1919 - 1929

Prohibition

•  • Temperance movements began to grow in the early 1800s.

• • Carry Nation, a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, used rocks, hammers, and hatchets to destroy liquor stores and saloons.

• • 18th Amendment to Constitution prohibited manufacture, sale, transport or import of liquor.

• • Volstead Act defined alcoholic beverages and imposed criminal penalties for violation of the 18th Amendment.

• • Prohibition led to bootlegging (illegal production or distribution of intoxicating beverages), corruption of government officials, and speakeasies (secret bars operated by bootleggers).

• • Al Capone was one of the most famous bootlegging gangsters.

• • In 1933, the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, was ratified.

Red Scare and the Palmer Raids

·         United States worker strikes seemed to be harbingers of revolution to many in the country.

·         Fear of revolution fed by anti-German hysteria and the success of the Bolshevik Revolution.

·         Bombs sent anonymously through mail to prominent American leaders encouraged fear.

·         Attorney General Palmer was a target of a failed mail bomb.

·         4,000 arrested as "Communists" and illegal aliens, but only 556 shown to be in those categories.

·         Palmer announced threat of large Communist riots on May Day of 1920, but none materialized.

·         Palmer was discredited and the Red Scare passed.

Post WWI Economy

• High wages during World War I and European demand continued after conflict.

• Demand led to inflation and a good economy.

• Increase in prices prompted major strikes by workers.

Women's Suffrage

• The 19th Amendment provided for women's suffrage, which had been defeated earlier by the Senate.

• Ratified by States in 1920. • Feminists who supported suffrage since the

1860s included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt.

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Two gunmen robbed a factory and killed two men in Massachusetts.

• Sacco and Vansetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, were tried for the murders.

• Judge Thayer favored prosecution and pushed for execution.

• Despite years of protesting that they had not received a fair trial, the men were executed in 1927, reflecting anti-immigrant sentiments in the United States.  

Industrial Changes in the 1920s and Effects

• Change from steam to electric power allowed more intricate designs, replacing human workers

• Major research and development projects reduced production costs and products.

• Expanding industries included automobile, electricity, chemicals, film, radio, commercial aviation, and printing.

• Led to overproduction by the 1920s.

Harlem Renaissance

• Term used to describe the growth of African-American literature and arts.

• The center of this movement was Harlem, New York, where many African-Americans moved to during the early 1900s.

• Southern African-Americans brought jazz to Harlem and influenced the music scene; at the same time, writing, sculpting, and photography grew as art forms.

• Writers from this period include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay.

• Musicians from this time included Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstong.

• The Great Depression led to the decline of the renaissance.

Automobile: Economic and Social Effects

• Stimulated steel, rubber, glass gasoline, and highway construction industries.

• Created a nation of paved roads. • The need for new paved roads led to

employment for many. • Led to increased freedom for young people

and loss of some parental control.  • Tourism increased and rural areas became

less isolated.

Rise in the Standard of Living during the 1920s

• Advances like indoor plumbing, hot water, central heating, home appliances, and fresher foods emerged.

• Many did not have the money to benefit from these advances.

• Availability of credit rose to allow for payments by installment periods.

• Sales grew out of advertising through new media, such as radio.

Marcus Garvey

• Native of Jamaica. •          Advocated black racial pride and separatism

rather than integration. •          Pushed for a return to Africa. •         Developed a following and sold stock in a

steamship line to take migrants to Africa. •          Convicted of fraud after the line went

bankrupt.

Shift in Popular Culture, 1920s

•          Change from entertainment through home and small social groups to commercial, profit-making activities.

•          Movies attracted audiences, and Hollywood became the movie center of America.

•          Professional athletics grew in participation and popularity, especially baseball, boxing, and football.

•          Tabloids grew in popularity, including the New York Daily News and Reader's Digest.

Ku Klux Klan in the Early 1900s

•          Main purpose was to intimidate blacks, who experienced an apparent rise in status due to WWI.

•          Also opposed Catholics, Jews, and foreign-born.

•          Klan hired advertising experts to expand organization.

•          Charged initiation fees and sold memorabilia.

•          The KKK had membership of five million in 1925, which soon began to decline.

Emergency Quota Act

• One of a series of acts by Congress that limited immigration.

• Immigration limited by nationality to three percent of the number of foreign-born persons from that nation that lived in the United States in 1910.

• Designation restricted only certain nationalities and religious groups.

• In effect, restricted Italians, Greeks, Poles, and Eastern European Jews.

Warren G. Harding

• 29th president• Nominated by the Republican Party as a

dark horse candidate. • Represented opposition to the League of

Nations, low taxes, high tariffs, immigration restriction, and aid to farmers.

• Harding won the election, repudiating Wilson's domestic policies toward civil rights.

• Promised return to normalcy. • Pardoned Eugene V. Debs. • Gave United States steel workers eight-hour

day. • Died suddenly during cross-country tour

and was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge.

Teapot Dome Scandal

• Bribery scandal involving President Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall.

• Fall secured naval oil reserves in his jurisdiction.

• Leased reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to two major business owners in exchange for cash payouts.

• The businessmen were acquitted, but Fall was imprisoned for bribery, making him the first cabinet member to go to jail.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff

• Increased tariff schedules. •          Tariffs were raised on farm produce to

equalize American and foreign production. •          Gave the president the power to

reduce or increase tariffs by fifty percent based on advice by the Tariff Commission.

Fiver Power Treaty

• Committed in the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy to restrict production of new battleship class ships.

• Pact gave Japan naval supremacy in the Pacific.

Dawes Plan

•          Debt restructuring plan for Germany after World War I.

•          American banks made loans to Germany, Germany paid reparations to Allies, and Allies paid back the United States government.

•          Cycle based on loans from American banks. •          The plan would play a part in the

development of the Great Depression.

Calvin Coolidge

• 30th president. • Republican candidate who came to office

first after Harding's death and then after a landslide victory.

• Avoided responsibility for most of Harding's cabinet scandals.

• Reputation for honesty. • Believed in leading through inactivity.• Stated, "The chief business of the American

people is business."

Creationism and the Scopes Trial

• Fundamentalist Protestants supported Creationism as a way to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools.

• Hoped to protect the belief in the literal understanding of the Bible.

• Scopes, a young Biology teacher, broke the law by teaching Darwinism and served as a test case for the ACLU.

• Darwinism was the concept of evolution created by Charles Robert Darwin and written about in the Origin of the Species.  

• Clarence Darrow defended Scopes, and William Jennings Bryan defended the Sate of Tennessee.

• Judge refused to allow expert witness testimony. • Scopes was convicted and later fined $100, which

was later dropped. • Some states passed anti-evolution laws