20.1: A CLASH OF VALUES

20.2: CULTURAL INNOVATION

20.3: AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Why It MattersThe 1920s was an era of rapid change and clashing values. Many Americans believed society was losing its traditional values, and they took action to preserve these values. Other Americans embraced new values associated with a freer lifestyle and the pursuit of individual goals. Writers and artists pursued distinctively American themes, and the Harlem Renaissance gave African Americans new pride.

The 1920s left permanent legacies to American culture. •National celebrities in sports and film emerged.

•Jazz music became part of American culture.

•F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway wrote classics of American literature.

NATIVISM RESURGES• 1920s: racism & nativism increase

• Immigrants threat to the status quo of traditional American values• Immigrants competing with demobilized men/women for work during

time of high unemployment & increased cost of living• Eugenics inferior people shouldn’t reproduce (strict immigration

control)• EX: Sacco & Vanzetti – 2 immigrants accused of murder/theft & executed

(ethnic prejudice)

RETURN OF THE KU KLUX KLAN• The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) led the movement to

restrict immigration

• New Klan not only targeted the freed African Americans, but also Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and other groups believed to have “un-American” values

• Because of a publicity campaign, by 1924 the Ku Klux Klan had over 4 million members & stretched beyond the South into Northern cities

• Scandals & poor leadership led to the decline of the Klan in the late 1920s• Politicians supported by the Klan were

voted out of officehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQJX8v0sC3Q

THE NEW MORALITY• A “new morality” challenged traditional ideas and glorified youth &

personal freedom

• New ideas about marriage, work, and pleasure affected the way people lived

• Women broke away from families as they entered the workforce, earned their own livings, or attended college

• The automobile gave American youth the opportunity to pursue interests away from parents

WOMEN IN THE 1920S• Bobbed/shortened hair, flesh colored silk stockings

• Flapper: young, dramatic, and stylish woman personified the fashion change in the 1902s – smoked cigarettes, drank prohibited liquor, dressed “revealing”

• Pursued social freedoms

• Sought financial independence

• Salesclerk, secretaries, telephone operators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJC21zzkwoE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPeIVJmZRWM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUuuMtDB9Z4

THE FUNDAMENTALIST MOVEMENT• Some Americans feared the new morality & worried about America’s

social decline - many from small rural towns, joined a religious movement called Fundamentalism

• Rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution & promoted creationism–that God created the world as described in the Bible.

• 1925 Tennessee - Butler Act: illegal to teach anything that denied creationism and taught evolution instead

• The Scopes (Monkey) Trial: John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, teaches evolution in his class. After being arrested and put on trial, Scopes was found guilty, but the case was later overturned. After the trial, many fundamentalists withdrew from political activism.

PROHIBITION• 18th Amendment (1919): prohibited alcohol – reduce

unemployment, domestic violence, & poverty

• The Volstead Act made the enforcement of Prohibition the responsibility of the U.S. Treasury Department (federal gov)

• Prohibition ignored -> speakeasies, crime became a business, bootlegging common

• 21st Amendment: ended Prohibition (1933)

HOW DID POPULAR CULTURE CHANGE IN THE 1920s?The economic prosperity of the 1920s afforded many Americans leisure time for enjoying sports, music, theater, and entertainment. Radio, motion pictures, and newspapers gave rise to a new interest in sports. Sports figures became celebrities. Motion pictures became increasingly popular. The first“talking” picture, The Jazz Singer, was made in 1927. The golden age of Hollywood began. The mass media–radio, movies, newspapers, and magazines–broke down the focus on local interests. Mass media helped unify the nation and spread new ideas and attitudes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djd1XfwDAQs

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

In large northern cities, particularly New York City’s neighborhood of Harlem, African Americans created environments that stimulated artistic development, racial pride, a sense of community, and political organization, which led to a massive creative outpouring of African American arts. This became known as the Harlem Renaissance.

•Ex: Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Claude McKay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9idqeiACqn4

African American politics• After World War I, many African Americans wanted a

new role in life and in politics.

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) battled against segregation and discrimination (formed when Progressive reforms failed to address discrimination/African American needs).

• Jamaican black leader Marcus Garvey’s idea of “Negro Nationalism” glorified black culture and traditions.

• He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which promoted black pride & unity. He encouraged education as the way for African Americans to gain economic & political power; but he also voiced the need for separation &independence from whites.

REVIEW: US Attitude 1920s (The Roaring Twenties)• America returned to Normalcy (normal times, unlike WWI) after the

horrors of WWI & the social changes of the Progressive Era. • This meant that the US adopted a policy of Isolation in foreign policy

and laissez-faire in domestic economic policies.• Generally, the economy prospered during the early/mid 1920s. • Socially, a return to “American” values was desired by American

fundamentalists, or those that advocated a return to Christian values. Ex: Scopes Monkey Trial – no evolution in schools

• A more powerful movement calling for the band of alcohol also gained significance and by 1919, Prohibition, or the ban of alcohol, was enacted with the 18th amendment.

• All of this did not stop a new rebellious young culture from emerging though!

• A New Morality also arose at this time (e.g. flappers [rebellious short-haired women], women’s voting rights, working opportunities [not stay at home cooking!], living a free single life, driving around in cars, dancing to ragtime, listening to Jazz & Blues)

REVIEW: WOMEN & AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE 1920s19th Amendment – Women’s Suffrage

-Women had recently been given the right to vote (suffrage) by the 19th Amendment in 1919, though it was not effective until 1920.

-Women also used the freedom of the times to live a more free and fulfilling life. More women were going to college and as a result many women were inspired to pursue careers and challenge traditional values.

Harlem Renaissance

-African Americans had moved from the south to the north in large numbers during WWI due to the number of jobs made available by the war (the first mass migration). They settled in concentrated numbers in large cities like New York (Harlem) and Chicago.

-This conglomeration of people brought their art, music, and dance styles from black culture and from it emerged the Harlem Renaissance- was an artistic and cultural movement (including music, poetry, art, literature, etc.) of the 1920s that originated out of urban Harlem.

-Notable Harlem Renaissance Writers: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer

-Notable Harlem Renaissance Intellectuals: Alan LeRoy Locke, W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey

Review: Booker T. Washington & WEB Du Bois• The two most notable African American activists in the 1920s were

Booker T. Washington and WEB Du Bois.

• Booker T. Washington believed that African-Americans needed to concentrate on attaining education and financial prosperity before demanding political rights.

• WEB Du Bois (who founded the NAACP) demanded an immediate protection and equality of African-Americans through political means.

• One thing they both agreed on, however, was the need for the African-American community to produce great black leaders.

• Another notable black rights figure is Marcus Garvey- believing true justice would never be obtained in America, he advocated a Back-to-Africa movement, in which called upon blacks to return to the land they were taken from rather than having to put up with discrimination & persecution in the US.