Postwar Social Change (1920-1929)

Postwar Social Change (1920-1929)

I. Society in the 1920’s • The 1920’s helped create what we think of today as modern America. • Flappers- young women who were rebellious, energetic, fun-loving, and bold symbolized the revolution away from the traditional values that had “led to war”

A. Women’s Changing Roles • Both single and married women had been in the work place for a long time • Yet, the % of women in the work force continued to rise, women gained the right to vote (19th Amendment), and women wanted more equality with men

1. The Flapper Image • The flapper represented only a small number of American women, yet her image had a wide impact on fashion and behavior • Shorter skirts - from 9 inches above the ground to knee length or even higher • Short hair-cuts, didn’t wear wide-brimmed hats • Began to drink strong drinks and smoke cigarettes • Partly in protest of prohibition, but also to express their new freedom

2. Women Working and Voting • Many women changed their fashion because it was more convenient • More women were getting jobs, but only 15% of working women were professionals • Owners feared women would quit once they married and got pregnant • It took women nearly a decade to begin to vote with any regularity • They had more influence in local elections than national

B. Americans on the Move • Changes in demographics occurred in the 1920’s • Demographics are the statistics that describe a population, such as data on race or income • Most people moved away from the countryside

1. Rural-Urban Split • A wealth gap developed between the rural and urban societies. • Farmers began to be economically stressed while the industrial and commercial economy began to boom • This led about 6 million people to move from farms to the city in the 1920’s • Changed the importance of public schools • Changed the ideas about traditional values • Why?

2. African American’s in the North • African Americans continued their great migration north to get away from the Jim Crow South and to seek jobs in the industrial North • Blacks still faced anger and hatred from many whites who believed they were taking jobs and lowering wages

3. Other Migration • Congress acted to limit immigration during the 1920’s, esp. from Southern and Eastern Europe, China, and Japan • Employers turned to immigrant workers from Mexico and Canada to fill low-paying jobs • Mexicans worked the farms of California and the ranches of Texas • Barrios were Spanish-speaking neighborhoods (LA)

4. Growth of the Suburbs • Cities built transportation systems that used electric trolleys powered by overhead wires to get people to and from their suburban homes • Buses became available in the 1920’s and the automobile became much more affordable • Henry Ford’s Model T is going to allow a rapid growth in suburban homes

C. American Heroes • The nation became fascinated with heroes such as: • Charles Lindbergh- 1st to fly across the Atlantic • Amelia Earhart- 1st woman to fly the Atlantic • Jack Dempsy- American boxing hero • Jim Thorpe- Olympic gold medals in track, pro football player, pro baseball player (Native American) • Babe Ruth- Professional baseball player • Gertrude Ederle- Olympic swimmer and swam the English Channel faster than any male (a Flapper)

II. Mass Media and the Jazz Age • During the 1920’s, a national culture began to form instead of the regional cultures that existed before the invention of mass media • Mass media are print, film, and broadcast methods of communicating information to large #s of people • Allowed people throughout the U.S. to be influenced by the same movies, the same music, etc.

A. Types of Mass Media • Movies- Silent films continued to succeed, but “talkies” or movies with talking quickly began to gain popularity • Newspapers and Magazines- Profits, not quality, continued to drive the tabloids • “90% entertainment, 10% information” • Radio- Enjoyed tremendous growth; networks such as NBC linked many stations together • The Mass Media brought the same forms of entertainment and influence to everyone in the U.S.

