The Roaring 20’s “Brother can you spare a dime?”

The 1920's were a prosperous time known as the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, and the Age of Wonderful Nonsense.

Immigration & Nativism

Nativists used the idea of EUGENICS, the false science of improvement of GENETIC TRAITS, to give support to their arguments against immigration. Nativists stressed that Human inequalities were genetic & said that inferior people should not be allowed to BREED. This added to the anti-immigrant feeling of the time and further promoted the idea of strict immigrant control.

CONGRESS LIMITS IMMIGRATION The Emergency Quota Act of 1921, limited immigration to 3 percent of the total number of people in any ethnic group already living in the USA. Congress, in response to nativist pressure, decided to limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe

The ACT EXCUSED immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. (MEXICANS) The NATIONAL ORIGINS ACT of 1924 made immigrant restriction a permanent policy. The ACT EXCUSED immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. (MEXICANS) The immigration acts of 1921 & 1924 reduced the labor pool in the U.S. Employers needed laborers for farming, mining, & railroad work. MEXICAN immigrants began pouring into the USA between 1914 & the end of the 1920s. The ACT lowered the quotas to 2 percent of each national group living in the U.S. in 1890.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) led the movement to restrict immigration. The Klan not only targeted the African Americans but also Catholics, Jews, immigrants and other groups believed to have “UN-AMERICAN” values. By 1924, the KKK had over 4 million members and stretched beyond the South into Northern Cities – El Paso had a KKK. Scandals and poor leadership led to the decline of the KKK in the late 1920’s. Politicians supported by the Klan were voted out of office.

Nativism

religion Science A battleground during the 1920s was between fundamentalist religious groups and secular thinkers over the truths of science The Protestant movement grounded in the literal interpretation of the bible is known as fundamentalism Fundamentalists found all truth in the bible – including science & evolution

FUNDAMENTALISM: Feared the new ethics of the 20s FUNDAMENTALISM: Feared the new ethics of the 20s. Many of these people came from small rural (country) towns & joined this religious movement. Fundamentalists believed in CREATIONISM – that GOD created the world as described in the BIBLE. The Fundamentalists rejected DARWIN’S THEORY of EVOLUTION, which suggested that humans developed from lower forms of life over millions of years

American Civil Liberties UNION Scopes-Monkey Trial Scopes taught evolution and was arrested Trial opened on July 10,1925 and became a national sensation Clarence Darrow was hired by the ACLU to defend Scopes William Jennings Bryan was the special prosecutor Scopes did not deny teaching evolution Trial was really about evolution in schools American Civil Liberties UNION

Scopes-Monkey Trial

Mass production

MASS PRODUTION, or large-scale product manufacturing usually done by machinery, increased the supply of goods and decreased costs. The ASSEMBLY LINE, used by HENRY FORD increased manufacturing efficiency by dividing up operations into simple tasks. The MODEL T and Henry Ford increased workers’ wages and reduced the workday to gain workers’ loyalty and to undercut union organizers. Wages increased & work hours decreased during the new and improved standard of living of the 1920’s.

Domino Effect Other Industries grew because of the Car Tires…Rubber industry Gas…Oil industry Roads…labor needed Gas stations…labor

Life for others…

Farmers Farmers were going bankrupt because there was a surplus of crops after the war. There was more supply than demand. http://www.thehenryford.org/education/smartfun/modelt/whoare/photo1big.jpg http://www.harwoodheights.org/1920%20Farming%20Horton%20Farm.jpg

MOVING ON UP!!!

Blacks moved north to take advantage of booming wartime industries. Black ghettoes began to form

Prohibition In 1919, the 18th Amendment passed the Act of Prohibition, which made the making of, the transportation of, and the selling of alcohol illegal. The intent of the Amendment was to lower the crime rate and to improve the general way of life, but…

Speakeasies To be admitted a card or password had to be given To obtain alcohol illegally, people went underground to secret bars call speakeasies (people spoke easily or quietly about it) Speakeasies could be anywhere To be admitted a card or password had to be given

Organized crime Every major city had it’s gang Al Capone’s bootlegging business in Chicago made over $60 million a year Due to gang violence, only 19% of Americans supported Prohibition by 1925 Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment