1. The Roaring Twenties
Life was never so good

2. Let’s Recap the 1900s… World War I
Weakened Europe
Technology from war and others (Ford, suburbs, radio, home appliances, popular culture… “New Era”)
Commercial aviation travel, trains, medicine, telephones
Progressivism
Labor – standard of living up
Welfare capitalism – working conditions are up and there are benefits
Unions still weak, some not allowed (Ford)
Unemployment low
Nation’s manufacturing input way up!
Period of inflation just after war

3. Let’s Recap the 1900s… Industries try to prevent overproduction Women
Workers up – pink collar district
Immigration
Chinese down, Japanese up; Mexicans up, and movement from South to North is up
American Plan
Supreme Court – picketing illegal, injunctions against strikes
Farming
Hybrids, fertilizers, technology food surpluses, down in food prices, farmer’s wages down high tariffs suggested
Nation’s manufacturing input way up!
Whole system was based on fragile credit over speculation!

4. Culture
Consumerism – comfort appliances, cars, vacations, teenage independence
For the first time ever, Americans could afford to buy both what they wanted and what they needed
Finally starting to get higher wages and shorter workdays
CREDIT
Credit had been available before the 1920s, but now people have the confidence to go into debt (used to be seen as shameful)
Problem is, most are buying on installment plans…most buy on credit, faster than they’re getting paid going to lead to problems come October, 1929
Farmers
WWI – government urged farmers to produce more (to supply Europe) so they end up ALSO borrowing on credit in order to buy more land, but after the war, Europe can’t pay for American farm products

5. Culture Advertising Mafia
Consumer society produced a lot of new products…products people didn’t know they needed
Advertisers created ads that promoted how great this new, modern life: convenience, leisure, fun, success, etc.
Also preyed on American’s fears
“Keeping up with the Joneses”
Keeping up with this new, fast-paced world
Mafia
Make a killing on bootlegging
Volstead Act – enforces 18th Amendment, but not enough
High crime in Northeastern cities
Al Capone – empire worth 12 – 18 billion when he died
Gangsters kidnapped C. Lindbergh baby – enacted the Lindbergh Law which allowed the death penalty to certain cases of interstate abduction

6. Culture Harlem Renaissance
Black culture begins to infiltrate white culture, but only in North - Great Migration
Marcus Garvey – return to Africa
Langston Hughes, Zora Huston, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington…
Dancing at the Savoy Ballroom
NAACP – begin to be more successful - firing of racist judges
United Negro Improvement Association: created to promote unity and pride
NAACP got anti-lynching law passed
White recognition and acceptance

7. Mass Media
MASS MEDIA IS BORN IN THE 1920S – movies, radio, news seen in theaters, news papers, consumer magazines become main stream for wealthy *creates ‘culture’*
Film
The Jazz Singer (first talkie,) Birth of a Nation, “Hollywoodland”
Music – The Jazz Age
Cotton Club, Chicago, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday
Radio
NBC, Little Orphan Annie, The Shadow
Lost Generation – authors who write about youth lost in a sea of greed and no morality Fitzgerald, Stein, Hemingway
Farewell to Arms: war is meaningless
The Great Gatsby: money corrupts everyone
Heroes – Babe Ruth, Lucky Lindbergh, Jack Dempsey, Wright Brothers
Lindbergh first ever to fly across Atlantic – Spirit of St. Louis
Amelia Earhart first woman to solo flight across Pacific

8. Slang…
Applesauce - an expletive same as horsefeathers, As in "Ah applesauce!"
Bearcat - a hot-blooded or fiery girl
Gold Digger - A woman who associates with or marries a man for his wealth
Spifflicated - Drunk. The same as: canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified or fried to the hat
Butt me - I'll take a cigarette
Bimbo - a tough guy

9. Society Education Women College education up
“Self Made Men” theory is going away
Children identified with peers more so than with families and tradition
Women
More working – most married
Companionship marriages
19th Amendment, Alice Paul, ERA
Margaret Sanger – birth control league
Flappers – in the minority, although popular with the working classes
Maternity leave and child care

