Transcript A Turbulent decade - Kent School District

A TURBULENT DECADE
1919-1929
POST WAR TROUBLES
“We danced in the streets, embraced old women and pretty
girls, swore blood brotherhood with soldiers…and reeled
through the streets.”
-Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return
Demobilization
• The transition from war time to peace time production
levels
• Social Strain
• 4.5 million soldiers return – unemployment rises, wages fall
• Women urged to give up jobs
• Skyrocketing cost of living
• Consumers spending spree – demand causes an increase in
prices…roughly double from 1914 to 1920
• Economic Strain
• Trend reverses…deep recession struck in 1920-1921
• Government pulls defense contracts, factories cut production and
layoff workers
• Farm crisis too.
Labor Strife
• Workers demanded higher wages and
shorter work hours
• Seattle General Strike
• 60,000 workers left their jobs
• Not a single incidence in violence
• After 5 days, it ends
• Turns public opinion against organized labor
• Boston Police Strike
• Officers fired for union activities
• 75% of force goes on strike
• Coolidge backs the commissioner and calls
in the state militia
The Red Scare
• Period of anti-communist
hysteria during 1919 and 1920
• A response to the Russian
Revolution in 1917
• Resulted in communism
• Government owns and controls all
private property, including all
industry and factory
• The idea that communism may
take ahold in the U.S. frightens
many Americans
The Palmer Raids
• Series of bomb scares in 1919
• Postal workers found 36 bombs in the mail
• Addressed to prominent citizens…
• J.D. Rockefeller
• Supreme Court Justice
• Postmaster
• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
• A series of raids to capture alleged
radicals. Thousands were
arrested…three pistols were found.
• Most arrested were poor immigrants who
had just moved here
Sacco and Vanzetti
• Most sensational trials of the 1920
• Two Italian immigrants
• Nicola Sacco (shoemaker) & Bartolomeo Vanzetti
(fish peddler)
• Robbery outside of a shoe factory…two
were killed
• Judge dismissed any sort of defense for
the two and were convicted of murder
and sentenced to death
• Public split…some were outraged and
some thought they deserved it
REPUBLICANS IN POWER
“Keep Warren [G. Harding] at home. Don’t let him make any
speeches. If he goes out on a tour somebody’s sure to ask
him questions, and Warren’s just the sort of…fool that will try
to answer them”
-Boies Penrose
Harding’s Pro-Business Administration
• Elected in 1920…31st President
• Outgoing personality
• “less government in business; more
business in government”
• Main goals: reduce the national debt
& promote economic growth
• Increased mergers, less
enforcement of antitrust laws
• Workers and farmers struggle, union
membership decreases
New Directions for Women
• Feminists – women’s rights
activists
• After 19th Amendment was
passed, many women moved on
to other causes and the unity
dissolved
• Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
• “men and women shall have equal
rights throughout the United States
and every place subject to its
jurisdiction”
Harding’s Scandals
• “Ohio Gang” – Harding’s friends that
followed him to D.C.
• Friend and director of the Veteran’s
Bureau pocketed millions of dollars
through corrupt schemes
• “I have no trouble with my enemies…I
can take care of my enemies all right.
It’s my friends that keep me walking
the floor at nights
• Dies of a sudden heart attack while
on a tour of the west
• Attorney General taking bribes.
• Teapot Dome Scandal…secretary of
interior and the secretary of the navy
Calvin Coolidge
• Vice President takes over
• Restore office’s reputation by
firing Harding’s posse
• “Silent Cal” contrasted
Harding; stern, reserved
nature
• Promotes pro-business
agenda
• Elected in 1924…doesn’t run
in 1928. Claims that the job is
too burdensome
Election of 1928
• Herbert Hoover elected
• Reputation for administrative
skill and efficiency
• Strongest asset is the nations
prosperity
• Runs on the same probusiness policies as Harding
and Coolidge
•
A NATION DIVIDED
African Americans were encouraged to migrate from the
South to the North. The tales of freedom and jobs in the
North were a strong contrast to the harsh conditions in
the South.
African Americans Move Northward
• By 1930, the African
American population in
the North and Midwest
had doubled
• Reasons
• A life free from
discrimination
• Racial tension sometimes
resulted in violence
Return of the Ku Klux Klan
• Targeted African Americans,
Catholics, Jews, immigrants,
suspected radicals
• Kidnapping, lynching, beatings
• 1920 – 5 million members
• 1930 – drops to 9,000 members
• Economy boom in the late 20s, feared
of radicalism was declining
• Publicity of terrorism and violence
• Corruption and scandals
Defending Their Rights
• NAACP forms the Anti-lynching
Committee to generate support for
legislation
• Persuade law enforcement to
investigate acts of violence
• Published The Crisis
• Other groups attempted to fight
discrimination in the workplace
• Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car
Porters
Black Nationalism
• Frustrated by lack of results from the
NAACP and union groups, some
African Americans believed that they
needed a nation of their own
• Pan-Africanism – unite people of
African descent worldwide
• Black Nationalism
• Marcus Garvey
• Want to create a new political state for
African Americans in Africa
• United Negro Improvement Association
• Economic independence
• Independent black homeland in Africa
Immigration Restrictions
• 1920 – nearly 25% of the nation’s population was foreign
born or non-white
• After WWI immigration was rising again
• Nativists believed
• Immigrants held radical views
• Were taking jobs from Americans
• Immigration Act of 1924
• 2% for each nationality already in the country (population 1890)
• No Asian immigration
Mexican American Migration
• Employers in the Southwest
eager to keep Mexicans
immigrating in the country
because of cheap labor
• Low wages
• Live in labor camps
• Move into urban areas for well-
paying factory jobs
• Chicago and Detroit
• Men would move alone and then
send for their families
American Indian Life
• 1920s brings attention to
difficulties
• Dawes Act fails
• “Americanize” by dividing tribal
land into individual plots
• Board of Indian Commissioners
admits policies had separated
them from their land and cash
• Organized to fight for their
land
• 1924 Congress grants
citizenship to all American
Indians
• Did not eliminate poverty that
they continued to experience