The 1920’s

1. The 1920’s My candle burns at both ends it will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends it gives a lovely light!

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3. Republican Control • The decade of the 1920’swas controlled by Republican Congresses • The Presidents were generally just rubber stamps for the work of the Congress • The followed a highly pro-business doctrine that hoped that the nation as a whole would prosper with business

4. Warren Harding • His Presidency was marked by scandal and corruption much like the Gilded Age • The Teapot Dome scandal resulted from the Sec. of the Interior accepting bribes for oil leases • His policies included a reduction of income tax and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff

5. Calvin Coolidge • “Silent Cal” espoused the idea that “the business of America is business” • In the 1924 election the Progressive Party formed around Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin and won 5 million votes mostly from farm and labor • Coolidge won and proceeded to cut spending and do little else

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7. The Election of 1928 • Coolidge declines to run again and the Republicans nominate Herbert Hoover • Hoover had ably run the domestic war effort and had a truly upstanding reputation • His Democratic opponent, Al Smith of New York was a Catholic and this created problems for many voters

8. The Policies of Hoover • Hoover continued the laissez faire ideas of Coolidge • The gains the Progressives had made against the power and control of big business quickly ebbed • Hoover’s government turned a blind eye to regulation, cut corporate taxes and raised tariffs as a way to aid and abet the growth of business • Increased productivity, new energy technology and of course the assistance of government led to great economic growth

9. Cultural Changes of the 1920’s • The Jazz Age • The growth of radios and record players made music come alive for Americans, especially the young • This was also fueled by Prohibition and late night Jazz clubs that served alcohol, often known as “speakeasies” • Consumerism • The growth of credit and the availability of consumer products was new to the American public • They spent like drunk sailors on shore leave • The “talkies” were introduced in 1927

10. Cultural Changes in the 1920’s • Gender Roles • Women moved from the home to the workplace during WWI • They had seen the fulfillment that was available outside the traditional roles of motherhood • The work of Margaret Sanger spreading information about birth control also liberated women in the area of sexual freedom, even though still illegal in most states • Divorce laws were also liberalized in the 1920’s as the women’s rights movement grew through the efforts of the women of the Seneca Falls Convention, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton • In addition, the right to vote that came about with the 19th Amendment was a boon to women’s rights as they were now a viable voting bloc.

11. Modernism vs Fundamentalism • A religious battle of sorts took place in the 1920’s • Fundamentalists were clinging to the idea of the Bible literal history • Modernist were looking to the idea that science was there to replace religion, or at least to complement it • Revivalists began using the new medium of radio to evangelize and begin a new “Great Awakening” • This battle was exemplified by the Scopes Trial in Tennessee • Mr. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in a public school • Although his conviction and fine were upheld, Fundamentalism took a huge hit as famed attorney Clarence Darrow made the “Bible as fact” crowd look silly in the face of science

12. Quick Question… • To what extent was the Scopes Trial only about competing theories of human origins, and to what extent was it a focal point for deeper concerns regarding the role of religion and traditional moral authorities in American life and the new cultural power of science?

13. Literature of Alienation • The literature of the 1920’s demonstrated that many Americans were disaffected from society • The “Lost Generation” of writers included Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot • The Great Gatsby was a defining book of the period • The Harlem Renaissance • WWI had created a migration of blacks from the South to the North in search of factory work • The Harlem Renaissance was an outgrowth of black culture on the arts originating in NYC • Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were famous individuals of the period • This demonstrated an American irony as these talented individuals often performed in front of segregated audiences

14. Quick Question… • Were the intellectual critics of the 1920s really disillusioned with the fundamental character of American life, or were they actually loyal to a vision of a better America and only hiding their idealism behind a veneer of disillusionment and irony?

15. Nativism and the Klan • Immigration Quotas were the norm of the 1920s as a backlash against the Great War • Immigration Laws in 1921 and 1924 attempted to keep Eastern Europeans and Asians out • The case of Sacco and Vanzetti highlighted the nativist views of the day • In this case the two men were convicted after a trial that was deemed biased. They exhausted appeals and were executed in 1927 • The Klan re-emerged in the South starting in 1915 as a group that was FOR white, protestant Americans and AGAINST EVERYONE else including Catholics, Jews, foreigners and blacks

16. Quick Question… • In what ways did movements such as fundamentalism reflect similar anti-modern outlooks, and in what ways did they reflect more basic religious disagreements?

17. Culminating Question… • In what ways is ‘The Dichotomous Decade’ an appropriate term for the 1920s?