B. The Jazz Age • Both the growing popularity of the radio and the great African American migration to the cities helped make a music called jazz widely popular in the 1920’s

1. Jazz Arrives • Jazz grew out of the African American music of the South, especially ragtime and blues • Jazz became a nationwide craze in the 1920’s leading the era to be known as the Jazz Age • Symbolized the free manners and morals of the decade with the breathless, energetic times of the 1920’s

2. Jazz Clubs and Dance Halls • Harlem, a district on the northern end of Manhattan, was one of the most popular places to listen to Jazz. • There were over 500 Jazz clubs in Harlem • Flappers would often dance to jazz on the radio and in dance halls and dancing became a national craze

3. The Jazz Spirit • Poetry and painting were influenced by Jazz as was literature • Artists focused on everyday life and did not shy away from life’s rougher side • Some artists disagreed with the Jazz Era of art and left the country for Europe because they were “disconnected from their country and its values”- They were known as a Lost Generation

C. The Harlem Renaissance • New York City’s Harlem was the cultural center of the U.S. for African Americans • The Harlem Renaissance- was an African American literary awakening of the 1920’s • African Americans expressed their political, cultural, social, and economic wants and needs through literature • Langston Hughes, a poet, short story writer, journalist, and playwright whose career stretched into the 1960’s is the most studied individual from the Harlem Renaissance (pg. 389)

III. Cultural Conflicts • Prohibition- 18th Amendment (1920) • Religious Conflict • Racial Tensions

A. Prohibition • Main Goals: • Eliminate drunkenness and the resulting abuses • Get rid of saloons, where immoral acts take place • Prevent absenteeism and on-the-job accidents from people being drunk

1. Bootlegging • The bootlegger- a new type of criminal who was a supplier of illegal alcohol • Some made their own alcohol to sell; others smuggled the alcohol in from Canada or the Caribbean • Speakeasies- Bars that were operated illegally • Flourished in the cities • Ex. Boston had 4,000 speakeasies and 15,000 bootleggers

2. Organized Crime • Huge potential for profits from bootlegging led to the development of organized crime • Local gangsters operated independently at first, but eventually created large, complex rings of bootleggers • Rival gangs would compete for profit, and death and violence followed

3. Al Capone • The most notorious gangster • Operated primarily in Chicago • Nickname= Scarface • Murdered his way to the top of Chicago’s organized crime network • Made $60 million a year from bootlegging • Bribed police and others to avoid jail until the Fed. Court convicted him of tax-evasion in 1931 • Investigation led by J. Edgar Hoover

B. Issues of Religion • Tended to split the country along urban and rural lines with the teaching of evolution • Teaching of evolution began in the 1920’s

1. Fundamentalism • Fundamentalism- support of traditional Christian ideas about Jesus, plus they argue that God inspired the Bible so every story in the Bible is exactly true • Some fundamentalists used the radio as a way to broaden their reach

2. Evolution and the Scopes Trial • Fundamentalists denounced evolution • Tennessee passed a ban of teaching evolution in school so John T. Scopes went to court to challenge the ruling as unconstitutional (the Scopes Trial) • Very high profile case with famous lawyers and it was the first trial ever broadcast over the radio • Scopes was fined $100 for breaking the law

C. Racial Tensions • Mob violence between whites and blacks broke out in 1919 • “Red Summer” was its nickname for all of the blood that was spilled • The lynching of the Jim Crow era continued

1. Revival of the Klan • The KKK was largely eliminated during Reconstruction, but by 1922- membership had grown to 100,000 • By the end of 1922, its membership was 4 million • The new Klan was no longer just a Southern organization. • They wanted to defend their own white-Protestant culture against any group (not just black) that seemed un-American to them

2. Fighting Discrimination • The NAACP worked very hard to get anti-lynching laws passed • Lynching gradually decreased to ONLY 10 by 1929 • The NAACP also worked to protect voting rights, but with only limited success

Politics and Prosperity (1920-1929)

I. A Republican Decade • The memory of WWI was fresh in everyone’s mind in 1920 • The Senate still refused to accept the Versailles Treaty and refused to join the League of Nations • Warren G. Harding (Republican) won the Presidential race with a call for a “return to normalcy”

A. The Red Scare • “Normalcy” appealed to Americans in 1920 • Upheaval in Russia and a series of strikes and bombings in the U.S. convinced Americans that political violence posed a real threat to the U.S.

