Roaring Twenties

1
Roaring Twenties

• I. Victorianism
• II. Cultural Revolution
• A. Leisure
• B. Sex
• III. The Last Gasp of Moral Reform
• A. Prohibition
• B. Regulating Sexuality
• C. Censorship
• D. Klan
• Resistance
• A. The Speakeasy
• B. The Gay World
• C. Family Planning
• V. Modernism Triumphant?
• A. Criminal Justice
• B Repeal
• B. Birth Control
• C. Sexuality

2
Victorianism

• Natalism
• Race suicide

Anthony Comstock arrests abortionist Madame
Restell
3
Cultural Revolution
Rudy Valentino

• Leisure
• Sex

Louise Brooks
Mae West
4
Prohibition

• 18th Amendment
• Volstead Acts

Colorado liquor bust, 1920
5
Regulating Sexuality

• Obscenity
• Margaret Sanger
• What Every Woman Should Know (1921)
• Prostitution
• Mann Act (1915)
• Jack Johnson
• Homosexuality
• Sodomy laws

6
Censorship
Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle
Movie censor, Will Hays
7
The Revived Klan

• 4M members (1924)
• Mostly in the North
• 80,000 in NYS
• Politics
• Govs. of TX, IN, OR
• Mayors of Atlanta, Indianapolis, Denver
• Reaction to
• Sexual liberation
• Illegal alcohol
• New diversity
• Targets
• Blacks, Catholics, Jews, Immigrants, Unions

8
Speakeasy

• Americans continue drinking illegally
• Underground culture
• Integrated
• Gender
• Race
• Sexuality

Speakeasy, 1920
9
The Gay World

• Streets
• Wolves Fairies
• Science
• Inverts perverts

10
Family Planning

• Despite laws barring access to contraceptives,
  American fertility rates drop to historically low
  levels in the 1920s and 1930s.

11
Modernism Triumphant?
Leopold, Loeb, Darrow
12
Shifting Restrictions

• Repeal of Prohibition
• Loosen laws controlling birth control information
• The re-segregation of homosexuality

Drag queen, NYC, 1940