1. Despite the image, all was not well during the Twenties
1920s Issues/Problems
Despite the image, all was not well during the Twenties

2. Unit Objectives
To learn why America’s attitude toward immigration became negative
To learn the cause of Nativism
To learn what other issues faces 1920s society

3. Prohibition:
Era during which the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol was illegal (but NOT consumption)
Result of the Temperance Movement
18th Amendment (passed in 1919, took effect in 1920):
STARTED PROHIBITION
Volstead Act:
LAW PASSED BY CONGRESS TO ENACT PROHIBITION

4. Speakeasies:
SECRET ILLEGAL TAVERNS
Impossible to enforce/Rise of
organized crime (Al Capone)

5. Why did Prohibition not work?
-Unenforceable (no one followed it)
-It did more harm than good (led to the rise of
organized crime and bootlegging)
-Government corruption (officials and police
were often bribed)
-During the Depression, eliminating Prohibition
could provide needed jobs and tax income for
the government

6. 21st Amendment (1933):
ENDED PROHIBITION—ONLY AMENDMENT
THAT RESCINDS A PREVIOUS AMENDMENT

7. The Red Scare
FEAR OF COMMUNISM
Led by A. Mitchell Palmer

9. Discrimination (Nativism) against immigrants (seen as competition for jobs and dangerous due to political beliefs)
Led to immigration restrictions like the National Origins Quota Act of 1924 (limited the number of immigrants to 2% of that nation’s population already in the country in 1890

10. Sacco and Vanzetti (ID): TWO ITALIAN
ANARCHIST IMMIGRANTS WHO WERE
CHARGED WITH
ROBBERY AND
MURDER IN 1921
(TRIAL IN 1927) IN
SOUTH BRAINTREE,
MASSACHUSETTS

11. Return of the KKK:
EXPANDED TARGETS OF PERSECUTION
(CATHOLICS, JEWS, IMMIGRANTS, AND
OTHER “UNAMERICAN” GROUPS)
Black Migration north during and after war in search of factory jobs

12. Farmers
Farmers hit hard after WWI (production had increased to supply Allies during war and still high after war when production no longer needed)
Farmers never really experienced the “Roaring Twenties” and were the first hit by the Great Depression

13. Labor Problems Workers wanted higher wages, shorter hours
Led to many strikes (Boston Police Strike of 1919), most of which failed and made unions look bad
Led to racial tension as many whites returned from the war to find their jobs taken by African-Americans

14. 1920’s Presidents Warren G. Harding (1921-23)—Died in office:
Campaigned on a “Return to
Normalcy” platform—get life
back to normal (the public was
tired of war and Wilson’s moral
crusades)

15. Harding
Harding’s Administration was plagued by scandal; Though he himself was never linked to any of it, it may have caused his death (stress)
Ohio Gang:
GROUP OF CORRUPT POLITICIANS
BEHIND THE SCANDALS

16. Harding Scandals Salary Grab: Congress tried to double its own salary
Corruption in Veteran’s Bureau
Teapot Dome:
AMERICAN OIL RESERVES IN WYOMING
SECRETLY AND ILLEGALLY SOLD TO OIL
COMPANIES

17. Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), Nicknamed “Silent Cal”:
MAIN JOB—DAMAGE CONTROL
(RESTORE IMAGE OF THE
PRESIDENCY)

18. Coolidge
He believed in Supply-Side Economics (lower government spending and taxes to make more money available for private investment and expansion)

19. Hoover Herbert Hoover (1929-32); Great humanitarian:
IF HE HAD RUN EARLIER, MAY HAVE GONE
DOWN AS BEST EVER BUT
WAS BLAMED FOR
DEPRESSION

20. Hoover and the Depression
He raised taxes and created programs to provide services and jobs
He refused to give direct aid to people (welfare)

21. American Foreign Policy
Before and during WWI America was still struggling to find its identity and its foreign policy wavered between Isolationism and Interventionism
After WWI it became Isolationist because most Americans felt America had been dragged into a war that had nothing to do with the U.S.
Problem: The U.S. did not intervene when world problems developed, neither did the European powers, and that led to the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Japan and WWII