America in the 20th century: The Roaring Twenties



America in the 20th century: The Roaring Twenties

Notes & Video Guide

The United States seeks postwar normality and isolation. The standard of living soars amid labor unrest, immigration quotas, and the scandals of the Harding administration.

American society after WWI was characterized by three trends:

Isolationism Nativism Conservatism

Match the terms with the descriptions below:

a. restrictive immigration policy and suspicion of foreigners

b. rejection of government activism that characterized the Progressive Era

c. withdrawal from involvement in word affairs

How could the end of WWI contribute to each of these trends?

Isolationism –

Nativism –

Conservatism –

The Roaring Twenties Begin (1:03)

The Road to Recovery (6:10)

During the 1920s, 60% of wealth was controlled by ____% of the population.

Today, _____% of wealth is controlled by 1% of the population.

A Time of Labor Unrest

Government didn’t allow strikes in wartime; in 1919 over 3,000 strikes

The Boston Police Strike

Boston police strike over raises, right to unionize; replaced with new policemen

The Steel Mill Strike

1919, steel workers strike; companies use force, later negotiate

The Coal Miners’ Strike

• 1919, John L. Lewis becomes head of United Mine Workers of America

• Leads strike; defies court order to work; accepts arbitration; miners receive 27% wage increase

Labor Movement Loses Appeal

In 1920s, union membership drops from over 5 million to 3.5 million

Many Americans believed that unions were driven by __________________, the political-economic system behind the Russian Revolution of 1917.

This fear of European radicalism and communism led to the _______Scare.

One of the government’s most substantial actions was what would become known as the Palmer Raids. Conducted under the auspices of the Justice Department and named for Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, these actions took place during 1919 and 1920. Palmer sent government agents to hunt down suspected Communists, socialists, and anarchists. These raids trampled civil rights and failed to find evidence of a conspiracy.

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A. Mitchell Palmer

Warren Harding, a Republican Senator, is elected President in 1920: “Return to Normalcy.”

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Warren G. Harding

• Harding wanted a return to the pre-Progressive Era of American politics.

• A pro-business administration:

Mellon Plan - Harding’s Secretary of the Treasury was Andrew Mellon, one of the richest men in America. His plan provided that the top income brackets would have their tax rates lowered from 50% to 25%, while the lowest-income group would have theirs lowered from 4% to 3%. Congress passed the bill in 1928.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff -raises taxes on U.S. imports to 60% to protect American businesses

• Harding rejected Wilson’s international vision of a League of Nations.

Kellog-Briand Pact - a 1928 treaty in which 64 nations agreed to renounce war as a means of solving international disputes. The first time in history that powerful nations agreed to disarm.

Did the Kellogg–Briand Pact live up to its aim of ending war?

• Harding’s presidency was damaged by scandals.

Teapot Dome scandal – Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall’s secret leasing of oil-rich public lands (in Teapot Dome, WY, and Elk Hills, CA) to private companies in return for bribes.

Boom Time (5:34)

VP Calvin Coolidge becomes President in 1923 after Harding died. “Silent Cal” continues Harding’s pro-business policies.

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Calvin Coolidge

In the 1920s, _____% of the world’s wealth belonged to Americans.

Construction boom.

Stock market soars. But since the government did not regulate the stock market, investing was similar to gambling.

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What is the trend of the stock market during the 1920s?

What will happen at the end of the decade?

The Impact of the Automobile

• Cars change life—paved roads, gas stations, motels, shopping centers

• Increased need for rubber, steel, glass, and gasoline production

• Workers live far from jobs, leads to urban sprawl (spread of cities)

• By late 1920s, 1 car for every 5 Americans

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America’s Standard of Living Soars

Average annual income rises over 35%, from $522 to $705

Electrical Conveniences

• Factories use electricity to run machines

• By end of 1920s, more homes begin to have electrical appliances

• From 1913 to 1927, a 465% increase in homes with electricity.

1920s also sees the birth of the airplane industry.

A Superficial Prosperity

• Most Americans believe prosperity will last forever

• Productivity increasing, businesses expanding

• Chain stores develop

• Advertising transforms luxuries into necessities.

Give an example of something we consider a necessity, but is really a luxury:

• Installment plan—pay for goods over extended period with interest

• Banks provide money at low interest rates

Postwar Intolerance (4:57)

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Red Scare feeds fear of foreigners, ruins reputations, wrecks lives

• 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, charged with robbery and murder

• Not given a fair trial; jury finds them guilty; widespread protests in U.S. and abroad

• Both are executed 1927

• In 1977, 50 years after the executions, Mass. Governor Michael Dukakis declared that they had not been given a fair trial.

Anti-Immigrant Attitudes

• Nativists: fewer unskilled jobs available, fewer immigrants needed

• Think immigrant anarchists and socialists are Communist

From 1919 to 1921, the yearly number of immigrants rose from 141,000 to ________________.

The Quota System

• 1919–1921, number of immigrants grows almost 600%

• Quota system set maximum number can enter U.S. from each country

- sharply reduced European immigration

• 1924, European arrivals cut to 2% of number of residents in 1890

• Discriminated against southern, eastern Europeans: Jews and Catholics

- during World War II, quotas prevented millions of refugees from escaping the Nazis.

• Prohibits Japanese immigration; causes ill will between U.S., Japan

• Does not apply to Western Hemisphere; many Canadians, Mexicans enter

• Quotas were eliminated in 1965 with the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act.

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The Klan Rises Again

• Bigots use anti-communism to harass groups unlike themselves

• KKK opposes blacks, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, unions, saloons

• Native White Protestant Supremacy

• Klan controls many states’ politics

By 1924, the Klan had approximately ______________ members.

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FYI:

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,002 active hate groups in the United States in 2010. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2010 are included.

All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.

Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing.

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The blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order . . . eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat . . . licking at the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, . . . burning up the foundations of American society.

America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; . . . not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.

The business of the American people is business.

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