The Roaring 20

1
The Roaring 20s

• Melissa Carter
• WMHS
• APUSH

2
Election of 1920
Harding won the election!
3
Red Scare 1919-1920

• Fear of Communism (Reds)
• Fighting Quaker Attorney General A. Mitchell
  Palmer
• Sought Reds and radicals
• Palmer Raids
• Deportation of Russians
• Legislation further infringed upon civil rights-
  (of radicals)

4

• Unions Reds Anarchy
• Industries banned unions American Plan
• Anti-foreignism (xenophobia)/nativism
• Anti-Communism

5
Sacco Vanzetti
Tyranny of the establishment over the poor and
politically non-conforming.

• Convicted of murder in 1921
• Little evidence to support a conviction
• Men were Italian, atheists, and anarchists
• Both men were executed in 1927

Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti
6
Ku Klux Klan

• Resurgence of the Klan in the 1920s
• Anti-immigrants, anti-black, anti-Catholic,
  anti-Jewish, anti-Communist.
• Pro-WASP, ultraconservative
• Spread throughout the South (Bible Belt) and
  Midwest
• Social organization
• Music, parades, meetings and rallies

7
After gaining over 5 million followers the Klan
fell to corruption and scandal during the late
1920s.
8
Immigration Restriction

• 100 percent Americans were upset at the
  increase in European immigration post-WWI
• Emergency Quota Act of 1921
• Set a quota (3) per nation
• Based upon census in 1910
• Immigration Act of 1924
• Quotas cut to 2
• Based upon census in 1890

9

• Both immigration restriction acts favored
  Northern Europeans
• Most Asians were shut out completely
• Canadians and Latin Americans were allowed in
• Some Americans supported diversity and pluralism

10
Prohibition

• 18th Amendment Volstead Act abolition of
  alcohol- most popular in the South West
• Impossible to enforce
• Rumrunners and bootleggers
• Speakeasies

11
Evading the law

• Home distilling
• Home brew bathtub gin
• Sold to speakeasies all over the US
• Could result in illness, even death
• Speakeasies
• Passwords and codes
• Hidden entrances
• Drop shelves to hide liquor
• Hidden storage rooms

12
Organized Crime

• Gangsters controlled illicit and many legal
  businesses in major cities, like Chicago, during
  the 1920s
• Violence was common, convictions were not
• Made millions off the public

13
St. Valentines Day Massacre

• 1929
• 7 men murdered
• Rival gang
• Chicago
• Believed to be the work of Al Capone (Public
  Enemy 1) - never convicted

14
Scopes Trial

• Teaching of evolution or creation in schools?
• Southern states outlawed the teaching of
  evolution (Bible Belt states- large of
  Fundamentalists)
• Tennessee- John Scopes was indicted for teaching
  evolution to HS students
• Scopes defended by Clarence Darrow
• Prosecution William Jennings Bryan
• Outcome- Scope was found guilty and but not
  punished

15
Monkey Trial
16
2nd Industrial Revolution

• Increased industrial output and labor force due
  to technological advances
• Electricity replaced steam
• Automatic machinery
• Workers as a machine (monotonous)
• Mass production technique Fordism
• Moving assembly line
• Increased productivity by 40

17
Auto Industry

• Henry Ford
• Assembly line- 1 car every 10 seconds left the
  line
• Ford increased wage scale 5 for 8 hrs.
• Reduced turnover rate
• Employed AA
• Cars more affordable

18
Consumerism

• Demand for new housing
• Increased automobile ownership suburbs
• Increased consumer products on the market
• Mass advertising
• Consumption (need for more)
• Buying on margin (credit)- I want it NOW!

19
Taking Flight

• Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) _at_ Kitty
  Hawk, NC- 1903
• Charles Lindbergh, Lucky Lindy- Spirit of St.
  Louis- first trans-Atlantic flight (NY to Paris)

20
Radio

• Advertising (commercials)
• Vaudeville comedy
• Music
• Baseball and college football games
• Turned college football into a popular sport

21
Movies

• Celebrities Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor,
  Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow
• Studios Paramount, Fox, MGM, WB, Universal
• The Jazz Singer 1st movie using sound (talkies)
• Construction of grand movie houses
• Concerns sexual morality of celebrities
• Led to censorship of films

22
D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation

• Film released in 1915
• Glorified the Klan
• Reignited feuds between white black southerners

23
Baseball

• Sultan of Swat- Babe Ruth
• Popular and profitable
• Baseball becomes a business
• AA banned from baseball league- formed their own
  the Negro National League

24
Flappers

• New image of young women
• Short, bobbed hair
• Shorter hemlines
• Smoking and drinking- seen in speakeasies
• Dancing the charleston
• Listening to Jazz

25
Changing Values

• Young Americans reject the traditional values of
  their elders regarding
• Sex.DressPublic behaviorReligion
• Embrace the ideas of Sigmund Freud
• Repressing sexuality could damage mental and
  emotional health
• Margaret Sanger- advocate of birth control
• Pre-marital sex on the rise
• Sex used in advertising

26
Agriculture

• Did not see prosperity in the 20s
• Farmers in debt, surplus, dropping prices
• McNary-Haugen bills
• Designed to help stabilize farm prices
• Provides for government purchase of surplus
  produce at a fixed price, then resale to Europe
• Vetoed by Coolidge twice

27
Jazz Age

• Rising popularity of Jazz music
• Dance halls
• Early career of Louis Armstrong

28
Harlem Renaissance

• Cultural creativity
• African American community in NYC
• Development of artists, musicians, authors

29
Cultural Contributions

• F. Scott Fitzgerald- The Great Gatsby
• Ernest Hemingway- A Farewell to Arms
• Sinclair Lewis- Main Street Babbitt
• William Faulkner- The Sound and the Fury As I
  Lay Dying
• Poets
• Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot
• Architect Frank Lloyd Wright

30
Bull Market

• Booming Economy
• Get-rich-quick schemes
• Wild speculation
• Buying stocks on margin
• Pay a down payment now, pay the rest later in
  debt

31
Twenties Politics
32
Presidents of the Twenties

• Warren G. Harding- Return to Normalcy
• Calvin Coolidge- Silent Cal
• Herbert Hoover-

33
Hardings Presidency

• Ohio Gang
• Corruption Scandal
• Teapot Dome Scandal
• Involved Albert B. Fall and the leasing of
  government land (with oil) for bribes.
• Laissez-faire approach toward business
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act- increased the rate
  to 38.5 (pro-business)
• Died before term ended

34
Foreign Affairs

• Washington Conference (1921)-talks on naval
  disarmaments- Belgium, China, France Great
  Britain, Italy, Japan, Portugal and the
  Netherlands
• Five-Power Treaty- US, France, GB and Japan-
  agreement to respect each others territory in
  the Pacific
• Nine-Power Treaty- agreement to respect the Open
  Door policy- guaranteeing the territorial
  integrity of China

35
Silent Cal Coolidge

• Hardings VP- stepped into office
• Elected in 1924
• Supported limited government laissez-faire
• Cut government spending
• Vetoed bills for
• Bonuses for WWI veterans
• McNary-Haugen Bill