1920s DBQ

Historical Context The Great War was over and America’s sons returned home having witnessed the horrors of war. The survivors brought tales of great battles, death, cabarets, new foods, dance and the wonderment of Paris with its grand boulevards. Upon their arrival, the soldiers were astonished to see that America too had been changed by the war. Women’s fashion, appearance and attitudes had changed as they rallied and protested for the right to vote. African Americans had moved to northern cities in great numbers, automobile filled the streets, nativists and the KKK looked with hatred towards immigrants, the government cracked down on radicals during a “Red Scare”, new inventions and mass culture captured people’s imaginations. The 1920s have been called by many names “The Roaring Twenties”, “The Jazz Age”, and the “Age of Paranoia”. Whatever name you choose for the 1920’s it remains the decade when America came of age as an urban modern society.

Directions: Answer the questions for each document on separate paper. Then use the information from the documents to answer the question at the end of the activity.

Document A

1. What event is the subject of the cartoon?

2. What is the meaning of the political cartoon?

Document B

3. What topic is the cartoon dealing with?

4. What is the meaning of the political cartoon?

Document C

DEAR FRIENDS AND COMRADES OF THE SACCO-VANZETTI DEFENSE COMMITTEE:

After tomorrow mid-night, we will be executed, save a new staying of the execution by either the United States Supreme Court or by Governor Alvan T. Fuller.

We have no hope.  This morning, our brave defender and friend Michael Angelo Musmanno was here from his return from Washington, and told us he would come back this afternoon if he would have time for it.  Also Rosa and Luigi were here this morning, and they too, promised us to return this afternoon.  But now it is 5:30 P.M. and no one returned yet.  This tells us that there is no good news for us, for, if so, some of you would have hurried to bring them to us.  It almost tells us that all your efforts have failed and that you are spending these remaining few hours in desperate and hopeless efforts to evitate our execution.  In a word, we feel lost! Therefore, we decided to write this letter to you to express our gratitude and admiration for all what you have done in our defense during these seven years, four months, and eleven days of struggle. That we lost and have to die does not diminish our appreciation and gratitude for your great solidarity with us and our families.

Friends and Comrades, now that the tragedy of this trial is at an end, be all as of one heart.  Only two of us will die.  Our ideal, you our comrades, will live by millions; we have won, but not vanquished.  Just treasure our suffering, our sorrow, our mistakes, our defeats, our passion for future battles and for the great emancipation. Be all as of one heart in this blackest hour of our tragedy.  And have heart. Salute for us all the friends and comrades of the earth.

We embrace you all, and bid you all our extreme good-bye with our hearts filled with love and affection.  Now and ever, long life to you all, long life to Liberty.  Yours in life and death,

BARTOLOMEO VANZETTI NICOLA SACCO

5. Who wrote the letter?

6. What do they want?

7. Who is their intended audience?

Document D

I am fed up With Jim Crow laws, People who are cruel And afraid, Who lynch and run, Who are scared of me And me of them. I pick up my life And take it away On a one-way ticket Gone Up North Gone Out West Gone!

-Langston Hughes, 1926

8. The author states he has “Gone” because of what reason? “Gone” from where?

9. What physical movement is the author referencing?

10. What artistic movement was this author a part of?

Document E

Lindbergh Does It! To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours; Flies 1,000 Miles through Snow and Sleet; Cheering French Carry Him off Field New York Times, May 21, 1927 Early in the morning on May 20, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland. The flight had captured the imagination of the American public like few events in history. Citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the flight. When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. When he landed, less than 34 hours after his departure from New York, Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

11. Who is the subject of the document?

12. According to the document, what affect did his success have on the American public?

13. Explain how the formation of a national culture led to infatuation of heroes in America. What new inventions helped spread this culture to all Americans?

Document F

1890s 1920s

14. What “new” woman is pictured on the right?

15. Explain how WWI and the suffrage movement led to the changing roles of women in the society of the 1920s.

16. Describe the difference between the women of the Victorian era and the flappers of the 1920s. Which image do you identify with more? Why?

Document G

After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world....Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means themultiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture.... So long as wealth ismade the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it. And there never was a time whenwealth was so generally regarded as a means, or so little regarded as an end, as today. Just a little time ago we read in your newspapers that two leaders of American business, whose efforts at accumulation had been most astonishingly successful, had given fifty or sixty million dollars as endowments to educational works. That was real news. It was characteristic of our American experience with men of large resources. They use their power to serve, not themselves and their own families, but the public. I feel sure that the coming generations, which will benefit by those endowments, will not be easily convinced that they have sufferedgreatly because of these particular accumulations of wealth.”

President Calvin Coolidge, from “The Press Under a FreeGovernment,” a speech on freedom of the press given tothe American Society of Newspaper Editors Washington,D.C. on January 17, 1925.

17. Who gave this speech?18. According to the author, what is the purpose of the American people?

19. What two captains of industry does the speaker mention in regards to them helping others?Document H

20. What type of buying is the subject of the picture?

21. How was this type of purchasing good for the consumer?

22. Why was this type of buying bad for America?

Document I

23. What is the topic of the poster?

24. What two groups are shown in the poster?

25. What do the makers of the poster want to happen?

Document J

26. What scandal is the subject of the cartoon?

27. According to the cartoon which political party was involved in the scandal?

28. How did the scandal change peoples’ beliefs about government?

Document K

29. What is the subject of the cartoon?

30. What law is the subject of the cartoon?

31. Why was the law passed?

Document L

32. What new mass media is the subject of the picture?

33. Look at the photo what were two important uses of the new technology?

Document M

34. What car is shown in the advertisement?

35. According to the ad, how did this car change the lives of Americans?

Document N

36. What is the subject of the cartoon?

37. What industry is the focus of the cartoon?

38. According to the cartoon, who is resolving the issue? Why?

Document O

39. What type of music is the subject of the image?

40. How can you describe the musicians of this style of music?

Task The 1920s have been called by many names “The Roaring Twenties”, “The Jazz Age”, and the “Age of Paranoia”.

Choose one of the names you would use to describe the 1920s and support your decision. Be sure to provide a CLAIM, EVIDENCE (at least two examples for support), REASONING and a COUNTERARGUMENT.