Transcript The Roaring 20’s - Hialeah Senior High School

The Roaring 20’s
An era of prosperity,
Republican power,
and conflict
Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues
The years after the “War to End ALL
Wars” are characterized by:
• social unrest and
violence
• economic problems
• labor unrest
• fear of immigrants
• fear of communism
• racial tensions.
• rising middle class
• more leisure time
• autos and assembly
lines
• Prohibition and
gangsters
• conflict between a
“loose society “ and
the “moral society”
Why Roaring 20’s?
• Because of widespread
economic and social
change this became
known as the Roaring
20’s.
Postwar Trends
• World War I had left much of the Americans
public exhausted.
• The economy was in a difficult state of
adjustment.
• Returning soldiers took jobs away from
women and minorities or faced
unemployment.
• Cost of living had doubled.
• Farmers and factory workers suffered as
wartime orders diminished.
Postwar Trends
• After the Treaty of Versailles concluded the
war, Americans became extremely
disillusioned with international relations.
• Belief in isolationism a policy of pulling
away from involvement in world affairs.
• Nativism or prejudice against foreign-born
people, swept the nation.
Fear of Communism
Communism is an economic
system in which all wealth and
property is owned by the
community. Its purpose is to
create equality.
With the rise of communism many Americans were on alert
for secret spies that would sabotage, or secretly destroy
property .
Many people known as anarchists
opposed any form of organized
government in America. Many
anarchists plotted to kill many
well known Americans such as
John D. Rockefeller.
Many foreigners were deported, or expelled from the
country. Their was anti-foreign feeling, known as
nativism that developed among Americans. Congress
responded by setting up the quota system. In the quota
system only a certain number of immigrants were
allowed to enter from each country into the United
Anarchist’s
symbol
John D.
Rockefeller
The RED SCARE
•Fears brought on by strikes and race riots,
were often blamed on foreigners.
•Panic in the United States began in 1919,
after revolutionaries in Russia overthrew
Vladimir I. Lenin and his followers.
•Communist or “Reds” waved their symbolic
red flag and cried for worldwide revolution
that would abolish capitalism everywhere.
•Several bombs were mailed to government
and business leaders, public grew fearful
that Communists were taking over U.S.
The Palmer Raids and other Anti-Communist
Measures
•Fear grows when a series of bombings occurred in
the spring of 1919.
•The Post Office intercepted several packages
addressed to leading politicians and businessmen,
that were set to explode when opened.
•One bomb exploded outside the home of the
attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer.
•Palmer sets up an anti-radical division of the
Justice Department, appoints J. Edgar Hoover to
direct what becomes the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI)
Anti - Communist Measures continue
•November 1919 , the first attacks, known as the
“Palmer Raids” were made on private homes of
suspected Communist sympathizers and on the
headquarters of labor and radical organizations.
•January 1920, More than 6,000 radicals were
arrested as a result of the Palmer Raids.
•Civil liberties were violated as citizens and
aliens alike were denied legal counsel and held
without specific charges.
• Palmer’s raids failed to turn up evidence of
revolutionary conspiracy. Many people suffered
because of abuse of power during the Red
Scare.
• Sacco - Vanzetti Case ~ May 1920 The case
began with the arrest of Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti. They were accused for
murder and armed robbery in Massachusetts.
The Sacco and Vanzetti trial illustrated how the Red
Scare helped frighten Americans and resulted in a
backlash against Communists, radicals, and
anarchists
Sacco - Vanzetti Case continued
•Although the evidence against them was
inadequate, they were presumed guilty because
they were anarchists. (anarchism - the idea that
all forms of gov’t are bad and should be done
away with.)
•The judge was openly prejudiced.
•This case illustrates what hatred and prejudice
can do.
•The men were convicted, sentenced to death,
and despite worldwide protests, they were
executed in 1927.
•Many decades later they were posthumously
exonerated by the Massachusetts Governor
Michael Dukakis.
A Society in Conflict
• Anti-immigrant
– National Origins Act
– Discrimination
Sacco-Vanzetti
Trial
– Italian immigrants
– Unfair trial
Anti-Immigration Laws and the Great Migration
•1921 Congress passes a law limiting the number
of immigrants from eastern and southern
Europe. It was called the Emergency Quota Act
of 1921 (quota system).
•1924 More restrictions. This provision
discriminated against people from eastern &
southern Europe-mostly Roman Catholics and Jews.
•Asian immigration continued to be heavily
restricted.
The Ku Klux Klan
Great increase
In power
Anti-black
Anti-immigrant
Anti-Semitic
Anti-Catholic
Anti-women’s suffrage
Anti-bootleggers
Jim Crow Laws
laws passed by
southerners to
segregate public
places, such as
schools, restaurants,
theaters, trains,
hospitals, water
fountains, and
cemeteries.
Leo Frank
Jewish-American businessman
Frank was accused and convicted
on Aug 26, 1913 of the murder of
one of his factory workers,
13-year-old Mary Phagan.
but the Governor John M. Slaton
believed there had been a
miscarriage of justice, and
sentence to life imprisonment
instead.
Two months later Frank was
kidnapped from prison by a mob
of 25 armed men—the "Knights of
Mary Phagan and hanged him.
A crowd gathered after the
hanging; one man repeatedly
stamped on Frank's face, while
others took photographs, pieces
of his nightshirt, and bits of the
rope to sell as souvenirs.
Jim Conley, the factory's
janitor, is believed by
many historians to be
the real murderer
The rise of the Second Klu Klux Klan began in 1915.
The original Klan kept African Americans from voting
during the Civil War. Now The Klan's had a broader
aim: to preserve the United States for white, nativeborn Protestants. The Klan terrorized immigrants,
Catholics, Jews, and African Americans by using
lynching and introduced the burning crosses on
front lawns.
William J. Simmons founder of the Second
Klan 1915 at Stone Mountain, Georgia
Ku Klux Klan
•1920 The Klan hires 2 sales agents to help expand
their power base beyond the south.
•KKK members were paid to recruit new members.
•They directed their hatred against anyone who was
not white and Protestant.
•They now targeted Catholics, Jews, Asians, and
immigrants as well as African Americans.
•1925 The Klan had as many as 5 million members.
They elect five senators and four state governors in northern not just southern states.
•
The End
Look at the picture of “Josh.” Josh is the little boy who is playing with the
shield of a police officer during a Klan March in Gainesville, Georgia. Examine the
picture closely, then write answers to each of the following questions.
1.
What is the first thing that you
notice about this picture?
2. What kinds of feelings does it
prompt in you?
3. What meaning do you attach to
the situation describe in the
photo?
4. Would you feel differently about
this picture if the officer that
“Josh” is interacting with was
not African-American? For
example, what if the officer
was white? Latino? AsianAmerican?
5. What do you think is going on in
the officer’s head at this
moment? What are his facial
expressions saying?
6. What kinds of things would you
say to “Josh” if you were the
officer?
7. Do you think that this experience
would have an impact on the
“Josh’s” future prejudices if the
officer were to speak to him?
8. What do you think “Josh” is
thinking or feeling about the
officer? About the Ku Klux Klan
march?
9. If you were a bystander and
observed “Josh” and the officer,
what would you feel, think, and
do?
10. If you could change anything
about this picture, what would it
be?