americans
b) By 1925, 5 million members had joined to march in parades, burn crosses, and hold
secret meetings. Many politicians were known to be members of the Klan.
E. BY THE LATER PART OF THE 20s THESE POST-WAR ATTITUDES AND CONCERNS BEGAN TO LOSE THEIR HOLD ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY REALIZED THAT WHETHER THEY LIKED IT OR NOT ALL THESE CHANGES IN PEOPLE, ATTITUDES, AND TRADITION WERE HERE TO STAY.
II. REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT TAKES CONTROL
A. In the 1920s there were three Republican presidents in a row (Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover) and all
encouraged a strong relationship between business and government.
B. In their view, the goal of the government in the 1920s was to help business and industry to operate with maximum efficiency and productivity.
C. While the government helped businesses become more efficient, the government did not do much to regulate the way businesses did business and this eventually killed the market. The name of taking a hands-off approach to regulating business is called laissez-faire.
Warren Harding (1921-1923)
“I am a man of limited talents from a small town.” He delegated much of his responsibility to friends and people around him. These people were called the ‘Ohio Gang’ and they were his poker friends. The problem is that they were his friends, not necessarily politicians, and a good number of them got involved in scandals.
a. Teapot Dome Scandal - Secretary of Interior Albert Fall was jailed for a year for accepting bribes to provide oil leases in Wyoming and California to wealthy businessmen
b. Harding, largely unaware of the corruption that was riddling his administration, died in August 1923. This ended one of the most corrupted Presidencies in American history.
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
"The business of America is business." He was one of the least active presidents in history, taking daily afternoon naps and proposing no new legislation.
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
He was much more progressive than his predecessors but he entered the oval office at the wrong time. When the stock market crashed in the first year of his presidency, Americans came to blame him for the Great Depression even though it was not entirely his fault.
III. MOVEMENTS OF THE 1920s
A. PROHIBITION
1. 18th Amendment goes into effect in 1919. Officially it is called the Volstead Act.
2. Strong demand for alcohol, even though it was illegal, and weak enforcement, led to crime.
3. Saloons and bars were replaced by speakeasies serving high proof alcohol.
4. Home-made alcohol (bathtub gin/moonshine) many times resulted in blindness, sickness, and death.
5. Organized crime, most famously in Chicago rose to meet consumers' need to drink
a) Over 500 murders in Chicago in the 1920s by competing gangs. (The North Side/South Side)
b) Gangsters used Prohibition profits to move into prostitution, gambling, and narcotics as years went by, especially once alcohol became legal again.
c) Al Capone becomes the most notorious of these gangsters.
B. CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
1. Scopes Monkey Trial: Teacher John Scopes arrested for teaching evolution. Christian Fundamentalists argue that science cannot question the teachings of the bible. According to them the Bible should be read as unquestionable truth. This debate still happens in 2012.
2. This movement, which also is connected to prohibition, really was about making the American man a spiritually and physically clean person. I think you can also see the connection/influence of the KKK in this debate as well.
C. PROSPERITY AND CONSUMERISM
1. Tremendous performance of American economy in early 1920s.
2. Causes of economic boom
a) The destruction of European economies during World War I left the U.S. as the only major industrial nation still in one piece.
b) Technological advances……
i) 1.5 million cars sold in 1920, 5 million cars sold by 1929.
ii) Assembly line methods first used by Ford to make the Model T and later by other car companies makes the car affordable to many American families.
iii) Assembly line makes all products more affordable. (ex: Refrigerator)
c) Radio and motion picture industry grew as a result of technological innovations.
d) Cheap, readily available energy sources (coal, oil) made expansion affordable.
e) People for the first time in history could purchase using credit and pay it back later.
f) First time that athletes are used to market/advertise items.
3. With newfound wealth, people begin to invest in the stock market often times placing all of their money in the stock market which is extremely risky. By 1929, speculation in stocks and bad investments lead to the collapse of the financial system.