Roaring Twenties

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Roaring Twenties
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Change! It exhausted America

• League of Nations debates
• Soldiers returned home
• Some were unemployed
• Women/Minorities lose their jobs status
• The cost of living doubled
• How do people respond to stress?

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POSTWAR TRENDS

• Nativism Prejudice against foreign-born people.
• Isolationism Pulling away from involvement in
  foreign affairs.
• The Red Scare (1) Anti-communist panic

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• " The blaze of revolution was sweeping over every
  American institution of law and order . . . .
  eating its way into the homes of the American
  workman, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat
  . . . licking the altars of the churches, leaping
  into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into
  the sacred corners of American homes, . . .
  burning up the foundations of society."
• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

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The Red Scare

• Palmer and his assistant, J. Edgar Hoover hunted
  down suspected communists or anarchists
• Invaded private homes and offices
• Jailed suspects without allowing them legal
  counsel
• Hundreds of foreign-born radicals were deported
  without trials
• No evidence of a conspiracy was ever found
  political motives of Palmer

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J Edgar Hoover

• 1st Director of FBI (1924-1972)

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SACCO AND VANZETTI

• The two most famous victims of the nativist
  attitude
• May, 1920 Arrested and charged with the robbery
  and murder of two people in South Braintree, MA.
• Pleaded innocence had alibis
• Circumstantial evidence
• Prejudice judge
• Found guilty sentenced to death!

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BARTOLOMEO VANZETTI

• " In all my life I have never stole, never
  killed, never spilled blood. . . . We were tried
  during a time . . . when there was hysteria of
  resentment and hate against the people of our
  principles, against the foreigner. . . . I am
  suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am
  a radical I have suffered because I was an
  Italian and indeed I am an Italian. . . . If you
  could execute me two times, and if I could be
  reborn two other times, I would live again to do
  what I have done already."

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Keep America for Americans

• No longer a strong need for unskilled labor.
• So why keep allowing immigration?
• Ku Klux Klan
• The Emergency Quota Act of 1921
• Established the maximum number of people who
  could enter the United States from each foreign
  country

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Labor Unrest

• Labor and management clashed.
• Raises and unions were frowned upon.
• Boston Police Strike
• Steel Mill Strike
• Coal Miners Strike
• John L. Lewis

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Politics

• Corruption was everywhere!
• President Warren G. Harding
• His Ohio gang
• Teapot Dome Scandal

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American Culture

• The average annual income rose more than 35
  percent during the periodfrom 522 to 705
• Henry Fords Model T
• Roads Route 66
• Independence
• Urban sprawl

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The City Life

• Rural vs Urban culture
• Fundamentalism Protestant movement grounded in a
  literal, or nonsymbolic, interpretation of the
  Bible
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• Prohibition The manufacture, sale, and
  transportation of alcoholic beverages is legally
  prohibited
• Speakeasies hidden saloons and nightclubs
• Bootleggers
• Organized crime Moran, Capone, etc.

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Role of Women

• In the rebellious, pleasure-loving atmosphere of
  the twenties, many women began to assert their
  independence, reject the values of the 19th
  century, and demand the same freedoms as men.
• Flappers vs Reality
• Double Standard

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Work and Family

• Working opportunities for women changed.
• Mostly teachers, librarians, or nurses
• Between 1900 and 1930, the patterns of
  discrimination and inequality for women in the
  business world were established.
• Wider availability of birth control information
  birth rate?

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Entertainment
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