The “Roaring” Twenties

Era of Prosperity, Republican Power, and

Conflict

The 1920's were a prosperous time known as the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz

Age, and the Age of Wonderful Nonsense. There were many different

and interesting things that occurred during the 1920s in America.

The population of the US was 106,521,537 people. In the year 2000 it was 281,421,906 people.

The average yearly income was $1,236. In the year 2000 it was $28,272.

The price of a gallon of milk was $.58. Today it is $3.48.

Men lived about 54 years. Women lived about 55 years. Today men live about 74 years, and women live about 79 years

A public school teacher earned about $729 a year. Today the average salary for a teacher is $42,898.

It took 13 days to reach California from New York driving on 2 lane roads. Today it takes 4 hours by plane.

Interesting Statistics

Following the Russian Revolution led by Leon Trotski and Vladimir Lenin, Communismspread to other parts of Europe and infiltratedthe US. Communism was the polar opposite

of Capitalism and the hysteria of the Red Scarewas enhanced by Domestic Terrorist attacks done by Communists, who even attacked the

Attorney General Mitch Palmer . Karl Marx

Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky

•The Red Scare- the fear of communism in America leading to a wave of intolerance against all suspected communists in the U.S.

• The distrust of communism had been building since 1900; however, it reached its climax after WWI from 1919 to 1920.

• All people suspected of being members of the Communist Party or Communist Labor Party (two different factions) were arrested in the Palmer Raids in January of 1920 and many were sent out of the country.

The Red Scare (1919-1920)

• The Palmer Raids were named after the Attorney

General of the time. He served under President Wilson.

A meeting at University of California to consider dismissal of employees who didn’t sign paper saying they were not

Communists.

• The intolerance was toward anything related to the new Bolshevik regime in Russia.

• While only .1% of Americans belonged to the Communist party, all suspicions of Bolshevik activities were taken very seriously.

• The Red Scare was bad because of the treatment and perhaps false identification of Communists.

• It was also good because it might have expelled real Communists that were actually planning on taking over the American government like they did in Russia.

The Red Scare (1919-1920)

The media propagated the Red Scare. When twoItalian immigrants with lengthy criminal backgroundswere charged and convicted of murder a huge socialdebate arose over immigration and the potential that they could be Communists. Sacco and Vanzetti were both executed and found to have ties to Reds.

Sacco & Vanzetti

convicted and executed via electricity on August 23, 1927

Warren Harding – Republican 1921-1923Calvin Coolidge – Republican 1923 -1929 Herbert Hoover – Republican 1929 - 1933

The Roaring TwentiesProsperity, Republican Power and Conflict

Republican Presidents of the 1920’s favored tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

During the presidencies of Harding & Coolidge, the federal agencies created during the Progressive Era aided business. Foreign Policy

Despite its isolationist position in the 1920’s the US government actively participated in decisions regarding international finance and the payment of war reparations.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was an international agreement in which 62 nations pledged to forswear war as an instrument of policy.

The Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922 was called to restrain the naval arms race among the US, Britain, Japan, Italy & France. The signatory nations agreed to limitations on the number of battleships each nation should build.

The US responded to the economic crisis in Germany during the 1920’s by adopting the Dawes Plan. The plan rescheduled German reparation payments and opened the way for American private loans to Germany.

In the 1920 election, the Republicans chose Warren B. Hardingfrom the small town of Marion, Ohio. Harding campaigned fromhis porch, where he would hang out and talk with reporters. Harding promised “A Return to Normalcy”, where the governmentwould literally step out and let society run naturally. Harding wonagainst James Cox (D-OH) in a landslide.

• While in office, Harding eliminated many of the restraints applied to business during the Progressive Era and lowered the taxes on the wealthy.

• He conducted “laissez-faire” politics, where the government literally stepped out.

• Supported anti-lynching laws and helped farmers with farm credit

• Harding’s presidency was loaded

with scandals.

