UNIT 2. The Twenties

Transcription

1 UNIT 2 The Twenties

2 ELECTION OF 1920 R Warren G. Harding/Calvin Coolidge Return to normalcy Huge majority of votes came from women D James Cox (Ohio)/FDR Easily defeated by Harding Socialist Eugene Debs

3 THE HARDING ADMINISTRATION Ohio gang Promoted Civil Rights AAs allowed in fed govt Supported anti-lynching bill Pardoned Debs Signed separate peace treaties w/ Germany, Austria, & Hungary Promoted Women s Rights

4 Harding Administration best known for its scandals 1. Charles Forbes headed Veterans Bureau Took $200 million from federal govt Served time for fraud/bribery 2. AG Harry Daugherty was tried for bribery, illegal sale of pardons & liquor permits To avoid conviction, refused to testify, but resigned even though Congress didn t find anything

5 3. Teapot Dome Scandal Sec of Interior, Albert Fall, accepted bribes (about $400,000) from oil companies in exchange for illegally leasing public oil lands to them Details leaked March, 1923 Congressional investigation Fall tried, convicted, fined $100,000, & sent to prison

6 Harding went on a speaking tour of the west Became ill and died in San Francisco (8/2/1923) Reputation plummeted after people learned about the Teapot Dome Scandal Calvin Coolidge Mostly kept Harding s policies Purged govt of crooks & thieves Devoted to the principles of laissez-faire Thrifty

7 ELECTION OF 1924 R Silent Cal Coolidge D John Davis Progressives Robert La Follette

8 RED SCARE 1919 & 1920 Targets were communists/sympathizers Communist parties had developed in US

9 1919 events intensified fears Thousands of strikes broke out Boston Police went on strike left Boston to rioters Dozens of bombs mailed to business & political leaders, no one was killed; No one caught Inflation & unemployment high 1919 AG A. Mitchell Palmer claimed US was in great danger Hired J. Edgar Hoover to head the newly created Bureau of Investigation

10 Hoover placed thousands of people/orgs under surveillance 1/1920 Palmer ordered raids in 33 cities Federal agents broke into homes & meeting halls; 6,000 people arrested Violations of civil liberties most arrested weren t radicals or communists Red Scare died out as strikes ended & Europe returned to normal peacetime activity

11 SACCO & VANZETTI 4/15/1920 Paymaster & guard killed during a robbery Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti Italian immigrants & admitted anarchists were arrested

12 Trial Evidence against them was contradictory Perjury by witnesses Police tampered w/ evidence The Judge was biased against them Convicted of murder & sentenced to death There was a significant political controversy Special Commission concluded that justice had been done Both men electrocuted on 8/23/1927

13 THE CONSUMER ECONOMY Started slowly b/c of post-war disorder & Red Scare Late 1922 recovery began Prosperity starts 1923 Key to prosperity was technology By 1929, a workforce slightly larger than 1919 workforce produced 2x as many goods Growth occurred in consumer goods industry

14 Automobile led parade of technological marvels Affordable for middle & some working class families New Model T cost $285 Henry Ford 2 key insights Get prices down to buying power Installed assembly line Pay workers top wages 1914 $5.00/day (Highest paid industrial workers in the world) Ford netted $25,000/day Ford became US second billionaire

15 More people lived in cities for first time in US history Skyscrapers began building upward because of sharp rise in land values Empire State completed 1930 US no longer feared big business b/c they believed big business had contributed to better living standards

16 Begins 1/1/1920 Prohibition Bureau Small budget & only few thousand agents (corrupt, inept, or both) PROHIBITION

17 Initially effective, but enforcement declined in cities Positives Bank savings increased, Absenteeism decreased, Less liquor consumed Smuggling & home manufacture of liquor increased Made beer, wine, bathtub gin, moonshine, & home brew (worst produced blindness, death) Illegal drinking big business w/ millions of customers Speakeasies and jazz

18 Violent gang wars between rivals seeking to control the illegal liquor market Scarface Al Capone ( ) Seized control of Chicago liquor trade Murdered over 500; $60 million/year Couldn t convict Capone of 1929 St. Valentine s Day Massacre (7 unarmed members of rival gang killed) 1931 Convicted of income tax evasion & served most of 11 year sentence

19 REACTIONARIES

20 1. Fundamentalists Prohibited the teaching of evolutionary/darwinian theory in public schools & colleges Tennessee passed anti-evolution law (John Scopes taught evolution) Scopes Trial 1925 Scientific theory v. religion Dayton, Tennessee; Media Monkey Trial Prosecution William Jennings Bryan Defense Clarence Darrow

