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America: 1920-1929. America after WW1. America emerged from WW1 as the world leader in manufacturing. Age of Prosperity. The 1920’s was a decade of prosperity in America. By 1929, the United States produced 40% of the world’s manufactured goods. Key American Industries. Aviation
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America after WW1 • America emerged from WW1 as the world leader in manufacturing.
Age of Prosperity • The 1920’s was a decade of prosperity in America. • By 1929, the United States produced 40% of the world’s manufactured goods.
Key American Industries • Aviation • Automobiles • Chemicals • Electronics • Steel/rubber/oil
American Consumerism • This new abundance of goods created a diverse market economy. • Americans entered an age of “conspicuous consumption”
Conspicuous Consumption • Americans began to demand a higher standard of living. • People wanted to buy all of the goods that America was producing. • Americans began to spend more and more of their income on leisure activities.
Conspicuous Consumption • For the first time, America became a country of: • Marketing/Advertisement for consumer goods. • People buying things with credit, not cash. • People having greater debt than savings.
Conspicuous Consumption • First big advertisement agencies.
Conspicuous Consumption • People paying with credit.
Conspicuous Consumption • American’s aren’t saving money.
Americans Get Rich • During this decade, a small percentage of business owners became incredibly wealthy. • Small businesses began to go bankrupt. • Americans got themselves into debt to maintain their new standard of living.
Young Americans Rebel • The 1920’s was also a decade of great social rebellion by a younger generation that questioned authority.
Flappers • Flappers were young, sexually/socially liberated women.
Flappers • Now that they had the right to vote, women began to demand more civil rights.
Flappers • Flappers were a new breed of American women. • They wore their hair short, they wore short skirts, they drank and smoke in public, they demanded access to birth-control.
Flappers • “What had been scandalous a generation earlier- women’s self-conscious pursuit of personal pleasure- became a device to market goods from automobiles to cigarettes,” (Foner, 669).
Speakeasies • Speakeasies were underground nightclubs that sold liquor during the time of Prohibition.
The “Lost Generation” • Ernest Hemmingway • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Many great American artists moved to Paris, where the government was much less conservative.
Conservative vs. Liberal • The 1920’s was a decade of great division between conservative and liberal Americans. • The Scopes Trial exemplifies this conflict.
The Scopes Trial • In 1925, Tennessee made it a crime to teach the Theory of Evolution in public schools. • A young biology teacher named John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching this theory. • The ensuing trial captivated the nation. For many Americans, The Scopes Trial exemplified: • 1. Conservatism vs. Liberalism • 2. Science vs. Christianity • 3. Enlightenment vs. Ignorance
The Scopes Trial • Should Cristo Rey, as a Catholic institution, teach the theory of Evolution? • Can a school like Cristo Rey teach BOTH the theory of evolution and the theory of creation? • Are we to take everything we read in the Bible literally? If so, why? If not, does that diminish the Bible’s importance?
The Return of the KKK • The 1920’s saw the reemergence of the KKK as a national institution. • The Klan reemerged as a reaction against the increase in immigration in America in the 1920’s.
The Return of the KKK • By the mid 1920’s, the Klan claimed over 3 million members. • This new Klan existed not only in the South, but also the North and West.
The Return of the KKK • Members of the KKK believed that “American civilization was endangered not only by blacks but by immigrants (especially Jews and Catholics) and all the forces (feminism, unions, immorality) that endangered ‘individual liberty’,” (Foner, 682). • “Who is an American?”
!920’s: America’s First “Red Scare” • In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia created the Soviet Union, a communist state. • Communism: a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
The Red Scare • After WW1 ended, many Americans were fearful of communists living among them. • Many communists leaders called for a global revolution that would overthrow capitalist economies throughout the world.
The Palmer Raids • In August of 1919, The U.S. government tracked down suspected communists, socialists, and anarchists. • Hundreds of radical immigrants were deported without trial. • US Atty. Gen. Mitchell Palmer
The Palmer Raids • The first Red Scare didn’t last very long. It did, however, make many Americans more fearful of immigrants.
Immigration in the 1920’s • “America must be kept American.” President Calvin Coolidge • Immigration Law of 1924: limited the number of immigrants from different parts of the world.
The Emergence of Harlem • During the 1920’s, many African Americans moved North to large urban communities. • Harlem became the “capital” of black America.
The Harlem Renaissance • The “Harlem Renaissance” was a period during the 1920’s of great artistic expression for African Americans in the city of Harlem.
The Harlem Renaissance • Black Americans produced amazing works of art in: • 1. Poetry • 2. Theater • 3. Fiction • 4. Political Philosophy • 5. Painting
The Harlem Renaissance • The Harlem Renaissance was a time of protest by African Americans. If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot… Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! - Claude McKay
Langston Hughes • One of the great American poets of all time. • Hughes wrote poetry of the “invisible man” • He, along with other great artists of the Harlem Renaissance, gave a voice to the voiceless.
