The 1920s was a decade of social and cultural change in the United States. Tensions arose between traditional and modern values as the nation grappled with issues like immigration, prohibition, religious fundamentalism, and racial unrest. At the same time, the economy and popular culture thrived with new innovations in art, literature, music, technology, and entertainment. The decade saw both conflict and prosperity as American society shifted in new directions.

1. Chapter 15
The 1920’s
• The 1920’s was an era of rapid change and
clashing values. Many Americans believed
society was losing its traditional values and
they took action to preserve these values.
Other Americans embraced new values
associated with a freer lifestyle and the
pursuit of individual goals.

2. The War’s Impact
• Racial Unrest: As hundreds of thousands of
white American soldiers from Europe returned
home looking for a job, clashes occurred with
the African Americans who had moved north
during the war to take those jobs. Frustration
and racism combined to produce violence. In
the summer of 1919, over 20 race riots broke
out across the nation.

3. Red Summer
• The worst violence occurred in Chicago. On a
hot July day, African Americans found
themselves at a White only beach.
• http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2011/10/12/r
ed-summer

4. The Red Scare
• Americans had become very anti-German as
the war progressed, and when the
Communists withdrew Russia from the
war, they seemed to be helping Germany.
American anger at Germany quickly expanded
into anger at Communists as well. Americans
began to associate communism with being
unpatriotic and disloyal.

5. Nativism Resurges
• The fear and prejudice many felt toward
Germans and Communists expanded to
include all immigrants. This triggered a
general rise in racism and in nativism, the
desire to protect the interests of old-stock
Americans against those of immigrants.

6. Why?
• Immigration returns
• Economic recession
• Racial and cultural tensions
• Fear and prejudice toward Germans and
Communists

7. The Sacco-Vanzetti Case

8. • Both Italian immigrants (anarchist)
• Convicted of murder during a robbery
• Evidence was insufficient, found guilty and
executed in 1927

9. Return of the KKK
• At the forefront to restrict immigration, the
new KKK targeted not only African
Americans, but also Catholics, Jews and other
groups believed to represent “un American”
values.
• By 1924 membership in the Klan
exploded, reaching nearly 4 million.

11. Controlling Immigration
• After WWI, American immigration policies
changed in response to the postwar recession
and nativist pleas to “Keep America American”.
• In 1921, President Harding signed the Emergency
Quota Act, which established a temporary quota
system.
• Only 3% on the total number of people in any
ethnic group already living in the US could be
admitted in a single year.
• http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/immigrati
on-us.html

12. The New Morality
• Some groups that wanted to restrict
immigration also wanted to preserve what
they considered to be traditional values. They
clashed with a new morality that glorified
youth and personal freedom.
• It became a clash of Old ideas vs. New ideas
• Old vs. Youth
• Country life vs. City life
• Old school vs. New school

13. Women in the 1920’s
• The Flapper—a modern women of the 20’s.
• Fashion took on a modern look during the
1920’s

14. Fashions

15. Flappers pursued
social freedoms by
entering the work
force as salesclerks,
secretaries and
phone operators as
well as making
contributions in
science, medicine,
law and literature.

16. Margaret Sanger
• She believed that the standard of
living could be improved if families
limited the number of children they
had and founded the American Birth
Control League in 1921—later this
organization became Planned
Parenthood.

17. New Dance Moves
• Rebelling against older, more formal dancing
styles, the Charleston became all the rave with
the younger generation.
• http://youtu.be/yNAOHtmy4j0

18. Thoroughly Modern Millie
• http://youtu.be/KVNcLUE87HQ

19. The Youth Culture

20. • http://local.aaca.org/bntc/slang/slang.htm

21. Fundamentalist Movement
• Millions of Americans feared that the country
was losing its traditional values. Many of these
people, especially those in small rural
towns, responded by joining a religious
movement know as Fundamentalism.

