The 1920s

Through the 1920s, three Republican presidents would control the executive

branch. Congress was also solidly Republican as business boomed, while

farmers and unions struggled.

Warren Harding

• Republican elected president in 1920

• “return to normalcy”• Appoints former President

William Howard Taft to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

• Pardons Eugene V. Debs (in prison for violating Espionage Act)

• Reduced income tax• Increased tariff rates• Scandals and corruption (like

Ulysses S. Grant)

Harding and Scandal/Corruption

• Harding selected a number of incompetent men to important positions

• In 1924, Congress discovered that Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall had accepted bribes for granting oil leases near Teapot Dome, WY

• Teapot Dome Scandal• Though Harding was never

implicated, his reputation suffers

• He died suddenly in 1923

Calvin Coolidge

• VP Calvin Coolidge becomes president

• “Silent Cal”• “The business of America is

business.”• After less than a year in office

he ran for the presidency (1924) and wins!

• Progressive Party nominated Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin

• Coolidge believed in limited government that let business do its own thing

1924 Election

Election of 1928

• Herbert Hoover ran for the Republicans

• Alfred E. Smith (Catholic and against Prohibition) ran for the Democrats

• Republicans boasted of “Coolidge prosperity”

• Hoover won in a landslide• Won several southern states

Election of 1928

Jazz Age

• The youth of the 1920s expressed their rebellion against their elders by embracing jazz

• Brought north by African-Americans

• Symbol of the “new” and “modern” culture of the cities

• Phonographs and radios helped spread music

Consumerism

• Electricity in homes = refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines

• Automobiles: replaced RRs as promoter of other industries, such as steel, rubber and glass

• Cars also = new freedoms and new problems (traffic jams and accidents)

• Advertising• Stores sell new appliances• Chain stores

1920s Advertisements

1920s Advertisements

Popular Heroes

• During the 1920s, Americans shifted from seeing politicians as role models to the new larger-than-life personalities of celebrities (sport and cinema)

• Jack Dempsey: boxer• Babe Ruth: baseball• Gertrude Ederle: swimming• Jim Thorpe: football• Bobby Jones: golf• Charles Lindbergh: flying

nonstop from NY to Paris

Gender Roles

• 19th Amendment passed in 1920 gives women the vote

• Tended to have same views as husbands

• Still regulated to traditional roles, although technology eases work load

• Some women worked as nurses, clerks and teachers and for lower pay than men

• However new ideas and fashions contributed to change

Revolution in Morals

• Margaret Sanger advocated birth control (still taboo but growing acceptance)

• The flapper look• Shorter dresses (hemmed at

knee, not the ankle)• Shocked elders• “bobbing” (cutting short) their

hair, drinking and smoking• But when women got married,

they were expected to give up the flapper image

• Divorces increased

Harlem Renaissance

• By 1930, 20% of African-Ams. Lived in the North

• Widespread discrimination• Harlem, NY became famous

for its concentration of actors, artists, musicians, and writers

• Langston Hughes – poet• Duke Ellington and Louis

Armstrong – musicians• Bessie Smith- singer

Langston Hughes• “I, Too, Sing America”

I, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.Tomorrow,I’ll sit at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody’ll dareSay to me,“Eat in the kitchen,”Then.Besides,They’ll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed—I, too, am America. 

• — Langston Hughes, 1926

Marcus Garvey

• Jamaican immigrant who advocated individual and racial pride

• Black nationalism• Established an organization of

black separatism, economic self-sufficiency, and back to Africa movement

• Later tried and convicted and jailed in fraud charges

• Deported back to Jamaica• Inspired black nationalism

Culture Conflict

Darrow and Bryan • Scopes Trial• Religious fundamentalism

(South) vs. modernists (northern cities)

• Teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution outlawed in several southern states

• John Scopes challenges in Tennessee

• Clarence Darrow defends Scopes, William Jennings Bryan prosecutes

• Scopes found guilty, later overturned

Prohibition

• 18th Amendment – 1919• “Noble experiment”• Prohibited sale and

manufacture of alcoholic beverages

• Many people defied the law• Speakeasies, bootleggers and

corruption• Organized crime grew: Al

Capone in Chicago• Arguments grew as to whether

crime decreased• 21stAmendment - repeals-1933

Prohibition

• After Repeal - 1933

Nativism and Quota Laws

• Over a million foreigners entered the U.S. between 1919 and 1921

• Mostly Catholic and Jewish

• Prejudices aroused

• Isolationists see them as radicals

• Congress passed two laws limiting immigration – quotas

• 1921 and 1924 Quota Acts

• Immigrants from Asia and SE Europe restricted, not those from Canada and Latin America

Sacco and Vanzetti Ku Klux Klan

• Two Italian immigrants put on trial for robbery/murder in1921

• Liberals vs. conservatives• Sacco and Vanzetti executed

in 1927• KKK grows stronger – against

blacks, communists, Catholics, Jews and foreigners

• The “new” Klan developed some political influence in the South and Midwest