Post on 27-Mar-2015
U.S. Post W.W. I• “Return to normalcy” (Harding)
• Economic concerns:– Conversion to peacetime– Returning vets
– Inflation– Strikes
• Red Scare ( Huh? )• Racial tension ( Explain! )
• We want STUFF!!!• What about the immigrants?• When is the cocktail hour?• Racial tensions• Monkeys, Apes, OR Men
Gimmee!!!
• 1914 to 1919 + 77%• 1914 to 1920 + 105%
– Workers promised pay increases after the war ended
• Union membership increased
• Demands increased
• Lots of strikes!!!
Coal Miners Strike 1919
• November 1: 394,000 UMW strike• Atty. Gen. Palmer ordered UMW
president John L. Lewis to order UMW back to work
• Workers refused!!!!• President Wilson forced arbitration• Workers given 2% raise• Nothing about shorter hours or unsafe
conditions
Steel Strike 1919
• Workers: 7 days x 12 hours per day
• 343,000 struck Chicago/Gary (US Steel)
• Role of strikebreakers & federal troops
• “communist plot” ?????????
• American public sick of strikes,
violence, “plots”
• Workers back to work – no gains
Boston Police Strike 1919
• Governor Coolidge:
• …no right to strike against the public safety.”
Warren G. Harding
– Nervous breakdown at age 24– Boys Night Out!
–RED SCARE– Teapot Dome scandal
– Attorney General Daugherty selling pardons
– Secretary of the Interior- Albert Fall
We’re Starting to Roar!
• Life expectancy up
• Medical advances
• Stock market “get rich quick”
• Unemployment < 4%
• Real wages up 40% since 1914– It’s all about the P.P.
Red Scare I (1920’s)
• Communist Revolution in Russia 1917
• Vladimir Lenin
• U.S. government: concern about “radicals”• Mail bombs sent to noteworthy Americans• Bomb on Wall Street 9/16/20 38 killed• Time to enforce Espionage and Sedition Acts
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.
Palmer raids
• J. Edgar Hoover (General Intelligence Div.)
• Subversives need to be deported or imprisoned
• Raids in 33 cities - 6000 arrested - 3 guns!!
• Violation of civil rights in name of
American security
• Lots of laws passed to punish radicals
• Led to formation of ACLU (1920)
Immigration Laws
• Anti-immigrant feelings (legacy of CPI)
• Suspicions about (and fear of) foreigners
• Emergency Quota Act (1921)– Allowed 3% of ethnic pop. in 1910 to enter
• National Origins Act (1924)– Allowed 2% of ethnic pop. in 1890 to enter
Sacco and Vanzetti
• Arrested in May 1920 for murder in Massachusetts
• Flimsy evidence
• Confessed anarchists
• Judge openly prejudiced
• GUILTY!
• Executed in 1927
• Posthumously exonerated by MA Gov. Dukakis
Rebirth of KKK
In 1924 5 million members
Anti: Catholics, Jews, foreigners,
“immoral” people (bootleggers)
In 1925 parade in WDC 50,000 members
Scandal about leader of Indiana
(sexual assault/rape)
By 1930, membership down to 9,000
“Cool” Cal COOLIDGE• Sickly, slickly and shy• Sworn in as Pres. middle of night • “This job interferes with my naps”
• “Four-fifths of our troubles in this world would disappear if we would only sit down and keep still”
The Butler Act 1925
Unlawful to teach any theory that denies the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals . . .
. . . any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, . . . shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.
Scopes trial
Marcus Garvey (a.k.a. Black Moses)
• Born in Jamaica
• Founded UNIA
• “black is beautiful”
• Back to Africa movement (Liberia)
• Started Black Star Line
• Indicted and sent to prison for fraud
• Returned to Jamaica
GANGSTERS
EntertainmentTalking pictures
“The Jazz Singer” starring Al JolsonDancing
the Charleston dance marathons
Listen to the radio (KDKA)Play board games (mah-jong)Crossword puzzlesTrends
Famous athletes
Famous writers
The “Lost Generation”• Intellectuals, poets, artists and writers who
rejected values of American materialism
• Fled to France (Paris)
• Idealistic youth
• Sought meaning of life
• Drank excessively
• Created some of our greatest literature
• F.Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
AUTOMOBILES (by assembly line)
Americans tired of . . .CausesResponsibilityWorrying about others’ problems
• Let’s do something for us (U.S.)!!!!
•It ain’t no picnic for everybody
Is everybody happy?
•Returning vets•Most Americans (in general)
•Farmers
•Immigrants•Minorities
HERBERT HOOVER• Hardworking and self-reliant• Tough childhood• RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM• Head of Food Administration in
WWI “noble experiment”
• Refused to meet with Bonus Army