Transcript Toward a Modern America: The 1920’s

Chapter 23: The Twenties
AP United States History
West Blocton High School
Mr. Logan Greene
Chapter Objectives
• Why were the 1920s referred to as the “Roaring
Twenties?”
• How did big business shape the economy of the
1920s?
• What was the Great Migration, and how did it
affect social life in the 1920s?
• How did new systems of distributing, marketing,
and communication create culture?
• What conflicts divided social groups in the 1920s?
• What were the reasons for U.S. involvement
overseas in the 1920s?
The Economy
• The 1920’s saw the single greatest decade for
American economic expansion
• Wartime profits, mass production techniques,
standardized parts, assembly lines, and the lack of
international competition created a new behemoth
industrial America
• The new automobile industry, anchored by Henry
Ford’s new assembly lines, drove the increasing
economy
• Aviation, chemicals, and the new media of radio
and film also bolstered the growing economic
boom
Corporations
• During the 1920’s thousands of small firms
were taken over by a few major
corporations
• A new style of control in business emerged
with the oligopoly, where a few large firms
control almost all of a particular industry
• There was little opposition as Americans
saw this new system as increasing efficiency
and production
Open Shops and Welfare Capitalism
• As the oligopolies took over without public outcry
management began to attack labor
• Open shop campaigns emerged where factory
owners refused to hire known union workers in
attempt to break union control
• As well, citing “anti-communism” factory owners
forced workers to sigh yellow dog contracts
disallowing union participation
• At the same time welfare capitalism, or the idea of
the business taking care of its workers began to
flourish
Open Shops and Welfare Capitalism
• All of these measures led to a decrease in labor
union membership
• With smaller unions and more mechanization
workers suffered from low pay and a serious lack
of job security
• The sadly the gap between rich and poor
skyrocketed due to this new system of capitalism
• Consumer credit increased drastically as the
average American used credit to stabilize their
personal economy
The “Sick” Industries
• As the economy boomed several industries
lagged behind
• Coal mining, textiles, and railroads all
lagged from to much production for the
market
• Saddest of all the American agricultural
sector never recovered from the post war
malaise and many small farmers suffered
Government: Republican Ascendancy
• After Woodrow Wilson Republicans took control of
both Congress and the Presidency with Warren G.
Harding
• Harding was kinder and more accessible than
Wilson had been
• Under Harding the government lowered taxes on
wealthy Americans and corporations, raised tariff
rates, and hired big business supporters for
government jobs
• Harding even placed judges on the Supreme Court
who supported big business
Harding’s Corruption
• Several of Harding’s cabinet (his poker and
drinking buddies who became known as the
Ohio Gang) caused major corruption to
happen
• The greatest of these was the Teapot Dome
Scandal in which his Secretary of the Interior
Albert Fall leased naval reserve oil fields in
exchange for cash and cattle
• Several other scandals came out leading
Harding to severe stress
Coolidge
• Harding unexpectedly died in August of 1923
• (some say due to stress, others that his wife
poisoned him)
• His VP Calvin Coolidge took over as
President with the idea of traditional
American values
• Coolidge believed the government should
do the bare minimum, especially with the
economy
Coolidge
• Coolidge allowed influential Andrew Mellon
to continue his program of lowered taxes on
the wealthy and corporations
• Coolidge prosperity swept the nation as
“Silent Cal” gave the people confidence in
their presidency
• In the 1924 election Keep Cool with Coolidge
swept the nation as Coolidge was re-elected
on the back of economic prosperity
Reform
• Sadly after the passage of the 19th
Amendment granting women the right to
vote women’s reform movements died off
• This was partially due to the fact that
women did vote together as a political
“bloc” but on their own socio-economic lines
Cities and Suburbs
• 1920 saw a watershed moment for America:
more people lived in urban areas than rural
• Cities grew at an unbelievable rate and a
new American invention became
commonplace: the steel skyscraper
• Skyscrapers flourished as urban land rates
skyrocketed, cities built up instead of out
• However, living conditions remained very
poor for many of the urban dwellers
The Great Migration
• As Americans moved from rural areas to
urban ones millions of African-Americans
moved from the mostly rural South to the
urban North
• Black ghettos began appearing in several
Northern cities due to racial restrictions
• Racial pride led to the Harlem Renaissance,
a great outpouring of African American art,
writing, and culture in the New York City
neighborhood of Harlem
Barrios
• Barrios were Hispanic neighborhoods in
1920s cities