1. The Russian Revolution • Revolutionary leader Vladimir I. Lenin promised “peace, land, and bread” • His “Bolsheviks” overthrew the existing government, pulled out of WWI, and put all farms, industries, land, and transportation under government control • Lenin made communism the official ideology of Russia which was openly hostile to American beliefs

Communism meant: • The government owned all land and property • A “classless society” • A single political party controlled the government • The needs of the country always took priority over the rights of individuals • Lenin believed communism needed to spread throughout the world in order to survive

2. American Fears • Russia’s intention to spread communism to other countries alarmed many Americans • Many worried that Southern and Eastern European immigrants were Communists or other radicals • Communists tried to overthrow Germany after WWI and Communists came to power in Hungary • The U.S. soon was in a Red Scare • An intense fear of communism and other politically radical ideas

The Red Scare • Reds- the nickname for Lenin’s army and eventually for Communists • Americans called for known communists to be jailed or driven out of the country • Rights of individuals were sacrificed during the Red Scare to “protect national security”

3. Sacco and Vanzetti • The Red Scare played a part in one of the most controversial events in U.S. history • Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists and Italian immigrants who were arrested and connected with a deadly robbery • Many Americans suspected that they were arrested simply for being immigrants with radical beliefs • A case with international attention convicted the two men and sentenced them to death despite contrasting evidence • Died in electric chairs 4 months later despite mass protest

B. Labor Strikes • A wave of strikes in 1919 helped fuel the Red Scare • There were more than 3,500 strikes including police strikes in Boston • Many Americans were fearful that Communists were to blame for the high number of work stoppages since many labor union workers were immigrants • Gradually, strikes would decrease over the 1920’s

C. Republican Leadership • Americans felt that the Republican party was more likely to restore stability than the Democratic Party • Republicans controlled all three branches of government during the 1920’s • Republican Presidents of the 1920’s were Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover

1. Foreign Policy • Isolationism- Americans wished to avoid political or economic alliances with foreign countries • Harding opposed joining the League of Nations which is an excellent example of isolationism • Harding acted to promote business at home by raising tariffs to record highs (angered European countries trying to pay war debts to the U.S.) • Harding did call for disarmament- a program in which the nations of the world would voluntarily give up their weapons

2. Domestic Issues • As Americans became more isolationists, they also became more nativist • Nativism is a movement favoring native-born Americans over immigrants • Appeared in late 1800’s but flared up again after WWI.. In part because of the Red Scare • Congress passed a law limiting immigrants- a quota • limits immigration based on a preset # for certain ethnic groups or nations (Ex.- only 10,000 Italians per/year)

D. The Coolidge Presidency • “Keep cool with Coolidge”-1924 • Believed that “the chief business of the American people is business” • Believed in Laissez-Faire for American business • Government stays out of business (low taxes, higher tariffs to protect Americans) • “Hands off”

II. A Business Boom • By 1920, incomes were on the upward trend again after WWI and many new goods and production methods were taken advantage of

A. A Consumer Economy • The economy of the 1920’s was a Consumer Economy: • One that depends on a large amount of spending by consumers (individuals who use, or consume, products) • Increased spending leads to larger profits for businesses, which in turn pushes up wages and encourages even more spending

1. Buying on Credit • Until the 1920’s, middle-class Americans paid for everything in cash or barter (trade) • In the 1920’s, Americans started buying on credit to pay for the new products like cars, refrigerators, and other new products • Many would pay using an installment plan- the customer makes partial payments at set intervals over a period of time until it’s fully paid • There’s usually an interest rate involved

2. New Products • Refrigerators • Washing Machines • Vacuum Cleaners • Toaster • Ovens • Sewing Machines • Many new products required electricity

3. Advertising • Marketers began using the mass-media to advertise goods • Advertising shifted from trying to provide detailed info about a product to trying to create a consumer image for the product

B. Ford and the Automobile • Rapid growth in the production of automobiles • Ford made it so almost everyone could afford an automobile • He massed produced a car called the Model T

Postwar Social Change (1920-1929)