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The 1920s
How the Triumph of Republican Politics, Corporate Economics, and Mass Cultural Values United and
Divided America, 1920-1929
Is your Cell Phone Turned On?
The “It” Girl,
1920s Film Star Clara Bow
Says
Please,
Turn it
off!
Themes and Topics
• Cultural Change Changing Sexual Mores in the 1920s
Beginnings of Mass Culture, Mass Entertainment, and Mass Leisure
Beginnings of Black Separatist and Black Nationalist Culture
Cultural Conflict between Science and Fundamentalist Religion
• Private Enterprise Scope and Limits of Consumer Culture in the 1920s
• Role of the State Pro-Business Policies of the Republican Administrations in the 1920s
Prohibition as Anti-Immigrant Politics
• Multiculturalism Movement to Close Off Immigration, except with the Western Hemisphere
Emergence of Black Separatism and Black Nationalist Culture
• Social and Cultural Outsiders Lost Generation Intellectuals: Criticism and Authenticity in the 1920s
Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro as Oppositional Figure
Central Analytical Questions
• Why were conservatives successful in politics, and economics, but not culture in the 1920s?
• How deeply divided was the United States in the 1920s?
• Why were American intellectuals so alienated?
The New Era
• The “hegemony”* of capitalist values Political dominance of Republican party
through three presidential elections
Collapse of the Democratic Party after WWI
Return to normalcy meant re-embrace of corporate business leadership of nation
Trust born from WW One and 1920s leadership
Disengagement of Intellectuals
Collapse of the Union Movement
*Hegemony: leadership or dominance of one social group over others in a country.
New Era GOP Politicians
Warren G. Harding 1921-1923
Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929
Herbert Hoover 1929-1933
1920 Election
1924 Election
1928 Election
Decline of the Socialist Party
• Eugene Debs was imprison in 1919 under the Espionage Act While in prison he ran for president in 1920
President Harding pardoned him in December 1921
He continued to write, but did not run for president again
Debs died in 1926
• Social basis of the party shift Native born mid-western socialists and intellectuals left
the party
Immigrant Russians took over party
Re-embrace of corporate business
leadership
• Republicans adopt pro-business policies
Tariff Protection: Fortney-McCumber Act 1922
Suspension of Anti-Trust Prosecutions by FTC
Tax Cuts for the Rich
Anti-Labor Policies
Pro-Business Supreme Court Decisions
Liberal Monetary (Credit) Policies
Bottom Line: Continue business-government cooperation, begun during WW One, centerpiece
Tax Cuts for the Rich
• Income tax rates had gone up during WW One under the Democrats
• With the GOP back in control, Mellon got approval for a massive reduction in income tax rates
• Between 1921-1926, tax rates declined from 65% to 20% on the highest incomes
• Yet, even with decline in rates, Republicans balanced the budget every year from 1921-1929 and reduced the federal deficit from $25B to 16.9B
Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon Between Coolidge and Hoover
Politics of Productivity
• Business was celebrated because it delivered on material prosperity Capitalism could satisfy everyone’s
needs in terms of material goods
Political slogan, “Two cars in every garage, a chicken in every pot”
American productivity would produce plenty through ingenuity, and technology, thus resolving concerns about justice and the distribution of wealth
Key Slogan: Don’t redistribute wealth, increase the size of the pie! Also called “Fordism”
Henry Ford and his Model T
Suspension of Anti-Trust
Prosecutions: Oligopoly the norm
• With Anti-Trust enforcement ignored, industry renewed its drive toward consolidation Electrical and Public Utilities
Industries
By 1930, 100 corporations account for 50% of all business activity in the U.S.
200 corporations control 50% of non-banking corporate wealth
250 banks control 50% of banking wealth
By 1930, chain stores control 25% of all retail sales
Trade Associations (from WW I) set prices, markets
Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty [L], With Harding
Labor in the New Era
• Workers saw an 11% increase in wages 1922-29
• Union Membership Declined 7 million in 1918
5.1 million in 1920
3.6 million in 1929
• Strikes declined
• Corporate welfare systems increased High wages, Insurance, pensions, stock options,
company unions
American Plan
Supreme Court in 1920s
• Republicans appoint eight justices, 1921-30
Strike down child labor law
Strike down minimum wage law for women
Continue injunctions against labor unions
Limit power of regulatory agencies
Economic Consequences
• Rapid Economic Growth (next time)
• Dramatic Increase in Consumer Goods
• Wealth polarization returns
• Emphasis on wealth produced corruption
Tea Pot Dome Affair
• Sec. Interior Albert B. Fall leased oil reserves to old friends in return for $500K in personal “loans”
• Harding’s Character Flaws
Presidential Character Flaw
• While President, Mr. Harding had an affair with Nan Britton, which produced an illegitimate child
• Harding also wrote love letters to another man’s wife
• He died July 1923
Cultural Change
• 19th Century Producer Culture Farmer/Artisan
production
Savings and frugality
Clearly defined gender and sex roles
Symbols: Liberty, Labor, Chastity
Heroes: Jesus Christ; Poor Richard
• 20th Century Consumer Culture Mass production/mass
consumption economy
Spending, debt, speculation
New Gender Roles • The “New Woman” (Flapper)
Symbols: Hollywood movies, jazz, Charleston (dance)
Heroes: Celebrities and Athletes
The new attitudes produced permanent changes in folkways: Dating without supervision, Necking on dates, pre-marital intercourse, divorce
Urban Consumer Culture
• The new consumer operated in an urban world
1920 census reports 50% of Americans live in cities of 50K or more
The U.S. is becoming a nation of cities.
