Transcript Social and Cultural Tensions

Modernism  trend emphasizing science and
secular values over traditional ideas about religion
 People in the rural areas of America generally
embraced a more traditional view of religion,
science, and culture
 Farmers expected their children to master the “three
Rs” – reading, writing, arithmetic – and then the
work of the farm became more important
 Urban Americans emphasized more importance in
formal education and there were more Americans
graduating high school and going to college than
ever before
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Year
1900
High School Graduates
(percentage of 17 year olds)
6.3
1910
8.6
1920
16.3
1930
28.8
2014
78.2
During the 1920s, many devout Americans
believed that Christianity was under attack
around the world
 The most recent evidence was from the newly
formed communist Soviet Union
 Fundamentalism  emphasized Protestant
teachings and the belief that every word in the
Bible was literal truth
 Fundamentalists believed that the answer to
every important moral and scientific question
was in the Bible
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Fundamentalism and modernism finally clashed
head-on in the Scopes Trial of 1925
 In 1925, Tennessee passed a law making it illegal
to teach the theory of evolution
 John Scopes, a high school biology teacher,
ignored the law and taught the theory to his
students
 The trial that followed was nicknamed “the
monkey trial”
 Clarence Darrow, a famous defense attorney,
represented Scopes while William Jennings
Bryan prosecuted the case
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The main focus of the trial developed when
Darrow called Bryan to the stand and asked him if
he truly believed that the Bible stated the literal
truth
Bryan stated “I accept the Bible absolutely” and
refused to back down from his position
Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 ($1,400
today)
The trial never resolved the conflict between
modernism and fundamentalism, which still exists
today
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Starting in the eve of World War I, Congress required
immigrants to take a literacy test
 The literacy test required immigrants to be able to read and
write in their native languages
Emergency Quota Act of 1931 and the National Origins
Act of 1924 were passed due to the Red Scare
 Quota System  established to govern immigration
from specific nations
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 The number of immigrants of a given nationality each year
could not exceed 2% of the number of people of that
nationality living the United States in 1890
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The year 1890 was chosen to allow continued
immigration from England and Ireland while limiting
immigrants from the nations involved in new
immigration
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The quota system did not apply to the
immigrants coming from Latin America
Mexicans continued to settle in sparsely
populated regions of the Southwest and made
many contributions to Texas and California
Mexicans will continue to face discrimination
and hostility in many areas of the nation due to
competition for jobs with native-born
Americans and other immigrants
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In 1915, on Stone Mountain in Georgia, a group of
angry men decided to revive the Ku Klux Klan
(KKK), which had originally been formed during
Reconstruction
The new aim of the revived KKK was to promote
hatred of African Americans and others (including
Jews, Catholics, and immigrants) who were viewed
as a threat to morality and lawfulness
At its height, the “Invisible Empire” of the KKK had
4-5 million members with branches through the
South as well as the Midwest, Northeast, and West
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KKK tactics included burning cross,
boycotting businesses owned by blacks,
Jews, and Catholics, and terrorizing people at
night
Klansmen work masks and robes to conceal
their identities
They followed leaders called Grand Dragon
and Imperial Wizard
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Individuals, as well as organizations like the
NAACP and the Jewish Anti-Defamation
League, battled against the Klan and its values
They embraced the idea of racial, ethnic,
religious, and cultural diversity
Eventually, the Klan became corrupt, bribing
officials, stealing members’ dues, and lying to
members
The KK has never officially disappeared, but it
lost much support by the late 1920s
18th Amendment  forbade the manufacture,
distribution, and sale of alcohol
 The amendment passed based on the strength
of traditional rural voters
 Volstead Act  officially enforced the
amendment
 Advocates (people in favor of the amendment)
were nicknamed “drys” and called the act “a
noble experiment”
 Opponents of the act were nicknamed “wets”
and argued that the act did not stop people from
drinking and increased organized crime
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People made alcohol in homemade stills
(moonshine) or smuggled it in from other
countries (bootleggers)
Speakeasy  secret drinking establishment
that attracted eager drinkers
People involved in the illegal production and
sale of alcohol made millions of dollars
People and prohibition officials were often
bribed to look the other way and allowed these
establishments to continue
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Al Capone emerged as the top criminal in the
nation due to his large bootlegging network
He was a member, then leader, of the Chicago
south side Italian gang
 Nicknamed “scarface”
Racketeering  Any illegal business scheme to
make profit
 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre  February 14, 1929
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 Capone’s men posed as police officers and murdered
seven members of the rival Moran gang
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Capone eventually goes to prison for tax evasion
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By the mid-1920s, most city politicians
agreed that the repeal of the 18th
Amendment was necessary
However, many rural residents still linked
alcohol to crime and other vices
1933  21st Amendment repeals prohibition
as a method of dealing with the Great
Depression