Reaction and Retreat

1
Reaction and Retreat

• Chapter 13

2
Prohibition

• Alcohol Prohibition, a movement echoing the
  earlier temperance reform movements of the 19th
  century, enabled women to increase the scope of
  their roles and simultaneously address the white
  Protestant fears of the growing immigrant
  population
• Drunkenness became a characteristic ascribed to
  Catholics, Jews, Irish, etc, reflecting both the
  religious and ethnic overtones of Prohibition
• Banning alcohol was a means of assimilating the
  other to America
• The Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1919 in
  this sense Prohibition was successful, however it
  also spurred an underground crime network in
  response to the dry nation
• The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition in 1933

3
Restricting Immigration

• In 1924, Congress enacted a quota system for
  immigration which limited the number from any
  individual country based on the percentage of
  immigrants currently inhabiting America this
  privileged northern and western European
  countries and restricted most others
• This political move reflected the mounting fear
  over the increasing pluralism being brought in by
  foreign countrymen and women in 1965 the
  restrictions would be lifted

4
Problems for Jews and Catholics

• Anti-semitism was experiencing a surge
• The trial of Leo Frank (accused of murdering a
  Christian woman) fueled a growing backlash
  against Jewish Americans when he was found
  guilty after a mockery of a trial (191)
• Henry Ford sponsored the publication of Protocols
  of the Elders of Zion, which described the Jewish
  economic conspiracy to take over the world
• Protestants were suspicious of Catholics,
  particularly following WWI (many Germans were
  Catholics)
• The 1928 election of Catholic governor Al Smith
  (NY) was vilified for his support of the
  eradication of Prohibition, seen as an
  infiltration of Catholic values
• However, what this anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic
  response really shows is how firmly embedded
  Judaism and Catholicism were in American society

5
Institutionalized Intolerance

• The Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence
  beginning in 1915 the trial of Leo Frank and the
  film The Birth of a Nation reinvigorated efforts
  to eradicate non-white, non-Protestant elements
  from America
• William Joseph Simmons was the primary force
  behind the Klans rebirth, turning it into a
  religiously-based terrorist body (195) that
  believed that it was a force for moral good and
  social reform, which simply employed
  any-means-necessary to accomplish its goals
• They had a different understanding of a unified
  America (195)

6
New Media and Religion

• Religion and media like radio and eventually
  television have had a mutually-edifying
  relationship (in spite of critique by those who
  saw communications media as dangerous to the
  religious and moral fabric of the nation (196)
• Beginning in the 1930s America witnessed the
  marriage between religion and media as religious
  figures took to the radio airwaves and film
• Charles Fuller began the Old Fashioned Revival
  Hour, which would become the most popular
  program on the radio
• Inserting themselves into the morally ambiguous
  film industry were religious films such as King
  of Kings
• Media enabled religious figures to expand their
  ministry in a way that was not possible before
• Yet they often served to homogenize or assimilate
  religious difference into a least common
  denominator (198) creating an overarching
  religious viewpoint