1920s

1
1920s

• Strong economy GNP grows at 5.5 percent
• Why? Purchase of consumer goods
• Wartime savings
• Advertising industry
• New celebrity
• Women increasing consumer purchases

2
1920s National Leadership

• Presidents
• Wilson
• Harding
• Corruption, Ohio gang, Teapot Dome Scandal
• Coolidge
• Cuts tax rates on corporations, best govt
  governed the least
• Hoover
• Associationalism

3
Foreign Policy

• Washington Conference on Naval Armaments (1922)
• Dawes Plan (1924)
• Kellogg-Briand Pact
• (1928)

4
A Few facts about the 1920s

• 106,521,537 people in the United States 
• 2,132,000 unemployed, Unemployment 5.2 
• Life expectancy  Male 53.6,   Female 54.6 
• 343.000 in military (down from 1,172,601 in
  1919) 
• Average annual earnings 1236  Teacher's salary 
  970 
• Dow Jones High 100  Low 67  
• Illiteracy rate reached a new low of 6 of the
  population.  
• Gangland crime included murder, swindles,
  racketeering 
• It took 13 days to reach California from New
  York  There were 387,000 miles of paved road. 

5
Other issues, not so good

• Prohibition spawns new wave of organized crime
• Second rise of the Klan, this time from the
  midwest
• Immigration restrictions (Johnson-Reid act)

6
Political and Social changes

• Scopes Trial
• Great migration
• Harlem Renaissance
• Jazz age
• Dance halls

7
Great Migration

• REASONS FOR NORTHERN MIGRATION
• WWI Experience
• bug infestations in cotton
• Work opportunities

http//americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibiti
on.cfm?key38exkey71
8
Harlem Renaissance

• A transformation as not relying on older
  time-worn models but, rather, embracing a 'new
  psychology' and 'new sprit'.
• Alain Locke

Aspects of Negro Life The Negro in an African
Setting (1934) Art by Aaron Douglas Tribal
Women (1925)
9

• I, Too
•   I, too, sing America.I am the darker
  brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen
  company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And
  grow strong.Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen
  company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in
  the kitchen,"Then.Besides,They'll see how
  beautiful I amAnd be ashamed--I, too, am
  America. Langston Hughes

Countee Cullen
The Cotton Club was the most famous of the city's
nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s, attracting an
audience that often included the cream of New
York society.
Jelly Roll Morton
10
Movements

• Art Art Deco, surrelism, realism

Grant Wood
Salvador Dali