Chapter 32 - American Life in the "Roaring Twenties" 1919-1929

 

Major Themes

---

• New technologies, mass-marketing, new forms of entertainment fostered rapid cultural change along with the early development of a consumer lifestyle.
• Changes in moral values and uncertainty about the future produced anxiety as well as intellectual critiques of American culture

Major Questions

---

• What were some of the cultural developments that were “conservative” in nature? Which developments were “liberal” in nature?
• What were the economic and social consequences of the emerging mass-consumption economy
• In what ways were the 1920s a reaction against the progressive era?

Outline

---

Seeing Red

• Fear of communism rose in America after the Bolshevic Revolution in Russia in 1917
• The "red scare" of 1919-1920 caused by hatred of left-wingers whose American ideals were suspect
  • Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up 6,000 suspects and earned the name, "Fighting Quaker"
    • doubled his efforts after a bomb went off in his home in June 1919 and was redubbed the "Quaking Fighter"
  • another highlight was the deportation of 249 people to the "workers paradise" of Russia
  • also, in 1920, another unexplained bomb went off in Wall Street and killed 38 people and wounded several hundred others
• Laws were made to prevent the mentioning of any other form of government
  • 5 lawfully elected members of the New York legislature were denied their seats because they were socialists in 1920
• Red Scare was good for conservative business people because they could denounce labor unions as Communist and evil while their plans were American and right
• "Judicial Lynching"
  • Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were both accused of the murders of a paymaster and his guard in 1921
  • the jury and the judge were all prejudiced against them because they were both Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers
  • case dragged on 6 years and then they were electrocuted
  • became martyrs for the Communist cause
  • probably would have only of been given a jail term if the environment wasn't as prejudiced

Hooded Hoodlums of the KKK

• with the introduction of even stronger xenophobic feelings than ever before in American history, the KKK rose again as a strongly nativist group
• this radiacally minded right wing group advocated racism on all front and a return to the ideals of a protestant society
• the Klan became very large, including as many as 5 million members
• quickly fell apart in the late 1920's as more moral people recognized the attrocities of the Klan's methods

Stemming the Foreign Flood

• In 1920-1921 800000 immigrants came to America
  • This caused a nativist stir in America calling to stem the flow of immigrants
• This was done by The Emergency Quota Act of 1921
  • this let only 3% of immigrants per nationality in the US get in
• This act was replaced in 1924 with the Immigration Act of 1924
  • This limited the immigrants allowed to 2% and used an earlier census than the Quota Act
  • This act was worse for southern and western Europeans
  • This act limited all Japanese immigration
• First time in American history that America was filling up and needed a stopper

 

The Prohibition Experiment

• Alcohol was made illegal in 1919 by the 18th ammendment
• This law was very popular in the south and west
• There was very strong opposition to the law in eastern cities
• Opponents of the law thought that if they violated it enough it would change
• Prohibition may have gone better if there were more officials
• Really the law had no teeth... many people drank and there were thousands of saloon replacements called speakeasies
• This was not a complete failure... less alcohol was consumed and bank savings went up

The Golden Age of Gangsterism

• with the prohibition of alcohol came the illegal and immensely profitable business of smuggling or "bootlegging"
• this was typically done by gangs who practiced widespread organized crime throughout the 1920's
• despite the widespread criminal activity and gang wars, few convictions were made
• Chicago was the center of most gang activity
• Gangsters also partook in other illegal ventures: prostitution, narcotics,gambling

Monkey Business in Tennessee

• Education continued to improve
  • more states required young people to stay in school until 16 or 18
  • amount of 17 year olds who graduated school almost doubled in the 1920s to more than 1/4
• Professor John Dewey created progressive learning or "learning by doing"
• Advances in health care increased the life expectancy from 50 years in 1901 to 59 in 1921
• Progressive learning and science both subjected to criticism from Fundamentalists
  • said that teaching Darwinism was destroying faith in God and the Bible and the moral breakdown of youth in the jazz age
  • attempts were made to stop the teaching of evolution, espcially in the Bible Belt South
• "Monkey Trial" held at Dayton, Tennessee in 1925
  • John T. Scopes found guilty and fined $100
  • against him was former presidential candidate Bryan who died of stroke 5 days later
  • hollow victory for Fundamentalists, looked sort of silly
  • Bible ended up still being the main source of America's spiritual life