• Harding really didn't do too much politics, and was more often than not found golfing, napping, or drinking (during Prohibition) with some of his friends/advisors.

• Harding appointed many of his trusted

friends into advisory and cabinet positions. • These friends were very corrupt and

“looted” the country's finances. • One of Harding's closest friends/advisors,

Albert Fall, sold Navy oil property and kept the profits in what became known as the Teapot Dome Scandal.

• Harding also was rumoured to be having several affairs in the Oval office.

• All the allegations took a toll on Harding, who died on a brain aneurysm in 1923 in office and Calvin Coolidge took over.

Perfect Image for a President

US leader to show peace and stability

Healing time – “Back to Normalcy” – return to peacetime economy and isolationism

Kellog-Briand Pact – Disarm “super -nations” of Japan, US, GB, Italy and France; Had no way to effectively enforce

Issues of Post War RepaymentEngland and France owed US $10 BillionEngland and France looked to Germany

Germany was in a terrible situation Fordney-McCumber Tariff

Raised taxes on all Imports to 60%Dawes Plan – U.S. lent money to Germany to

pay back Allies from WWI then Allies would pay back the U.S.

Did not work because US basically was repaying money with their own money

President appointed a lot of friends and former political associates to cabinet positionsHerbert Hoover – Sec. of CommerceAndrew Mellon (Very Rich) – Sec of TreasurerCharles Even Hughes – Sec of StateOhio Gang – buddies of Harding’s

Harding just held office but did not understand the issuesLed to very corrupt behavior from high officialsBribery and cover-ups including the famous Teapot Dome

Scandal Albert B. Fall – Sec of Navy……embezzled 400,000 in oil scam by selling

private government lands to oil companies

• Don’t get tangled up over Ku Klux Klan.

• Support tax reductions.• Limit government’s role in

society.• Provide tariff protection for

Americans.• Participate in world

reductions of arms.• Participate in World Court.

• Bickered endlessly over the Ku Klux Klan.

• Graduated income tax.• Tough enforcement of

antitrust laws.• Lower the tariffs.• Public projects to curb

unemployment. • Independence to

Philippines.• Farm relief.

REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT

• After Harding's death, Calvin Coolidge took over as President. Coolidge was sworn in while camping in a log cabin by his father at 3 am.

• Coolidge hoped to restore America's faith in the President after the scandalous years of Harding.

• “Silent Cal” didn't say much but promised to maintain the same laissez-faire policies as Harding.

Coolidge – “Keep Cool with Coolidge” Aimed to restore

public faith in Presidency

Loved Big Business – “The business of America is business”

Got rid of bad Harding appointments

Laissaiz – faire policies

• Oppose McNary-Haugen Farm Bill.

• Enforce Prohibition.

• Maintain high tariff.

• Continue same foreign policy.

• Quietly support farmers.

• Support collective bargaining.

• Escape scandals.

• Independence for Philippines.

REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT

Rugged Individualism – idea that America was growing because individuals were given equal opportunities, a free education, and a will to succeed

“Keep Taxes Down and Business profits up!”

Ideas of Credit to make businesses expand

• Henry Ford - the first person to make the automobile an affordable to the average American.• Used assembly line methods –

using interchangeble parts to speed up production time

• It is generally regarded as “the car that put America on wheels.”• Cost went from $850 down to

$260

In the late 1920s, Ford introducedAmerica to his 2nd type of car

The Model A - more sportier looking and available in many different colors, rather than his original

Model T, only in black.

By this timethere were many different types of cars available from many different

makers, German engineering provided the fastest and sleekest

cars. They had concept cars made, like the Mercedes T 80 (1939) that

was timed at over 40 mph!!! and had a V12 engine with 3500 horses!

• The “Model T,” though not Ford’s first model, was his most successful, selling 500,000 by 1914.

• By the time of the Great Depression, 26 million motor vehicles, registered in the U.S, far more than anywhere in the world.

