The Roaring 1920s AKA the “Jazz Age”
Rise of the Modern Corporation Big Business GE / Du Pont / GM/ Sears Roebuck Frederick Taylor – scientific management Rise of advertisement
Technology Electricity Edison and Westinghouse Automobiles Henry Ford – assembly line/Detroit Model T – middle class car Suburbs, freedom, promiscuity 1st time- Amer. Live in urban areas Skyscrapers - Empire State Building
America: The Story of US
Tech Continued Communications - Telephones - Radio - connected the whole country - Movies - The Jazz Singer – 1st “talkie”
Great Train Robbery (1903) - Example of a Silent Movie
Red Scare Fear of socialism in the US Russia communism in eastern Eur. Rise of Socialist Party Eugene Debs – 1 million votes in 1920 Labor unrest Boston Police Strike – 1919 General strike in Seattle Steel strike – US and Bethlehem Steel
Palmer Raids A. Mitchell Palmer – US Att. Gen 1919-bombed home prominent figures in US Anarchists/socialists suspected Palmer instituted raids on “Reds” 5,000 arrested; 600 deported
Nativism Opposition to anything foreign Examples Un-American Xenophobia Examples Sacco-Vanzetti Case Immigration laws passed Emergence of patriot groups American Legion Daughters of the American Revolution
AA in 1920s Great Migration Race Riots 1915-1920 – AA went to northern cities JOBS, less discrimination than south Race Riots Chicago – 1919 Several dozen deaths; hundreds injured Knoxville, Omaha, Tulsa
Marcus Garvey Jamaican - NYC “self-help” – African people reclaim homelands from Europeans Universal Negro Improvement Assoc. Newspaper – Negro World Black Cross Nurses, AA groceries Black Star Line – steamships Went bankrupt; imprisoned for mail fraud deported
Immigration Laws 1882 – no criminals, paupers, insane 1917 – literacy test 1921 – Immigration Act of 1921 to 3% of # of each nat. present in US in 1910 1924 – Imm. Act of 1924 2% of # of each nat. present in US 1890 1927 – Nat. Origins Act – overall limit of Eur. Imm. a year to 150,000
Ku Klux Klan The Birth of a Nation (1915) – DW Griffith Against: Non-whites/foreigners/Cath./Jews Spread to urban areas – Detroit, Atl, Chi Declined after 1924
Fundamentalism Believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible Scopes Trial – Darrow v. Bryan Evolution v. Creationism
Prohibition Volstead Act – 1919 – banned the brewing/ selling of alcohol 18th Amendment – prohibition Patriotic fervor – German breweries Drinking = foreigners Speakeasies, bathtub gin, cocktails Bootlegging
Women in the 1920s Flapper – short skirt, bobbed hair, sexual freedom, cigarettes, booze New jobs Secretaries, clerks, telephone operator Disappointing #s at the polls
Harlem Renaissance AA writers, artists, intellectuals in NYC used black vernacular JAZZ How to be both black and intellectual?
Lost Generation White writers that fled to Europe Paris Felt alienated by US materialism, conformity, prejudice Disillusioned by WWI