CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Twenties, 1920—1929

PART ONE:

Introduction

Chapter Focus Questions

How did the second Industrial Revolution transform the economy?

What were the promise and limits of prosperity in the 1920s?

What were the new mass media and the culture of consumption?

How did the Republican Party dominate politics in the 1920s?

What were the political and cultural oppositions to modern trends?

PART TWO:

The Movie Audience and Hollywood

Hollywood

Movies. National audience. Hollywood. Symbolized dreams.

PART THREE:

Postwar Prosperity and Its Price

The Second Industrial Revolution

Technological innovations. Electricity. Automated machinery Consumer goods. Housing Boom. Chart: Consumer Debt 1920–1931

The Modern Corporation

Managerial revolution Scientific management Behavioral psychology. Successful corporations worked to:

integrate production and distribution diversify products expand industrial research gain control of entire industries

Salaried executives

Welfare Capitalism

Worker morale Union challenge “Open shop”. Unions declined. AFL passive. Pro-business courts.

The Auto Age

Consumer economy. One car per second. Good pay. $300 per car. The auto industry spurred;

Steel Rubber Glass Petroleum

Road building.

Cities and Suburbs

Suburbs. Cities grew .

Exceptions: Agriculture, Ailing Industries

Workers and farmers. Agricultural profits. Coolidge cool to farmers. Sick industries included:

coal mining Railroads New England textiles

PART FOUR:

The New Mass Culture

Movie-Made America

Mass communication. Movies. Publicists. Hayes Commission.

Radio Broadcasting

Radio. National networks. “Amos ‘n’ Andy”. Commercialization. Sports.

New Forms of Journalism

Newspaper tabloids. Popular. Consolidation. Hearst chain.

Advertising Modernity

Advertising. Research and psychology.

The Phonograph and the Recording Industry

Transformed American mass and regional popular culture.

Sports and Celebrity

Spectator sports. Babe Ruth. 1919 Black Sox scandal. Attendance soared. Negro National League.

A New Morality?

New morality. Openness about sexuality. Sex and mass culture. Surveys of sexual behavior.

PART FIVE:

The State, the Economy, and Business

Harding and Coolidge

Warren G. Harding. Reduced taxes paid by wealthy. Calvin Coolidge. Reduced federal spending Cut taxes Blocked initiatives.

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover was the most influential figure during the period, serving as secretary of commerce under Harding and Coolidge.

He promoted business cooperation by creating trade associations and coordinating conferences to promote business efficiency and facilitated the growing concentration of corporate wealth.

War Debts and Reparations

Strongest economic power. World’s most important creditor. Allies’ debt. Germany refinanced.

Keeping the Peace

The United States: participated in naval disarmament

conferences participated in arms reduction agreements joined the World Court

Economic expansion. Investments abroad.

PART SIX:Resistance to Modernity

Prohibition

Urban culture power. Restore public morality. “Wets” and “drys”. Organized crime.

Immigration Restriction

Restricted southern and eastern Europeans.

Racial inferiority. Quotas on annual immigration. Chart: Annual Immigration to the U.S.

1860–1930

The Ku Klux Klan

Nativist organization. Hiram W. Evans. Blacks, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. 3 million members. In 1925, Klan fades.

Religious Fundamentalism

Political nativism. Evolution decried. Five states ban evolution. Scopes-Monkey Trial.

PART SEVEN:

Promises Postponed

Feminism in Transition

Prosperity and progress unevenly distributed.

National American Woman Suffrage Association: reorganized itself as the League of Women

Voters women’s involvement in politics laws protecting women and children

Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party Equal Rights Amendment. Men dominated high-paid occupations.

Mexican Immigration

Mexicans’ opportunities. Agribusiness . Racial targets. Chart: Mexican Immigration to the U.S., 1920s

The African American Population

Map: Black Population, 1920

The “New Negro”

Harlem Renaissance. African American migration. Harlem. Black protest. Marcus Garvey. Long hours, low pay.

Intellectuals and Alienation

Gertrude Stein. Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos drew. F. Scott Fitzgerald H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis. Eugene O’Neill T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The Fugitives attacked industrialism.

The Election of 1928

Smith v. Hoover, 1928 Smith’s Catholicism. Both pro-business. Smith lost. Map: The Election of 1928