• Hispanics built up their own unique urban
societies to maintain their Hispanic roots
Suburbia
• As the cities quickly grew the suburbs grew
even faster
• The idea of owning a home in the suburbs
became the goal and dream of every middle
class family in America
• The automobile made all of this possible as
commuting became possible
Advertising and the Consumer
• Advertising took on a new monstrous level
in the 1920s consumer society
• Advertising focused upon the new growing
middle and upper classes and their desire
for things like appliances
• Consumption began to overtake thrift,
prudence, and avoiding debt
• By the end of the decade almost all major
items were bought on credit
Leisure and Entertainment
• During the 1920s Americans began spending
a marked amount of money on leisure
• Americans began piling into new “movie
houses,” listening to radio programs, and
listening to a new style of music on their
phonographs known as Jazz
• Jazz came from African-American traditions
and was fast and furious
• Professional sports, especially baseball with
Babe Ruth, also flourished
The New Morality
• As the country changed so did morals
• The New Morality was defined by more
open morals, a more open approach to
sexuality, risqué dancing, illegal drinking,
and women flaunting new freedoms like
smoking and becoming “flappers”
• However, most Americans still stuck to
traditional values and beliefs
The Searching Twenties
• As many Americans spent money and put
tons of items on credit a group of artists and
intellectuals rejected the growing
materialism
• Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest
Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein defined this
generation by examining American culture
and growing doubts
• Artists like Edward Hopper showed the
growing isolation of American life
Nativism and Immigration
• As America immerged from World War I a new
isolationism gripped America and this emboldened
a return of nativism
• The government acted on these feelings by passing
the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 reducing
immigration and establishing quotas
• The National Origins Act of 1924 restricted
immigration based on nation of origin
• In the west Japanese immigration was harshly
restricted
The Ku Klux Klan
• The Ku Klux Klan revived itself in the 1920’s
behind the nativist sentiment
• The new Klan was truly national, although
its main power was still in the South, and
attracted white protestants
• The Klan ventured into politics and virtually
all Southern politicians had to be Klan
members
• Criminal behavior and corruption destroyed
the new Klan by 1930
Prohibition and Crime
• Prohibition was a polarizing subject in
America
• The Volstead Act defined the illegal drinks
and doled out punishment through the
Prohibition bureau
• However, Prohibition pushed massive crime
and the birth of organized crime and
mobsters such as Al Capone running illegal
booze into illegal bars known as speak
easies
The Scopes Trial
• Traditionalists and fundamentalists did not
simply attack the new morality
• In Tennessee a man named John T. Scopes
began teaching evolution in his classroom
• He was arrested for breaking the law
• In the Scopes Monkey Trial as it became
known the ACLU defended scopes with
attorney Clarence Darrow while the William
Jennings Bryan prosecuted
• Scopes was found guilty but later released
War Debts and Economic Expansion
• America’s insistence on being paid back by
their European debtors caused issues for
foreign relations
• As well, many American corporations
became multinational corporations with
overseas interests
End to War?
• President Harding sponsored the
Washington Naval Conference in 1921
• The conference was designed to halt new
ship construction for 10 years and halt the
current balance of naval power
• Later in 1928 the U.S. took a more drastic turn
with the Kellogg-Briand Pact which
renounced aggression and made war illegal
but lacked any way for enforcement
The Hemisphere
• The U.S. continued to dominate Latin
America
• Although America did withdraw some
troops during the decade American hatred in
Latin America was widespread
• In response in 1930 the U.S. drafted the Clark
Memorandum which called for a gradual
backing away from the Roosevelt Corollary
and a more friendly approach to Latin
America
Hoover
• As the economy continued to rise the 1928
election loomed
• The Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover,
an experienced well prepared candidate
• Hoover, quietly progressive, won the
election; however, it would be the last
triumph for the Republicans for a long time
as the roaring twenties were about to come
crashing down
Chapter Objectives
• Why were the 1920s referred to as the “Roaring
Twenties?”
• How did big business shape the economy of the
1920s?
• What was the Great Migration, and how did it
affect social life in the 1920s?
• How did new systems of distributing, marketing,
and communication create culture?
• What conflicts divided social groups in the 1920s?
• What were the reasons for U.S. involvement
overseas in the 1920s?