Impact of AutomobileRoads like Route 66, Holland TunnelGas Stations, Repair Shops, garages, motels, camps

and shopping centers, Car Plants in MichiganUrban Sprawl (Houston…..Great Example)

AirplanesCarried Mail, Created Jobs, Faster TransportationGlenn Curtiss – created 1st plane to land on water

(led to naval aviation)Expendable income

40% of world wealth was in US

NEGATIVE EFFECTSSpeculation – purchase of an item not for

personal use in the hope of selling it later at a higher price

Buying on credit – paying a small down payment in order to take item home, then paying small monthly payments which included interest

Uneven prosperity – top 0.1% controlled about 1/3 of all savings. Top 0.1% had combined income of bottom 42% of population

In 1919, the 18th Amendment passed the Act of Prohibition, which made

the making of, the transportation of, and the selling of alcohol illegal.

The intent of the Amendment was to lower the crime rate and to improve

the general way of life, but the opposite happened.

Why Prohibition?

“3000 infants smothered to death by drunken parents”

(As said by the Anti Saloon League)

It “destroyed” families

Alcohol was linked to other ‘evils’:

Madness, poverty, crime etc

Big Brewies were owned by Germans. People were seen to

be ‘traitors’ by drinking beer.

Groups like the ‘Anti Saloon League’ became very powerful groups in the USA. They

advertised alcohol as the evil that was causing many of society’s problems. Such cartoons show how they tried to persuade people to support prohibition. However, the effects of Prohibition caused even more problems.

Frances Willard – National Women’s Temperance Unit – fought to get the 18th amendment passed as well as prison reform for women, women’s suffrage, improved worker conditions, and an 8 hour workday

“Daddy’s in there ……….And our shoes and stockings and clothes and food are in there

too and they’ll never come out.”

Why so difficult?

People were not prepared to stop drinking alcohol. People enjoyed it.

Gangsters like Al Capone paid policemen and judges etc (CORRUPTION) to make

sure they weren't arrested

BOOTLEGGERS could easily smuggle

alcohol into the country. The border with Canada was far too large to patrol.

There were hardy any prohibition

agents to enforce the law. There were more Speakeasies

in Chicago than agents in the USA.

• Local mafias fought for control over the speakeasies. In Chicago, Al “Scarface” Capone strong-armed his way to becoming the under boss of Chicago.

• Scarface was responsible for violentlywiping out all opposition in his turf. He ordered the killings of manypeople in the ruthless battle to control the alcohol trade.

• Capone took power when he was in his early twenties, and by the time he was 28 he had complete control over Chicago.

• The residents loved Scarface. He did massive charity work, soup kitchens, played ball with the kids.

Famous for the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Lincoln Park in 1929.

Capone got rid of his rival Bugsy Moran

St Valentine’s Day Massacre 1929

South Side (Capone) vs. North Side (Moran)

• The government soon went after the speakeasies.

• J. Edgar Hoover, a young law clerk only in his early twenties in DC, created a database of all the known communists, mafia and liquor lords.

• Hoover sent a police officer from Cleveland, OH to Chicago to go after Capone.

• Elliott Ness led the Untouchables, a group of cops who went after the speakeasies and mobsters. They were considered inaccessible to the mob.

The most famous of the speakeasies was the

infamous Cotton Club of Harlem. Here, upper

class whites were able to enter the black

suburb of the city, party with famous jazz musicians,

and then go back home in the morning after spending

a fortune.

Speakeasies popped up all over the country. New York City

alonehad in some estimates as many

as 15,000 illegal bars in operation

at any given time throughout the 1920s. They were never

advertised as bars, usually had secretive ways of getting in,and the drinks were not tasty and very overpriced! Most of

thespeakeasies opened up after

hours until dawn. But, hey!, you had your liquor!

The Cotton Club's house musician was Duke Ellington. Duke actually turned down many record

deals to remain as the headliner at the Club because he was making so much money.

