1. Do Now:
GRAB A DOCUMENT PACKET FROM MY DESK
In your notebook, make a list of some things that SCARE YOU!

2. Aim: Why did a Red Scare begin in the 1920’s and how did it affect America?

3. The BIG PICTURE in the USA Post- WWI
The end of World War I led America into a decade of wealth, prosperity, and social change known as the “Roaring Twenties.”
Mass production and new technologies led to an increase in consumer goods, urbanization, new forms of transportation such as the automobile and airplane, new forms of entertainment such as radios and “talking” movies, and an increase in standard of living for most citizens. African-Americans and women experienced new cultural opportunities. However, fears of such rapid social and cultural changes, especially changes in American cities, led to an anti-socialist “Red Scare,” a rise in nativism and new immigration restrictions, and a commitment to religious fundamentalism.

4. DEMOBILIZATION after WWI
DON’T COPY
WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS?
Business BOOM of wartime is now GONE
Economy = depression (10% unemployment)
1919: many STRIKES!
4 million American men left civilian life to fight – who’s jobs do they take?
African Americans/Mexicans who “migrated” north are out of luck!
Women leave jobs
European farm products back on the market = US farmers hurting

5. Red Scare – 1920’s
1920’s = “A return to normalcy”
Most Americans want to go back to neutrality, isolation, nativism
Is that possible?
Significant fear of world problems!
AVOID radical ideas
FEAR of anarchy, communism, socialism
The FIRST Red Scare begins!
Why do you think many people welcomed a President that promised a “return to normalcy” at the start of the 1920s?

6. How is it different from capitalism?
What is communism?
How is it different from capitalism?
the resources or the means of production lies with a private owner.
the government solely owns the resources or the means of production.

7. Initial CAUSES of the First Red Scare – 1920’s
The Bolshevik Revolution (Russia): will Russian immigrants overthrow the United States government??
END of World War I: production needs decline and unemployment rises…
Labor strikes!
Are radicals trying to spark a revolution with their strikes??
Lenin becomes dictator

8. In 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street, killing 38 people and fueling fears that communists threatened the nation’s security.
Don’t Copy!

9. According to Palmer, what is spreading like a fire?
“Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into schools, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, burning up the foundations of society. The whole purpose of communism appears to be a mass organization of the criminals of the world to overthrow the decencies of private life…to disrupt the present order of life.”
According to Palmer, what is spreading like a fire?

10. Describe the “Palmer Raids”? What resulted?
Mitchell Palmer
Conducted illegal searches for suspected communists and anarchists = PALMER RAIDS
VIDEO
1920: invaded homes, clubs, union halls, and coffee shops, rounding up nearly 5,000 people.

11. (Industrial Workers of the World – international labor union)

12. Quotas on Immigration Emergency Quota Act 1921
Set strict limits on immigration
National Origins Quota System 1924
Specifically targeted Southern and Eastern Europeans – mostly Catholics and Jews

13. Immigrant Arrivals 1921 1925 1928 TOTAL 138,000 10,000 14,000 299,000
Eastern Europe
138,000
10,000
14,000
Southern Europe
299,000
8,000
22,000
Asia
25,000
4,000
Mexico
31,000
33,000
40,000
TOTAL
805,000
294,000
280,000

14. Emma Goldman – outspoken Russian Jew and radical

15. According to Goldman, what is wrong with the Palmer Raids?
“I wish to register my protest against these proceedings, whose very spirit is nothing less than a revival of the ancient days of the Spanish Inquisition or Czarist Russia (when anyone who disagreed with the government was deported or killed). Today so-called aliens are deported. Tomorrow American citizens will be banished…The object of the deportations and of the anti-anarchist law is to stifle the voice of the people…That is the real and terrible menace of these proceedings. Their goal is to exile and banish every one who does not agree with the lies that our leaders of industry continue to spread."
Emma Goldman New York, October 27, 1919
According to Goldman, what is wrong with the Palmer Raids?

16. Backlash against immigrants
Nativism INCREASED =
Discrimination against immigrants
KKK is reestablished in 1915
Climate of terror – targeted immigrants, Jews, Catholics

17. The 1st KKK disbanded when Reconstruction ended in the 1870s, but the 2nd KKK formed in 1915 to protect rural, Christian values
VIDEO

18. What was the significance of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial?
Sacco and Vanzetti are Italian immigrants and anarchists
April 1920: factory paymaster and his guard are shot, $15,000 is stolen…
Witnesses say the criminals “looked Italian”
Sacco and Vanzetti are arrested without sufficient evidence
Sacco and Vanzetti Trial 1920 (MA)
Found guilty
1927 – both executed by electric chair

20. The Funeral Procession

21. Is there a solution?

22. Final Summary
How can you compare the effects of nativism in American society during the 1920’s to nativism in our society today? Explain.
Cite information from the notes today to strengthen your response.