The Roaring Twenties

Ch. 20 & 21

Immigration Laws

• “Keep America American”• 1921- Emergency Quota Act-

limited immigration• 1924- National Origins Act- made

immigrant restriction a permanent policy– Due to these acts, Mexican

immigration was in record numbers

A Clash of Values

• Sacco-Vanzetti Case- two Italian immigrants accused of murder, claimed they were innocent (many said they were convicted just because they were immigrants). Both executed.

The KKK

• Ku Klux Klan – Targeted African Americans,

Catholics, Jews, immigrants, & groups sharing “un-American” values

– 2nd. Generation KKK 1915 by Wm. Simmons (a Methodist preacher!)• Cross-burning, mob attacks, lynchings• Declined in the 1920s (scandals & power

struggles)

Women’s Issues• More single women working• More women attended college• Birth control (Margaret Sanger)• Fashion changes:

– “bobbed hair”– Flesh-colored stockings– Drank, smoke (in public!)– Zelda Fitgerald Zelda

Margaret

The “not so roaring” Twenties

• Prohibition- 18th. Amendment 1920 (outlawed alcohol- reduce unemployment, domestic violence, & poverty)– Led to bootlegging (illegal production of

alcohol) speakeasies (secret bars) & organized crime

– Al Capone- most successful & violent gangster of the era

– 1933- 21st. Amendment- repealed the 18th amendment

Culture• Artists explored

what it meant to be “modern”

• Greenwich Village & Chicago’s South Side- where artists, writers, intellectuals went

• Hopper- revived “realism”

Poets

• T.S. Eliot– The Hollow Men (1925) contains some

of Eliot's most famous lines, most notably its conclusion:

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Writers

• Ernest Hemingway– A Farewell to Arms

• Considered by some critics to be the greatest war novel of all time, the novel is told through the point of view of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during WWI.

• F. Scott Fitzgerald– The Great Gatsby– Although Nick

Carraway idolized the riches and glamour of the age, he was uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and the lack of morality that went with it.

Mass Entertainment- Radio & Movies

• 1920- one of the 1st. commercial radio broadcasts (station- KDKA)

• Radio- Amos ‘n’ Andy- stories of two African American characters (played by white actors)

• The Jazz Singer (1927)- 1st. “talkie” movie

• Mass media- helped unify the nation & spread the new ideas & attitudes of the time

Harlem Renaissance- rebirth of the African American arts

• Great Migration- movement of African Americans from the South to the North

• Writer- Langston Hughes– One of the most original &versatile writers of the H. R.– “I, Too” & “The Negro Speaks

of Rivers”

Harlem Renaissance• Jazz & Blues

– Louis Armstrong- played trumpet & cornet (jazz- influenced by ragtime)

– Duke Ellington- composer, pianist, bandleader (not your marching band!) (“Mood Indigo”) Got his start at the Cotton Club

– W.C. Handy- Blues composer & musician (the Father of the Blues)

Harlem Renaissance in pictures

PresidentsHarding Coolidge• Return to

normalcy (return to a “normal” life after WWI

• Enjoyed spending time with his “Ohio Gang” (friends)

• Teapot Dome Scandal

• Harding’s Vice President

• “Silent Cal”- simple, frugal

• Prosperity rested on business leadership (govt. should interfere with business & industry as little as possible)

A Growing Economy• Henry Ford

– Assembly line– Model T

Modern Day Assembly LineFord’s Assembly Line

Consumer Goods– Electric razors, “kleenex”, frozen foods, hair

dye– Electric irons, vacuums, washing machines,

refrigerators, gas stoves– Mouthwash, deodorants, cosmetics

Airline Industry

• 1927- Charles Lindbergh (transatlantic solo flight)

• Amelia Earhart 1932- attempted to fly solo across the Atlantic

Alabama in the 1920s• In a study- was among the worst states in the

country on nearly every measure of its citizens’ quality of life– Education underfunded & ineffective– Illiteracy rates were high– Prison system mismanaged & corrupt– Tax system unfair & inadequate– Public health was widely ignored

– State Services improved, the economy improved, the KKK returned, Alabamian contributions towards the Jazz Age, migration of African Americans out of Alabama (loss of culture in Alabama with African Americans leaving)