One example of this clash between modern (science) and conservative (religion) beliefs was the much-publicized Scopes Trial.

John Scopes was a science teacher who was charged with breaking a law which banned teaching the theory of evolution in Tennessee schools.

This trial received wide-spread publicity and sparked an international debate.

• The prosecuting attorney, Bryan, presented the fundamentalist argument that, since the Bible said the world was created in seven days, the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible’s creation story.

• Furthermore, he believed man could not have come from monkeys.

Evolution vs. Creationism

Dayton, TennesseeFamous Lawyers

Science vs. Religion

John ScopesHigh School Biology teacher

• The American Civil Liberties Union hired Clarence Darrow, a famous lawyer to defend Scopes.

• Trial sparked world-wide debate. It was really a fight over the role of science and religion in public schools and in American society.

• Scopes was convicted and made to pay a small fine, but the debate continues . . .

Passage of the Immigration Acts of 1921, 14, and 29.Aimed to limit immigration from Southern and

Eastern Europe.Charles Davenport and the Theory of

EugenicsBelief that the human race could be improved

by breedingClosely related to Social Darwinism

Belief that different human races competed for survival just as different plants and animals did

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Immigration also greatly increased into theUS during the 1920s. Because America was the land of opportunity, many immigrantsmoved from Central and Southern Europe andfound their ways into the cities of the US. The first thing they'd see when entering our harbor was the Statue of Liberty greeting them.

Great increaseIn power

Anti-black

Anti-immigrant

Anti-women’s suffrage

Anti-bootleggers

Anti-Semitic

Anti-Catholic

Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul helped push for the 19th Amendment.Many states, particularly in the West, had previously allowed women to vote in hopes to expand their population by showing MEN what opportunities were out there. Women pushed, and pushed,and after over 100 years of trying, were finally given this right in 1920.

Women’s SuffrageThe 1920 election was important for a

reason outside politics,as well. The 19th Amendment was passed

and allowed womena chance to hit the polls for the first time

across the country.

• Margaret Sanger led veryprogressive movements forwomen in the terms of birth control.

• Sanger was the leading proponent of teaching women about birth control.

• Sanger organized the first Planned Parenthoods throughout the decade.

Flappers were considered reckless rebels. They had short sleek hair. They wore a shorter than average shapeless shift dress. They wore make-up and put it on in public. They exposed their legs in public. They put their cigarettes in long holders to smoke them. They enjoyed doing the new dances, such as the Charleston, in the jazz clubs.

• New Freedom• Short-bobbed hair• Cigarettes• One-Piece bathing suits

Flappers

Men took their fashion ideas from the sports or gangster heroes of the day. Men wanted to appear “dapper.” Baggy pants, polished shoes, and a handkerchief in the pocket let others know that this man was someone to pay attention to. The baggy zoot suit was worn for fancy occasions.

Born August 17, 1893, Mae West became a name that changed history. She made her fame by being an actress, screenwriter, a playwright, and yes, a sex symbol. Her first play which she both wrote and starred in was called Sex.

The city officials raided the theatre and she was arrested. Her quips also became very famous. One of her most popular is “Is that a gun in your pocket… or are you just happy to see me.”

The series of steps are thought to have originated with the African-Americans who were living on a small island near Charleston, South Carolina. In 1922/3, it was introduced to the theater going public at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York In the 1920's, women who did the Charleston were called "Flappers" because of the way they would flap their arms and walk like birds while doing the Charleston. Many men of the period wore raccoon coats and straw hats.

The Charleston

The most famous author of the era was F. Scott Fitzgerald.He was part of a group of writers who tried to rebel againstthe culture and became knownas the Lost Generation.

Fitzgerald's most famous bookis the Great Gatsby, which mostwould argue was symbolic of his own background. Fitzgeraldwrote hundreds of pieces of workand at the height of his career wasactually forced to work for magazinesbecause of his and his wife's partying.