African American Migration
Between 1910 and 1930, more than 938,000 African Americans Left the south for the mid-west and Northeast
New Consumer Goods
• Home electrical products Refrigerators
Ranges
Washing Machines
Vacuum Machines
Fans
Mixers
Razors
• Automobile 8 million in 1920
30 million in 1930
Role of Advertising
• Corporations embrace advertising spend $1.8 billion by 1929
Employ 600,000 in industry
Use Radio (a new form of mass media)
Key strategies of advertisers • Celebrity endorsements
• Promise of social success
• Threat of social embarrassment
Impact • Redefine popular aspirations in terms of “a fantasy world of
elegance, grace, and boundless pleasure” based on what you buy
Limits of Consumer Culture
• Distribution of Wealth Increasingly Skewed 1% households earn >$10K per year
66% households earn <1,999 per year (approximately 90% rural families and 40% of urban working class families)
<50% own cars or radios
<33% own a washing machine or vacuum cleaner
Hence, consumer culture is available to some, not all
Cultural Outsiders Invented Modern
Culture
• Jews and Blacks invented an emerging Modern Culture Jewish Hollywood
• Film industry moved to Southern California for weather, non-union environment
• Production Companies such as MGM
• Theatres spread across nation
Black Jazz and Blues • Comes from New Orleans,
Chicago, and St. Louis
• Exotic, sensual, uninhibited, sexual, especially when sung by women like Bessie Smith
Ezemiel Mayer aka Louie B. Mayer
Louie Armstrong
The Stars Come Out
• Celebrities provided models for new styles of womanhood and manhood
Note that Garbo is drinking alcohol
And that Valentino has the look of love (or lust) in his eyes
Greta Garbo
Rudolph Valentino And Nita Naldi
Urban Culture versus Rural Culture
• Population movement continued the trend toward increasing urbanization Note the strong growth in
the southern California region
But many city dwellers continue to have rural values
Hence, as more rural minded Americans entered the cities, social tensions grew around an urban versus rural culture
Southern whites bring traditional racial ideology into urban areas, hence KKK appears in . . . Long Beach!
Rural Tensions as Fundamentalism
• Inhabitants of rural areas, small towns, and small cities had a negative view of urban America
Sinful
Materialistic
Unhealthy
Foreign
They resent change
They sought to suppress Modern society through Fundamentalism, immigration restriction, growth of the KKK, prohibitionist law, and general intolerance
What is Fundamentalism
• Five basic beliefs derived from the Bible Inerrant Bible
Virgin Birth
Vicarious Atonement
Resurrection
Second Coming of Christ
• Led by Southern Baptists and Methodists Target Evolution
Several Southern States outlaw teaching of evolution
Scopes Trial 1925 upheld Tennessee Law
Alabama State Bible
Immigration Restrictions
• Target Eastern and Southern Europeans and Asians
Reflects Nativist anxieties over changing demographics
• 1917 Immigration Act
• 1921 Immigration Act
• 1924 Immigration Act
• 1927 Immigration Act
• 1929 Immigration Act
Klu Klux Klan Komeback
• Began revival in 1915 under leadership of William J. Simmons Admits WASPs only (100%
Americanism!)
Grew to anywhere from 3 to 8 million
Centered in Midwest cities, small towns, and villages
Targets foreigners, Jews, Immigrants, Blacks, gamblers, prostitutes, and evolutionists
Fell apart at the end of the 1920s
Simmons was said to be inspired By the film, Birth of a Nation
Prohibitionism
• 18th constitutional amendment prohibiting the production of alcohol An act of moral
righteousness and social conformity
Reduced consumption by 70%
Fostered criminality and disrespect for law
Wickersham Commission, 1931, reported the breakdown of the enforcement system Why is Al Capone
laughing?
Critical Thinking Question
• Though conservative politics reigned, and corporate capitalism enjoyed unprecedented authority, in culture urban Americans were becoming increasing free from tradition
• Why?
An American flapper
Critical Thinking Question on Continuity and Change: How did the 1920s differ from the late 19th Century?
19th Century political
economy
1920s political economy Continuity or Change?
Laissez faire state Corporate state A retreat, but not a full retreat.
Pre-progressive era practices
of pro-business government.
Post-Progressive era of pro-
business government
Continuity and change
Pre-Income Tax era The rich received tax cuts
allowing the wealthy to extend
their separation from the poor.
Not a full retreat.
Monopoly illegal Oligopoly the norm because
government refused to enforce
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Trade Associations set prices.
Corporate state protects
oligopoly.
Unorganized labor the norm,
no recognized right to
collective bargaining
Decline of unions, government
injunctions and arrest for
strikes, no recognized right to
collective bargaining.
Near restoration, reverses
unionization gains from
progressive era.
Conclusions
• Political Conservatism
• Economic Dynamism
• Cultural Conflict
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