10. Society Religion Middle classes turn away from Church
Fundamentalism vs. Secularism
Scopes trial
Darrow vs. Bryan…yes, William Jennings Bryan
Found guilty of teaching evolution, BUT, Bryan admitted that religious dogma was interpreted in different ways
Tennessee is so ridiculed by the ruling that eventually that turns the tide and nation wide schools start adopting the theory of evolution into their curriculum

11. Society & Conflict Nativism Prohibition KKK of the 1920s
Along with targeting blacks, they also started targeting foreigners, Catholics, Jews, pacifists, Communists, internationalist, revolutionists, bootleggers, gamblers, adulterers, and even birth control
4 MILLION members in the 1920s (later will dissolve in the 1930s and 1940s)
Quota Act of 1921 – newcomers from Europe were restricted at any year to a quota, which was set at 3% of the people of their nationality who lived in the U.S. in 1910
National Origins Act 1924 – Asians banned
Prohibition
Noble experiment mafia, bootlegging because there’s no real government enforcement

12. Return to Normalcy

13. PRESIDENT WARREN G. HARDING

14. President Warren G. Harding
Harding assumes office in 1920
WWI has just ended and Americans want to go back to the way life used to be: “Return to Normalcy” or return to a normal life, before the war ISOLATIONIST
The Ohio Gang
TONS of corruption
Smoke, drank, played poker with President (Prohibition at this time)
Sold government jobs, pardons, protection from prosecution, etc.
The Teapot Dome Scandal
President dies before new of scandal breaks nation-wide

15. PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE

16. President “Silent Cal” Coolidge
Total opposite of President Harding and of the 1920s
Simple and frugal – not like the materialistic, booming 20s
Distances himself from Harding Administration
Philosophy on government?
Laissez Faire economics
Minimum regulation
Big business explodes! Also leads to over-production
REPUBLICANISM WILL BE BLAMED FOR THE GREAT DEPRESSION COME 1929!

17. President “Silent Cal” Coolidge
Push back against the “New Morality”
Fundamentalists – believe Bible is literally true and without error; morality comes from God not society and nature.
THE SCOPES TRIAL
In Tennessee it is illegal to teach evolution; ACLU advertised for any teacher who would be willing to be arrested and teach evolution in a high school (John T. Scopes in Dayton, TN.)
Clarence Darrow (rep. Scopes) vs. William Jennings Bryant (fundamentalists)
Trial lasts for 8 days and Scopes is found GUILTY (later overturned on a technicality)
Trial is broadcasted nation-wide and it actually HURTS the fundamentalists
Evolution in public schools? – Religion vs. Science

18. The Consumer Society
For the first time ever, Americans could afford to buy both what they wanted and what they needed
Finally starting to get higher wages and shorter workdays
CREDIT
Credit had been available before the 1920s, but now people have the confidence to go into debt (used to be seen as shameful)
Problem is, most are buying on installment plans…most buy on credit, faster than they’re getting paid going to lead to problems come October, 1929
Farmers
WWI – government urged farmers to produce more (to supply Europe) so they end up ALSO borrowing on credit in order to buy more land, but after the war, Europe can’t pay for American farm products

19. The Consumer Society Advertising
Consumer society produced a lot of new products…products people didn’t know they needed
Advertisers created ads that promoted how great this new, modern life: convenience, leisure, fun, success, etc.
Also preyed on American’s fears
“Keeping up with the Joneses”
Keeping up with this new, fast-paced world

20. Causes of the Great Depression
Non-diverse economy
Demand not keeping up with supply
Limited bank resources
OVERPRODUCTION in business and farming
Uneven distribution of wealth
European economy tied to ours – GLOBAL
Credit structure – loans, buying on credit
Loss of foreign economies and banks – loaning out for reparations from WWI/ tied into European economy
High tariffs in U.S. – foreign goods limited, creates weak structure in competition
Stock values double – people buy on margin
BUYING ON MARGIN???
9,000 Banks shut down – less money supply