21 Scopes lost & fined $100 Legislature had right to determine what was taught in public schools Darrow appealed Tennessee Supreme Court agreed w/ lower court, HOWEVER, overturned conviction on technicality Tennessee anti-evolution law remained Other states passed similar laws

22 2. KKK 1915 Formed by William J. Simmons Broader range of targets African Americans ALSO Immigrants, Catholics, Jews, Radicals, AND Anyone who violated moral order Appealed to North, the Mid-West, & Protestant church Mid-1920s Klan went into decline Scandals helped undermine its appeal

23 3. Nativists 1880s Urged an end to unrestricted immigration Labor leaders didn t like immigrants b/c they lowered wages, raised unemployment, refused to join unions, & worked as scabs Red Scare strengthened anti-immigrant movements More than 800,000 immigrants entered US 65% from Southern & Eastern Europe ( New immigrants)

24 1917 Literary Test Act was passed over Wilson s veto (literate in ANY language) 1924 National Origins Act Defined US immigration policy for next 40 years Designed to preserve racial & ethnic status quo Reduced NEW immigrants to trickle, Sizable # of OLD immigrants could enter, banned Asians

25 MINORITIES & FAMILY LIFE

26 African-Americans 1910 NAACP founded by W.E.B. Dubois Summer 1919 Red Summer Race Riots in North & South Some joined the nationalist movement led by Marcus Garvey Denounced all whites as corrupt & preached doctrine of black separatism Started back to Africa campaign & founded a steamship line to foster emigration

27 Steamship line went bankrupt & in 1925 Garvey was deported for mail fraud Attacked by W.E.B. Dubois Most dangerous enemy of the Negro race Movement disintegrated, but ideas tapped black grievances/aspirations (developed into the 1960s Black Power mvmt)

28 Women Lives easier b/c they had fewer children, vacuums, electric irons, sewing machines, electric stoves, canned food, machine-made clothes More women joined labor force in 1920s Women earned about ½ of what men did Female Jobs retail clerking & office typing Feminists Active in 1920s Concentrated on workplace (equal pay) Alice Paul introduced the ERA to Congress in 1923

29 Flappers Short skirts, bobbed hair, stockings rolled Premarital sex increased & became less scandalous Typical woman was not flapper, didn t work outside home, & could not afford new technology

30 Birthrates and family size drop sharply Average family= /7 family members /5 Birth Control became more widely accepted & more effective (Margaret Sanger) Divorce rate rose= divorce/8 marriages /7

31 Children spending more time in school, lengthening adolescence High School enrollment quadrupled /3 of all HS grads entered college Started to rebel against parent s authority Improved nutrition, health care, & easier lives caused life expectancy to increase from 54 to 60 (created old-age pensions)

32 LEISURE ACTIVITIES

33 Fads Mahjong, Crosswords, Bridge, Mini golf, Charleston/ Black Bottom Motion pictures became big business st film w/ sound produced Radio Brought people back to fireside Radio programs interrupted by commercials Opened up millions of homes to sports, politicians, music, Radio shows

34 Spectator sports College football, Auto racing, Boxing, Horse racing, Tennis, Major League Baseball Famous athletes 1927 Babe Ruth led Yankees to World Series victory Jack Dempsey Heavyweight champion (lost title to Gene Tunney) Harold Red Grange College Football William Big Bill Tilden (Tennis)

35 Greatest hero was Charles Lindbergh 5/7/1927 Flew solo, non-stop, across Atlantic New York to Paris in 33 ½ hours Monoplane Spirit of St. Louis 1932 Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, ransomed, & murdered 1932 Congress passed Lindbergh Law interstate abduction punishable by death

36 CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENTS

37 US literary intellectuals Many traumatized & disillusioned by WWI; Many young writers & artists fled US The Lost Generation F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby American innocence had been corrupted Ernest Hemingway Sun Also Rises WWI ambulance driver on Italian front; Seriously wounded by artillery shell Sinclair Lewis (1 st American to win Nobel Peace Prize)

38 Harlem Renaissance Largest black city in the world & a Cultural Mecca African-American newspapers, magazines, art, music, & theater companies flourished W.E.B. Dubois Dominant intellectual voice Langston Hughes Leading poet Harlem Renaissance also flourished in other cities

39 Jazz created by African-American musicians 1920s Jazz spread to the rest of US Records & Radios popularized jazz Jazz musicians Louis Armstrong Trumpet Other popular artists Songwriters Irving Berlin, Jerome Keen, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, & Fats Waller Painting Georgia O Keefe Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright

40 ELECTION OF 1928 Republican Herbert Hoover Born poor; orphaned at 9 Multi-millionaire mining engineer Hoover promised republican prosperity Democrat Alfred E. Smith (NY Gov) From immigrants, raised in Manhattan slum First Roman Catholic to run Republicans swept both houses of Congress