The Mass Consumption Society

• Prosperity came to the US in the 1920s
• There was rapid expansion of capitol investments and ingenious machines were made
• Henry Ford invented the assembly line which sparked the huge automobile business
• a new arm of American commerce was made-advertising
• Sports also became big business
• several games entrance fees made a million dollars+
• The idea of paying on credit also came about now

Putting America on Rubber Tires

• The invention of the automobile was the most influencial of the 1920s w/ it's assembly-line methods and mass-production techniques
• Europeans acutally invented the car but Americans adapted it
  • Henry Ford and Ransom E. Olds [Oldsmobile] were the main developers of the auto industry
• 1910: 69 existing car companies annually produced a total of 181,000 units
• They were slow and unreliable, stalling frequently
• Detroit was the motorcar capital of America
• Frederick W. Taylor, inventor/engineer, introduced many useful efficiency techniques
• Henry Ford contributed most to America's automobile-ization
  • Model T was cheap, ugly, rugged, reasonable reliable, rough, and clattering
    • behavior of the car was so eccentric that it was made fun of a lot
  • Henry was an ill-educated millionaire & his empire was based on his associate's organizational talent
  • Devoted himself to the gospel of standardization
  • Sold a total of 20 million Model T's by 1930
• By 1929, 26 million motor vehicles were registered in the US; averaging 1 for every 4.9 Americans
  • [more cars in US then in the whole world at that point]

The Advent of the Gasoline Age

• This industry depended on steel but displaced steel from its kingpin role
  • 6 Million were employed by 1930
  • Others were created by supporting roles
    • Rubber, Glass, Fabrics, and highway construction all contributed to jobs
  • America's standard of living also increased
• The petroleum industry boomed with development of oil derricks throughout the nation
• The railroad industry took a signifigant hit due to the widespread use of cars, busses, and trucks
• There were many positive effects
  • Speedy marketing of perishable foods
  • Farms could get their goods to the market faster, cheaper, and fresher
  • The need for roads caused America to build the finest network of hard surfaced roads in the world
• The new cars also allowed for more leisure time
• Less attractive states lost population at an alarming rate
• By the late 1920s Americans owned more cars than bathtubs
• Busses consolidated school districts
• The need for speed made citizens statistics
  • By 1951, 1 million had died on the road
• Crime was aided by cars because it allowed for a quick get away
• The automobile contributed to a notably improved air quality, despite its later noteriety as a polluter

Humans Develop Wings

• Gasoline allowed people to fly
  • The Wright brothers stayed airbourne for 12 seconds in their plane on December 17, 1903
  • This spanned 120 feet
• The world slowly shrank as avaiation got off the ground
  • Planes were used for various purposes during the Great War (1914-1918)
  • The first transcontinental airmail route was established from NY to San Francisco in 1920
• Charles Lindbergh flew his plane from NY to Paris in a couragous 33 hour 39 minute flight
  • Seeked prize of $25,000
• This gave birth to an giant new industry
  • The accident rate was high, though only slightly higher than that of the railroads
  • By the 1930's travel on airways was signifigantly safer than on a highway
• Took many of thee passengers of railroads greatly hurting the RR industry
• Ariel bombs made some consider the planes as a curse
• Made travel much quicker, it "shriveled the world"