22. Fundamentalists Beliefs
• Bible was literally true and without error.
• They defended the ideas that human beings
derived their moral behavior from God
• They rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution
• They believed in creationism-the belief that
God created the world as described in the
Bible

23. The Scopes Trial
• A historic trial that pinned evolutionists and
creationists against each other.
• Main Characters:
• John T. Scopes—science teacher who taught
evolution
• William Jennings Bryan—prosecutor,
represented the creationists
• Clarence Darrow—most famous trial lawyer at
the time, defended Scopes

24. Inherit the Wind
• Film about the Scopes Trial
• http://youtu.be/S_DQUAuNUvw
• http://youtu.be/A6Gk5H3c5f8
• http://youtu.be/l5Kdc0LLSW8

25. Prohibition
• The 18th Amendment- making the
manufacturing, selling and distributing of
liquor illegal.
• Enforcing the new law proved to be very
difficult. Americans blatantly ignored the law.
Speakeasies, bootlegging and hip flasks
became part of common speech.

26. Organized Crime
• Organized crime specialized in supplying and
often ran the speakeasies. Crime became big
business and some gangsters had enough
money to corrupt local politicians. Al Capone
became the most notorious gangsters of the
era.

27. Chapter 15 Sec. 2
Cultural Innovations
• An era of exciting and innovative
cultural trends, the 1920’s
witnessed changes in art and
literature. This period also saw a
dramatic increase in the country’s
interest in sports and other forms
of popular culture.

28. Art and Literature
• John Marin

29. Edward Hopper

30. Poets and Writers
• Ernest Hemingway “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
• “ A Farewell to Arms”
• F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Great Gatsby”

31. Popular Culture
• The economic prosperity of the 1920’s provided
many Americans with more leisure time and
more spending money, which they devoted to
making their lives more enjoyable.
• Baseball and Boxing

32. Charles Lindbergh
• He flew the first transatlantic flight in his
plane called the Spirit of St. Louis and became
a national hero

33. The Harlem Renaissance
• After WWI, black populations swelled in large
northern cities—particularly in the New York
City neighborhood of Harlem. It was there
that African Americans created an
environment that stimulated artistic
development, racial pride, a sense of
community and political organization. The
result was a flowering of AA arts that became
known as the Harlem Renaissance.

34. Writers
• One of the most prolific, original, and versatile
writers of the Harlem Renaissance was
Langston Hughes. He became a leading voice
of the African American experience in the US.

35. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the
world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the
rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when
dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it
lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised
the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the
Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I've
seen its muddy bosom turn

36. Jazz, Blues and the Theater
• Jazz-a new style of music influenced by
Dixieland music and ragtime, with its ragged
rhythms and syncopated melodies.
• http://youtu.be/9idqeiACqn4
• http://youtu.be/E2VCwBzGdPM
• Duke Ellington
• Louis Armstrong

37. African American Politics
• The racial pride that sparked the artistic
achievements of the Harlem Renaissance also
fueled the political and economic aspirations
of many African Americans.
• A dynamic black leader from Jamaica, of
millions of African Marcus Garvey captured
the imagination Americas with his call for
“Negro Nationalism” which glorified the black
culture and traditions of the past.

38. Marcus Garvey

39. A Growing Economy in the 1920’s
• The US experienced stunning economic
growth during the 1920’s.
• The automobile was just one part of a rising
standard of living that Americans experienced
in the 1920’s.
• Henry Ford

40. Henry Ford & The Assembly Line
• The assembly line divided operations into
simple tasks that unskilled workers could do
and cut unnecessary motion to a minimum.
• He also cut the workweek for his employees
from six days to five and increased his workers
wages to $5 a day and reduced the work day
to an 8 hour day. He made his cars affordable
for those who built them.

41. “Return to Normalcy”
• This was Warren Harding’s campaign slogan.
• 2 presidents during the 1920’s:
• Warren Harding
• Calvin Coolidge