To understand such issues as Prohibition, the changing role of women, and the influence of the Harlem Renaissance

Section 1: Changing Ways of Life

Journal  What differences exist today between urban and rural lifestyles?

Rural and Urban Differences  – 2 million people left the farm for the city every year  Big cities: New York City (5.6 million), Chicago (3 million), Philadelphia (2 million)

Rural and Urban Differences  Cities  Competition  Change  More reading  Discussions about science and social ideas  Various backgrounds  Drinking, causal dating, gambling  Farms  Slow paced  Lived close to family and friends  Strict morals

Prohibition  18 th Amendment – manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol is illegal  Rural South and West, Protestants, Women’s Christian Temperance Union  After WWI Americans were tired of making sacrifices  Volstead Act established a Prohibition Bureau to enforce the law -> underfunded -> difficult to monitor all the roads and coastline

Speakeasies Underground/hidden saloons

Bootleggers  People who smuggled alcohol into the U.S.

Organized Crime  Chicago’s Al Capone was in control of 10,000 speakeasies  $60 million a year  1933 – 21 st Amendment repeals Prohibition

Video Clips  capone/videos#st-valentines-day-massacre capone/videos#st-valentines-day-massacre  The Untouchables

Journal  Should America continue to promote fascination with Capone through museums, memorabilia, and tours of gangland sites?

Science and Religion Clash  Fundamentalism – Protestant movement based on a literal interpretation of the Bible  All stories in the Bible are true  Reject theory of evolution = Charles Darwin’s theory that plant and animal species have changed over millions of years  Evolution from apes vs. Bible creationism Wanted laws to prohibit the teaching of evolution

The Scopes Trial  March 1925 Tennessee passes law outlawing the teaching of evolution  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) defends John T. Scopes, a young biology public school teacher who tells students humans have evolved  Clarence Darrow defends Scopes  William Jennings Bryan prosecutes  Scopes is found guilty and law stays in effect

Now and Then  1999 – Kansas State School Board votes to eliminate the teaching of evolution  Supreme Court says evolution must only be taught as scientific fact + creationism may not be taught as scientific fact (in public schools)

Assignment  1. Issue -> Legislation -> Outcome  Issue = prohibition (illegal to sell or manufacture)  Issue = teaching evolution  2. Explain how urbanization created a new way of life that often clashed with the values of traditional rural society.  3. Describe the controversy over the role of science and religion in American education and society in the 1920s.

Section 2: The Twenties Woman

Young Women Change the Rules  A rebellious, pleasure-loving atmosphere of the 1920s  Many young woman began to show their desire for independence  19 th Amendment – women suffrage  Challenge tradition  Flapper = a free young woman who embraced the new fashions and current urban attitudes  Shorter dresses, smoked cigarettes, talked about sex, danced  Marriage = equal partnership with women taking care of the house

Dancing  Fox trot, camel walk, tango, Charleston, shimmy, dance marathon,  Shimmy video clip

Journal  How were flappers like and unlike women of today?  How do your fashions and leisure activities set you apart from your parent’s generation or an older generation?

Young Woman Change the Rules  The flapper was more of an image of rebellious young women  Many young women were still influenced by tradition and their church  Causal dating after WWI became more accepted  The Double Standard = a set of principles granting greater sexual freedom to men than to women  Stricter standards for women

Women Shed Old Roles at Home and at Work  How were women freed from some household chores?

Women Shed Old Roles at Home and at Work  Big business and industry produced time saving appliances and business growth also created jobs for millions of women

Women Shed Old Roles at Home and at Work  Women worked successfully during the war but were replaced by men when it ended  They took “women’s professions” = teachers, nurses, librarians  Big business needed typists, clerics, filing, assembly line workers  Few became managers  Earned less than men  Men felt women should stay at home (job competition)

The Changing Family  Birthrate declined  Margaret Sanger opens birth control clinic (1916)  Women had more time for children and reading  Marriages were based more on romance  Children were in school and participating in more activities  More social time, peer pressure, rebellious children

Assignment  1. How do you think women’s lives changed most dramatically in the 1920s?  Think about families and jobs.  2. Do you think that some women of this decade made real progress towards equality?  Think about double standard, the flapper’s style and image, changing views of marriage