The Radio Revolution

• thank you!
• Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy in the 1890s and his creation was used for long-range communication in WWI
• Next the voice-carrying radio came along, baffling many
• Other miracles were the transatlantic wireless phonographys, radiotelegraphys and television
• Radios at first only reached local areas but by the late 1920s technological improvements made long-distance broadcasting possible
  • National commercials took over local programming
  • commercials made radio a vehicle for American free enterprise
  • Radios drew families back to the home and helped knit together communities and neighborhoods and THE NATION once more
• The radio was a large contribution educationally and culturally
  • Sports were stimulated
  • politicians had to adjust to the millions as opposed to thousands
  • world events effected people more personally
  • music of various artists and symphony orchestras were more widely listened to and known
  • the radio helped people who couldn't go experience these kind of events

Hollywood's Filmland Fantasies

• Many inventors made the movie (including Edison)
  • 1890s: Started out in the "naughty peep-show penny arcades"
  • 1903: The Great Train Robbery airs
    • First story sequence (not quite a movie) played in 5cent theaters called "nickelodeons"
  • The Birth of a Nation by D.W.Griffith (1915) was about the old KKK and how great it was
• Hollywood was sunny and such, so was the movie capital
  • First producers starred sexay naked ladies called "vamps" until people complained
  • Used "anti-kaiser" movies during WWI to sell bonds and boost morale
• 1927: "Talkies" came to be
  • The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson had sound
  • Theaters were set up to play movies with music and voices
  • Color movies were being made
• Movies were the new entertainment of the era
  • Movie stars made more than the Prez.
  • People knew movie star names better than political ones
    • Sort of like today
• Had profound effect of assimilation on immigrants
  • Young immigrant children tuned into radios and movies instead of listening to parents and following old world customs
  • Helped them learn the culture/language and fit in
  • Led to working-class bridge of language barrier
    • Helped them get reforms (strikes more effective because can talk to one another now)

The Dynamic Decade

• Census of 1920 showed that most lived in urban areas
• Women were finding (crappy) jobs in cities
  • These jobs had low wages
  • Often not good (retail clerks, office typing...)
    • These jobs were deemed "women's work"
  • Margaret Sanger: Attempted (and succeeded) a Birth-Control Movement
  • Alice Paul: Started National Women's Party (1923)
    • Wanted an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution
    • Succeeded 70 yrs. later
• Churches were changing
  • OLD: Fundamentalists, Hellfire and Brimstone, Don't Sin or You Will Burn Forever
  • NEW: God is your friend and the world is a "chummy" place
  • Some made "wholesome" movies for the young'uns
  • Some had advertisement
    • "Come to Church: Christian Worship Increases Your Efficiency"
• America is at "sex o'clock"
  • Advertisers used sex to sell everything
  • Women were more free
    • Flappers had short hair and short dresses
    • More makeup
    • One-piece Bathingsuits
  • Freud helped
    • Argued that "sexual repression" led to mental illness
    • "Health demands sexual gratification"
• Teens got into the sexy stuff too...
  • OLD: Kissing = marriage proposal
  • NEW: Jazz dancing (close and sweaty kind of like something else....), Cars (wheeled prostitution houses), Dark movie theaters...
• Jazz was the tunes of the era
  • Moved up from New Orleans during WWI with the migrating Blacks
  • W.C.Handy wrote "St. Louis Blues" and it became a classic
  • "Jelly Roll" Morton, Joseph "Joe" King Oliver, Paul Whiteman were all famous
• Racial pride developed in the North
  • HARLEM: one of the largest black communitites anywhere
  • Langston Hughes wrote The Weary Blues (1926)
  • Marcus Garvey was a political leader
    • Founded United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
    • Hoped to help blacks return to Africa
    • He sponsored all-black businesses to put "black money in black pockets"
    • Eventually deported (1927)
    • UNIA helped new-comers to the north establish racial pride, even after the deportation

