1. Chapter 13: The Roaring Life of the 1920s

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

3. Section 1: Changing Ways of Life

4. Journal
What differences exist today between urban (city) and rural lifestyles?

5. 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)

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

7. Prohibition
18th 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

8. Speakeasies
Underground/hidden saloons

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

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

11. Central Question
Why was the 18th Amendment passed?

12. Discussion
1. What problems did people see in society at the turn of the century?
2. Why did they think Prohibition would solve these problems?
3. What strategies/evidence did temperance advocates use to convince people to support Prohibition?

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

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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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)

18. 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.

19. Section 2: The Twenties Woman

20. Young Women Change the Rules
A rebellious, pleasure-loving
atmosphere of the 1920s
Many young woman began to show
their desire for independence
19th 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

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

22. 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?

23. 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

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

25. 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

26. 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)

27. 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

28. 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

29. Section 3: Education and Popular Culture

30. Schools and the Mass Media Shape Culture
1914 = 1 million American students in high school -> college-bound
1926 = 4 million -> college-bound and vocational training
Before WWI – a million immigrants a year come to America

31. Expanding News Coverage
Literacy increased
Newspapers printed sensational stories

32. Radio By 1930 – 40 percent of American households had radios
News and sporting events

33. America Chases New Heroes
More money + more leisure time = money for entertainment

34. Sports Heroes

35. Charles Lindberg
First non-stop solo flight
across the Atlantic

36. Entertainment and the Arts
“Talkies” doubled the movie attendance
The Jazz Singer 1927
Disney’s Steamboat Willie 1928
Video clip
Georgia O’Keeffe

37. Writers of the 1920s Sinclair Lewis F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
“Jazz Age”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Ernest Hemmingway
The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms
Many denounced war
Addressed political and social topics
Negative side of the freedom of the 1920s

38. Section 4: The Harlem Renaissance
African American ideas, politics, art, literature, and music flourished in Harlem and other black neighborhoods

39. African American Voices in the 1920s
Great Migration – African Americans from the South migrate to northern cities
25 urban race riots in 1919
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leads protests in NYC against racial violence
Led by W.E.B. Dubois
James Weldon Johnson fights for anti-lynching laws

40. Marcus Garvey
Even with the NAACP, many African Americans faced daily threats and discrimination
Marcus Garvey, Jamaican immigrant, believed African Americans should build a separate society
Spreads a radical message of black pride
1914 – Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

41. Marcus Garvey
1918 – moves the UNIA to NYC and opens offices in Harlem

42. Marcus Garvey Promotes African American businesses
Encouraged his followers to return to Africa, help native people throw out white colonial oppressors, and build a mighty nation
Massive support initially from blacks in the U.S., Caribbean, and Africa
Support declined in the mid 1920s when he was convicted of mail fraud
Powerful legacy of black pride, economic independence, and admiration for Africa

43. Questions 1. Who was Marcus Garvey?
2. What were the strengths of his movement?
3. What happened to Garvey and the UNIA?
4. What questions do you have about Garvey and the UNIA?

44. Documents Source Contextualize
When was it written? Whose perspective? Is it trustworthy?
Contextualize
What was happening for African Americans in 1919/1920? Why was Garvey so popular?

45. Guiding Question
Why was Marcus Garvey a controversial figure?

46. The Harlem Renaissance
A literary and artistic movement celebrating African American culture
Harlem was the capital of black America in the 1920s

47. African American Writers
Resist prejudice/discrimination
The struggle of living in the black ghetto
Take pride in surviving slavery through creativity

48. African American Performers
Paul Robeson performed
In front of large white audiences
in NYC

49. African Americans and Jazz
Jazz was born in the early 20th century in New Orleans -> musicians blended instrumental ragtime with vocal blues
Spread to large cities
Most popular music for dancing
Played at exotic nightclubs like the Cotton Club
watch?v=DKwu165KS5Y

50. The Cotton Club 1. Describe the atmosphere of the Cotton Club.
2. Who owned the club?
3. Where was it located?
4. What did people do at the Cotton Club?
5. Describe how black and white people interacted there.