How did new lifestyles and values emerge in the 1920s? 13.1 Changing Ways of Life How did new lifestyles and values emerge in the 1920s?

Rural and Urban Differences The 1920 census showed a change in America; for the first time, more Americans lived in large towns and cities than in small towns and farms Small-town values like conservative social standards, hard work, thriftiness, and close families were common, but as urbanization happened, those values shifted Two million people a year left their farms and small towns for cities

Continued City people were more open to new ideas and were more tolerant of drinking and gambling; life became more fast-paced One clash between small-town and city values led to an era known as Prohibition, which was the ban on alcoholic beverages set forth in the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920 Most of its support came from religious, rural, white Protestants

Prohibition Takes Effect The main reason Prohibition did not work was because the government did not have enough officers to support it, and people bought and made their own alcohol illegally In cities, even respectable middle-class people drank at speakeasies, which were hidden nightclubs and saloons that served liquor illegally

Continued People also bought liquor from bootleggers, or smugglers who brought it in from Canada or the Caribbean They created a chain of corruption by bribing police officers and judges Prohibition caused a general disrespect for the law, and caused a great deal of money to flow out of lawful businesses and into organized crime Underworld gangs took control of the illegal liquor business The most famous of these were headed by Al Capone out of Chicago, which was known for bloody gang killings

Science and Religion Clash During the 1920s, the nation saw the rise of Christian fundamentalism, which is the belief that everything written in the Bible was literally true Fundamentalists rejected the growing trust in science that most Americans had, and were against the faiths of other people They rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution, and didn’t want it taught in schools

Continued Fundamentalists gained political power during this time, and in 1925 Tennessee passed a law making it a crime to teach evolution John Scopes, a biology teacher there, openly taught evolution to challenge the law The ACLU hired Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer in the nation, to defend him in the Scopes Trial, which gained world-wide recognition because it had such huge implications in education, religion, and evolution

Results Even though the prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, admitted on the stand that the timing in the Bible was interpreted differently, Scopes was found guilty His conviction was later overturned, but the ban on teaching evolution remained a law in Tennessee