Cultural Liberation

• The writer's of the previous era were dying out
  • Henry James died 1916
  • Henry Adams died 1918
  • William Dean Howells died in 1920
• Some managed to carry through
  • Edith Wharton and Willa Cather were still popular
• New writers became well-known
  • Most came from culturally different backgrounds
  • Gave American literature "...a new vitality, imaginativeness, and artistic quality."
  • H.L.Mencken was "Bad Boy of Baltimore"
    • Wrote in American Mercury about marriage, patriotism, democracy, prohibition, Rotarians, middle-class America, the South, and Puritans
    • Criticed heavily
    • "Puritanism was the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy."
• The war affected many new writers
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • This Side of Paradise (1920), was called a bible for the young. Flappers read it.
    • The Great Gatsby (1925)
  • Theodore Dreiser
    • An American Tragedy (1925) had a similar theme to Gatsby
  • Ernest Hemingway
    • Fought in Italy in 1917
    • The Sun Also Rises (1926) told of the expatriates in Europe
    • A Farewell to Arms (1929) told all about the war experience
    • Killed himself with a shotty in 1961
• Some writers turned to small-town life
  • Sherwood Anderson
    • Winesburg, Ohio (1919) told about a wide array of characters
  • Sinclair Lewis
    • Main Street (1920) was about a woman's war against provincialism
    • Babbitt (1922) explored the life of George F. Babbitt
  • William Faulkner
    • Soldier's Pay (1926) was about the war
    • The Sound and the Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930) were both about the South in the past
• Poetry was obviously different
  • Ezra Pound
    • Had a "Make It New" doctrine
    • Strongly influenced T.S. Eliot
  • T.S. Eliot
    • "The Waste Land" (1922) was very influential
  • Robert Frost
    • Wrote about New England
  • e.e.cummings
    • Used new diction and typesets to get interesting effects
• Plays were changed, too
  • Eugene O'Neill
    • Made a play about sex called the Strange Interlude (1928)
    • Had more than a dozen productions
    • Wone the Nobel Prize in 1936
• Artists (painters) rose up in Greenwich Village
• Harlem had some outstanding black artists
  • Writers
    • Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
  • Jazz Artists
    • Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake
• Architecture changed
  • Instead of flashy Greek, people like Frank Lloyd Wright supported making the building "grow from their sites"
  • Empire State Building was a great achievement at 102 stories tall

Wall Street's Big Bull Market

• Signs pointed to a crash of the economic joyride in the 1920s, several hundred banks failed annually
• "Something-for-nothing" craze
  • Real estate speculation
• Stock exhange
  • Speculations ran wild, boom-or-bust trading pushed market up great peaks
  • Stock market=gambling den
  • Practically everyone was buying stocks "on margin"(small down payment)
  • Rags-to-riches Americans
  • Few responded to warnings that the prosperity couldn't last forever
  • Little was done by Wash. DC to slow down $-mad speculators
  • 1914, national debt=$1,188,235,400→ $23,976,250,608 in 1921
    • Conservative principles of $ management pointed to surplus funds to reduce financial burden
  • 1921, Republican Congress made a businesslike move toward economic sanity by creating Bureau of the Budget
    • Bureau's director→assist president in preparing estimates of receipts & expenditures for submission to Congress as the annual budget
      • This new reform was set to prevent haphazardly extravagant appropriations
• The taxes inherited from the war were especially distasteful to Secretary of the Treasury Mellon as well as to his fellow millionaires.
• Their theory was that such high levies forced the rich to invest in tax-exempt .rather than in the factories that provided prosperous payrolls.
• They also argued that high taxes not only discouraged business but, in so doing, also brought a smaller net return to the Treasury than moderate taxes.
• Mellon helped engineer a series of tax reductions from 1921 to 1926
• Congress followed his lead by repealing the excess-profits tax, abolishing the gift tax, and reducing excise taxes, the surtax, the income tax, and estate taxes.
• In 1921 a wealthy person with and income of $1 million had paid $663,000 in income taxes, in 1926 the same person paid about $200,000.
• Secretary Mellon's spare-the-rich policies shifted much of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle-income groups.
• Mellon reduced the national debt by $10 billion but many believe he should have reduced the debt even more.