The 1920s

How the Triumph of Republican Politics, Corporate Economics, and Mass Cultural Values United and

Divided America, 1920-1929

Is your Cell Phone Turned On?

The “It” Girl,

1920s Film Star Clara Bow

Says

Please,

Turn it

off!

Themes and Topics

• Cultural Change Changing Sexual Mores in the 1920s

Beginnings of Mass Culture, Mass Entertainment, and Mass Leisure

Beginnings of Black Separatist and Black Nationalist Culture

Cultural Conflict between Science and Fundamentalist Religion

• Private Enterprise Scope and Limits of Consumer Culture in the 1920s

• Role of the State Pro-Business Policies of the Republican Administrations in the 1920s

Prohibition as Anti-Immigrant Politics

• Multiculturalism Movement to Close Off Immigration, except with the Western Hemisphere

Emergence of Black Separatism and Black Nationalist Culture

• Social and Cultural Outsiders Lost Generation Intellectuals: Criticism and Authenticity in the 1920s

Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro as Oppositional Figure

Central Analytical Questions

• Why were conservatives successful in politics, and economics, but not culture in the 1920s?

• How deeply divided was the United States in the 1920s?

• Why were American intellectuals so alienated?

The New Era

• The “hegemony”* of capitalist values Political dominance of Republican party

through three presidential elections

Collapse of the Democratic Party after WWI

Return to normalcy meant re-embrace of corporate business leadership of nation

Trust born from WW One and 1920s leadership

Disengagement of Intellectuals

Collapse of the Union Movement

*Hegemony: leadership or dominance of one social group over others in a country.

New Era GOP Politicians

Warren G. Harding 1921-1923

Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929

Herbert Hoover 1929-1933

1920 Election

1924 Election

1928 Election

Decline of the Socialist Party

• Eugene Debs was imprison in 1919 under the Espionage Act While in prison he ran for president in 1920

President Harding pardoned him in December 1921

He continued to write, but did not run for president again

Debs died in 1926

• Social basis of the party shift Native born mid-western socialists and intellectuals left

the party

Immigrant Russians took over party

Re-embrace of corporate business

leadership

• Republicans adopt pro-business policies

Tariff Protection: Fortney-McCumber Act 1922

Suspension of Anti-Trust Prosecutions by FTC

Tax Cuts for the Rich

Anti-Labor Policies

Pro-Business Supreme Court Decisions

Liberal Monetary (Credit) Policies

Bottom Line: Continue business-government cooperation, begun during WW One, centerpiece

Tax Cuts for the Rich

• Income tax rates had gone up during WW One under the Democrats

• With the GOP back in control, Mellon got approval for a massive reduction in income tax rates

• Between 1921-1926, tax rates declined from 65% to 20% on the highest incomes

• Yet, even with decline in rates, Republicans balanced the budget every year from 1921-1929 and reduced the federal deficit from $25B to 16.9B

Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon Between Coolidge and Hoover

Politics of Productivity

• Business was celebrated because it delivered on material prosperity Capitalism could satisfy everyone’s

needs in terms of material goods

Political slogan, “Two cars in every garage, a chicken in every pot”

American productivity would produce plenty through ingenuity, and technology, thus resolving concerns about justice and the distribution of wealth

Key Slogan: Don’t redistribute wealth, increase the size of the pie! Also called “Fordism”

Henry Ford and his Model T

Suspension of Anti-Trust

Prosecutions: Oligopoly the norm

• With Anti-Trust enforcement ignored, industry renewed its drive toward consolidation Electrical and Public Utilities

Industries

By 1930, 100 corporations account for 50% of all business activity in the U.S.

200 corporations control 50% of non-banking corporate wealth

250 banks control 50% of banking wealth

By 1930, chain stores control 25% of all retail sales

Trade Associations (from WW I) set prices, markets

Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty [L], With Harding

Labor in the New Era

• Workers saw an 11% increase in wages 1922-29

• Union Membership Declined 7 million in 1918

5.1 million in 1920

3.6 million in 1929

• Strikes declined

• Corporate welfare systems increased High wages, Insurance, pensions, stock options,

company unions

American Plan

Supreme Court in 1920s

• Republicans appoint eight justices, 1921-30

Strike down child labor law

Strike down minimum wage law for women

Continue injunctions against labor unions

Limit power of regulatory agencies

Economic Consequences

• Rapid Economic Growth (next time)

• Dramatic Increase in Consumer Goods

• Wealth polarization returns

• Emphasis on wealth produced corruption

Tea Pot Dome Affair

• Sec. Interior Albert B. Fall leased oil reserves to old friends in return for $500K in personal “loans”

• Harding’s Character Flaws

Presidential Character Flaw

• While President, Mr. Harding had an affair with Nan Britton, which produced an illegitimate child

• Harding also wrote love letters to another man’s wife

• He died July 1923

Cultural Change

• 19th Century Producer Culture Farmer/Artisan

production

Savings and frugality

Clearly defined gender and sex roles

Symbols: Liberty, Labor, Chastity

Heroes: Jesus Christ; Poor Richard

• 20th Century Consumer Culture Mass production/mass

consumption economy

Spending, debt, speculation

New Gender Roles • The “New Woman” (Flapper)

Symbols: Hollywood movies, jazz, Charleston (dance)

Heroes: Celebrities and Athletes

The new attitudes produced permanent changes in folkways: Dating without supervision, Necking on dates, pre-marital intercourse, divorce

Urban Consumer Culture

• The new consumer operated in an urban world

1920 census reports 50% of Americans live in cities of 50K or more

The U.S. is becoming a nation of cities.