Zelda Fitzgerald was the wifeof Scott. She loved the lifestyle,the attention, and the material goods that her husband's talentbrought them. She was often times seen at parties dancing on the pianos and having affairs with other men. She spent theend of her life in a clinic for mental disorders. She made lifevery stressful for Scott.

The Great Migration• The Great Migration- the movement of many blacks out of the south as a result of the oppressive actions taken by the southern governments against the blacks

• It started around 1910 in the United States.

• African Americans were angry about disfranchisement (denial of right to vote), poll taxes, literacy tests, Jim Crow Laws, and general oppression by the whites.

• Censuses and studies showed that the African Americans who fled to the North prospered economically, politically, and socially better than the southern African Americans. Typical black

family outside their cabin with

no luxuries. Blacks had to get away from this oppressive

South.

Blacks moved north to take advantage of booming wartime industry (= Great Migration) - Black ghettoes began to form, i.e. Harlem

within these ghettoes a distinct Black culture flourished

But both blacks and whites wanted cultural interchange restricted

Harlem became the center of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s.Artists, musicians, and writers, like Langston Hughes, gained notoriety fortheir artistic contributions during the Harlem Renaissance.

Unfortunately for the blackcommunity, the Harlem Renaissance really didn't socially help the Harlem area. Almost all of the speakeasies were owned by whites and no social changes were really pushed during this era.

• Marcus Garvey became an international leader for the African-American community.

• Born in the Caribbean, Garvey stressed the idea of radical Black Nationalism.

• He wanted to return back to the roots of Africa and gain international power.

• Garvey's influence was felt in the US, the Caribbean, and Europe and he had millions of supporters world wide.

Responsive to all the radical socialchanges taking place, the ultra conservative hate group called the Ku Klux Klan reemerged and grew to memberships of over 5 million Americans. It was common for many local law and court officials to be Klansmen. Public lynchings increased.

Babe Ruth &Ty Cobb

Jack Dempsey

Charles Lindbergh The Spirit of St. Louis

• Baseball had become America's pastime. All the US

• Presidents were routinely seen at the games. The

• New York Yankees were the team to beat, and Babe

• Ruth was the man to see. The Bambino took baseball

• to a whole different level, similar to what Tiger did for

• golf. Jim Thorpe was a multi-sport star from Native

• American descent. Jack Dempsey was the boxing champ.

Flagpole Sitting

In 1924 Alvin Kelly, also known as Shipwreck Kelly, decided to attempt to sit on a flagpole in response to a dare from a friend. He sat upon the pole for 13 hours and 13 minutes. Within weeks hundreds of people were trying to become the “King of the Pole.” One man sat for 12 days, another for 17, and another for 21 days. Huge audiences would gather to watch the sitter. In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Kelly reclaimed the title by sitting atop a flagpole for 49 days in front of 20,000 people.

For Children Only

Favorite children's books were "Winnie the Pooh," "Bambi," "Dr. Doolittle," and "The Velveteen Rabbit."

Favorite toys included the new baby doll that said, "mama," paper dolls, and teddy bears for the girls. Boys played with metal trucks, Tinker toys, and Erector sets.

Popular children's games were marbles, jump rope, roller skating, and Statues.

Mickey Mouse, Little Orphan Annie, and Felix the Cat were popular cartoon characters.

Slang Words

All wet

Applesaucewhat you say when you are angry

"Oh, applesauce!"

describes a wrong idea or person

He's all wet.

The Big Cheesethe most important person

the boss

The Cat’s Meow something splendid or wonderful

the best

Cheaters eyeglasses

JakeOK

Everything is Jake.

Dogs feet

Giggle water alcohol

Heebie jeebies A scary nervous feeling

jalopy An old car

moll A gangster’s girlfriend

pushover Someone easily convinced

scram leave

swell wonderful

upchuck vomit

whoopie Have a good time