1920s: The New Era

1
1920s The New Era

• U.S. History II

2
The Election of 1920

• Republican candidate Warren G. Harding promised a
  return to normalcy
• End of progressivism on national level, but
  continued on state local level
• Many states passed old age pensions workers
  compensation laws

3
Consumer Economy

• Consumer goods like automobiles led economy,
  rather than producer goods like steel
• Ford Model T 300 Chevrolet 700
• Average blue-collar salary 1,300
• Average white-collar salary 2,300
• Modern marketing techniques created demand to
  meet supply
• 4.3 billion spent on advertising in 1929
• Bruce Bartons The Man Nobody Knows described
  Jesus as a salesman

4
Radio Advertising

• KDKA Pittsburgh was first commercial station in
  1920
• 508 stations by 1922
• Networks created for nationwide advertising
• National Broadcasting Corp. (1926)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (1927)
• By 1929, Americans spending 50 million/year on
  radios

5
Women as Consumers

• Women still seen as homemakers, but now consumers
  rather than producers
• Ads targeted women
• Employed married women increased by 30 to 3.1
  million, but still only 12 of total
• Marriage seen as romantic companionship,
  divorce rate rose

6
Entertainment Culture

• Entertainment grew as leisure time purchasing
  power increased
• Amount spent increased from 2.5 billion in 1919
  to 4.3 billion in 1929
• Fads like mini golf swept the nation
• 100 million moviegoers a week by 1930
• Total population 120 million
• 60 million a week average church attendance

7
The Harlem Renaissance

• Black actors
• Charles Gilpin
• Paul Robeson
• Black authors
• Langston Hughes
• Countee Cullen
• Claude McKay
• Black jazz musicians
• Duke Ellington
• Count Basie

Duke Ellington
8
Darwins Challenge to Christianity

• Literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2
• Divine creation (argument from design)
• Human souls
• Original sin
• Social Darwinism
• Herbert Spencer sociology
• Francis Galton - eugenics

9
3 Responses to Challenges

• Hostility Fundamentalism
• The Fundamentals reasserted basic Protestant
  doctrine
• Premillenial dispensationalism taught that world
  would get worse, not better, before Jesus return
• Holiness movement emphasized personal purity
  devotion
• Pentecostal movement featured ecstatic worship
  spiritual gifts
• Azuza St. Revival (Los Angeles, 1906-09)
• Pope Pius IXs Syllabus of Errors insisted on
  papal infallibility the immaculate conception
  of Mary

10
3 Responses (cont.)

• Capitulation Modernism
• The Social Gospel focused on political economic
  reform
• Federal Council of Churches founded in 1908
• Compromise Evangelicalism (Neo-Orthodoxy)
• Salvation Army combined evangelism aid to poor
• Pope Leo XIIIs Rerum Novarum (1891) called on
  Catholics to work to ameliorate poverty combat
  injustice

11
The Scopes Trial (1925)

• Attracted celebrity lawyers
• Clarence Darrow for the defense
• William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution
• Scopes found guilty, but overturned on
  technicality