African American Migration

Between 1910 and 1930, more than 938,000 African Americans Left the south for the mid-west and Northeast

New Consumer Goods

• Home electrical products Refrigerators

Ranges

Washing Machines

Vacuum Machines

Fans

Mixers

Razors

• Automobile 8 million in 1920

30 million in 1930

Role of Advertising

• Corporations embrace advertising spend $1.8 billion by 1929

Employ 600,000 in industry

Use Radio (a new form of mass media)

Key strategies of advertisers • Celebrity endorsements

• Promise of social success

• Threat of social embarrassment

Impact • Redefine popular aspirations in terms of “a fantasy world of

elegance, grace, and boundless pleasure” based on what you buy

Limits of Consumer Culture

• Distribution of Wealth Increasingly Skewed 1% households earn >$10K per year

66% households earn <1,999 per year (approximately 90% rural families and 40% of urban working class families)

<50% own cars or radios

<33% own a washing machine or vacuum cleaner

Hence, consumer culture is available to some, not all

Cultural Outsiders Invented Modern

Culture

• Jews and Blacks invented an emerging Modern Culture Jewish Hollywood

• Film industry moved to Southern California for weather, non-union environment

• Production Companies such as MGM

• Theatres spread across nation

Black Jazz and Blues • Comes from New Orleans,

Chicago, and St. Louis

• Exotic, sensual, uninhibited, sexual, especially when sung by women like Bessie Smith

Ezemiel Mayer aka Louie B. Mayer

Louie Armstrong

The Stars Come Out

• Celebrities provided models for new styles of womanhood and manhood

Note that Garbo is drinking alcohol

And that Valentino has the look of love (or lust) in his eyes

Greta Garbo

Rudolph Valentino And Nita Naldi

Urban Culture versus Rural Culture

• Population movement continued the trend toward increasing urbanization Note the strong growth in

the southern California region

But many city dwellers continue to have rural values

Hence, as more rural minded Americans entered the cities, social tensions grew around an urban versus rural culture

Southern whites bring traditional racial ideology into urban areas, hence KKK appears in . . . Long Beach!

Rural Tensions as Fundamentalism

• Inhabitants of rural areas, small towns, and small cities had a negative view of urban America

Sinful

Materialistic

Unhealthy

Foreign

They resent change

They sought to suppress Modern society through Fundamentalism, immigration restriction, growth of the KKK, prohibitionist law, and general intolerance

What is Fundamentalism

• Five basic beliefs derived from the Bible Inerrant Bible

Virgin Birth

Vicarious Atonement

Resurrection

Second Coming of Christ

• Led by Southern Baptists and Methodists Target Evolution

Several Southern States outlaw teaching of evolution

Scopes Trial 1925 upheld Tennessee Law

Alabama State Bible

Immigration Restrictions

• Target Eastern and Southern Europeans and Asians

Reflects Nativist anxieties over changing demographics

• 1917 Immigration Act

• 1921 Immigration Act

• 1924 Immigration Act

• 1927 Immigration Act

• 1929 Immigration Act

Klu Klux Klan Komeback

• Began revival in 1915 under leadership of William J. Simmons Admits WASPs only (100%

Americanism!)

Grew to anywhere from 3 to 8 million

Centered in Midwest cities, small towns, and villages

Targets foreigners, Jews, Immigrants, Blacks, gamblers, prostitutes, and evolutionists

Fell apart at the end of the 1920s

Simmons was said to be inspired By the film, Birth of a Nation

Prohibitionism

• 18th constitutional amendment prohibiting the production of alcohol An act of moral

righteousness and social conformity

Reduced consumption by 70%

Fostered criminality and disrespect for law

Wickersham Commission, 1931, reported the breakdown of the enforcement system Why is Al Capone

laughing?

Critical Thinking Question

• Though conservative politics reigned, and corporate capitalism enjoyed unprecedented authority, in culture urban Americans were becoming increasing free from tradition

• Why?

An American flapper

Critical Thinking Question on Continuity and Change: How did the 1920s differ from the late 19th Century?

19th Century political

economy

1920s political economy Continuity or Change?

Laissez faire state Corporate state A retreat, but not a full retreat.

Pre-progressive era practices

of pro-business government.

Post-Progressive era of pro-

business government

Continuity and change

Pre-Income Tax era The rich received tax cuts

allowing the wealthy to extend

their separation from the poor.

Not a full retreat.

Monopoly illegal Oligopoly the norm because

government refused to enforce

the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Trade Associations set prices.

Corporate state protects

oligopoly.

Unorganized labor the norm,

no recognized right to

collective bargaining

Decline of unions, government

injunctions and arrest for

strikes, no recognized right to

collective bargaining.

Near restoration, reverses

unionization gains from

progressive era.

Conclusions

• Political Conservatism

• Economic Dynamism

• Cultural Conflict