PROSPERITY . . . AND CULTURE WARS

Birth: a moment to celebrate but it sure is stressful at the time

Truckload of changes from automobiles automobile culture

New towns due to new Highways New architectural styles of homes (garages,

carports, driveways) Gas stations, Car repair shops Tunnels Tourist camps, motels (motor hotels) Shopping centers, drivethrus Traffic signals Vacations, shopping, &entertainment Urban sprawl New industries (car, gas)

Sell wealth Color? Who drove

this car on weekends?

3. Advertising Industry The growth of business produced

advertising industry

2. Electrical Conveniences

New tech elec conveniences during 1920s

Cars, airplanes, radios, telephones, etc.

Women -- appliances like refrigerators, vacuum cleaners & electric stoves become shoppers, not creators

4. Installment plan

Allowed consumers to use credit to purchase expensive items a little at a time

America became consumer society for first time (status measured by how many “things” you owned)

5. Heroes Interest in spectator sports grew in

the 1920s Boxer Jack Dempsey Baseball player Babe Ruth Charles Lindbergh -- #1 hero of the

time Swimmer Gertrude Ederle

Youth, physical strength, daring, simplicity (image, anyway)

6. Entertainment First movie with sound (talkie),

The Jazz Singer (‘27) Jazz (started in southern cities in

Mississippi & in New Orleans) “relocation diffusion” with Great Migration

Dance crazes, fads like flagpole sitting, crossword puzzles, King Tut

Alvin Kelly, King of Flagpole-Sitting

And now to the Culture Wars

1. Generation gap – “teenagers”

2. Women! (like Clara Bow)

Characteristics of the “Flapper”:• Short hair (ear bob)

• Legs showing with

shorter skirts

• Single women

entertained male friends

at home without a

chaperone

• Smoking

• Dancing

• “Party girls”

• Rebellious

• Fun-loving

• Modern

• Liberated (FREE!)

3. Religion

Values challenged by science and tragedy of World War I Modern, or return to basics?

Fundamentalism Bible literally true, written by God,

no contradictions or errors Attacked women’s suffrage,

education, science

Evangelical ministers -- revivals & radioBilly Sunday, Evangelical Preacher

The Scopes Trial Tennessee teacher, John Scopes,

arrested and tried for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution instead of Bible’s account of Creation

4. “Red Scare”

Russian Revolution threatens capitalism

Bombs in American cities in 1919

U.S.S. Buford actually ships Communists to Soviet Union

All “-ists” are feared

5. Business vs. Labor

So all labor unions are suspected 3,600 strikes in 1919 (supposedly) –

DANGER! Republican presidents establish laissez-

faire, pro-business environment

Sacco and Vanzetti Trial Italian immigrants and

anarchists May 5, 1920-arrested for a

payroll robbery-South Braintree, Massachusetts

paymaster and guard shot and killed

evidence-circumstantial- found guilty and sentenced

to death protests in US, Latin

America, Europe executed August 23, 1927 1961-ballistic evidence

points to Sacco but others would say it is inconclusive

6. “Red Summer”

1919 – race riots all over US White mobs attack African-American

neighborhoods in response to real or imagined provocations

Soldiers lynched still in army uniforms

7. Resurgence of Ku Klux Klan

But even in everyday life

8. Nativism vs. Immigrants

Quotas established to “preserve ratios”, keep America “American”

9. Urban vs. Rural

Tech progress fewer farmers needed Immigrants unskilled to factories Cities more exciting, esp. after WWI

10. Wet vs. Dry

Prohibition See above #1,3,8,9 Leads to organized crime like Capone