1. Essential Question:
How did the end of World War I change America in the 1920s?
Warm-Up Question:
How was America changed by World War I?
Socially?
Economically?
Politically?

2. The Roaring Twenties
Participation in WWI transformed the United States in the 1920s:
The USA was the richest & most developed country in the world
Mass production, high wages, new consumer goods & forms of entertainment labeled the decade the “Roaring Twenties”

3. What would a “return to normalcy” mean for America after WWI?
In 1920, Americans elected Republican Warren Harding who promised a “return to normalcy”
“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration…”
—President Warren Harding, 1920
What would a “return to normalcy” mean for America after WWI?

4. What does this image reveal about America in the 1920s?

5. Foreign Policy
In the 1920s, American foreign policy “returned to normal” by embracing isolationism:
The U.S. rejected the Treaty of Versailles & never joined the League of Nations
Many citizens felt the U.S. was “duped” into joining WWI & became committed to neutrality

6. Foreign Policy
However, U.S. isolationism was selective because the USA did play a role in world affairs:
The U.S. hosted a naval conference aimed to reduce the military strength of all nations
Loaned European nations billions of dollars to help rebuild after WWI
Joined other world powers in a commitment to world peace by signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact

7. What does this image & quote reveal about America in the 1920s
What does this image & quote reveal about America in the 1920s? “The chief business of the American people is business.” —President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

8. Pro-Business Policies
In the 1920s, three Republican presidents were elected (Harding, Coolidge, & Hoover) who helped America “return to normalcy” by adopting pro-business policies:
Kept taxes low so Americans could spend their wages
Kept gov’t interference in business to a minimum to allow private enterprise to flourish
The new president, Calvin Coolidge, fit into the pro-business spirit of the 1920s very well. It was he who said, “the chief business of the American people is business The man who builds a factory builds a temple—the man who works there worships there.” Both Coolidge and his Republican successor, Herbert Hoover, favored government policies that would keep taxes down and business profits up, and give businesses more available credit in order to expand. Their goal was to keep government interference in business to a minimum and to allow private enterprise to flourish. For most of the 1920s, this approach seemed to work. Coolidge’s administration continued to place high tariffs on foreign imports which helped American manufacturers. At the same time, wages were rising because of new technology, and so was productivity.

9. Pro-Business Policies
Pro-business policies meant no new progressive reforms:
Americans felt confident that reforms had limited the influence of monopolies, cleaned up cities, & regulated the economy
As workers wages rose & their hours declined, Americans were happy to spend their money

10. What do these images reveal about America in the 1920s?

11. The “Roaring Twenties”
Pro-business policies & mass production techniques developed during WWI led to an industrial revolution in consumer goods:
Industrial growth led to high wages for workers & cheap products for Americans to buy
The appetite for consumer goods & availability of cheap credit led to a decade of spending known as the “Roaring Twenties”

12. America entered an industrial revolution making consumer goods like cars & appliances
Henry Ford’s mass production techniques made automobiles affordable for many Americans

13. Consumer Appliances

14. Entertainment

15. What do these images reveal about America in the 1920s?

16. Urbanization
By 1920, more people lived in cities than in rural areas due to the industrial revolution, mass immigration, & jobs during WWI

17. Urbanization The dominance of urban America divided society:
Urban society was characterized by diversity, consumerism, freedom, & entertainment
Rural society was characterized by religious fundamentalism, nativism, & tradition
Throughout the 1920s, the values of these 2 societies clashed

18. America in the 1920s: Consumerism

19. Consumerism
The 1920s saw a burst of personal prosperity & consumer spending
Mass production led to a huge number of new products: Cars, electric appliances, new fashions
Advertising boomed to convince people to spend their money
Companies offered ways for consumers to buy on credit through monthly installment plans
Alongside the automobile, the telephone and electricity also became emblems of the consumer economy. By 1930, two-thirds of all American households had electricity, and half of American households had telephones. As more and more of America's homes received electricity, new appliances followed: refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and toasters quickly took hold. Advertisers claimed that "labor saving" appliances would ease the sheer physical drudgery of housework, but they did not shorten the average housewife's work week. Women had to do more because standards of cleanliness kept rising. Sheets had to be changed weekly; the house had to be vacuumed daily. In short, social pressure expanded household chores to keep pace with the new technology. Far from liberating women, appliances imposed new standards of cleanliness.

20. Consumer Goods, Advertising, & Credit

21. America in the 1920s: Harlem Renaissance

22. Harlem Renaissance
The Great Migration during WWI led to a concentration of African Americans in northern cities
The Harlem Renaissance was the flourishing of black culture:
Jazz blended African & European musical traditions into a distinctly “American” style of music
Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington were popular jazz musicians

23. The “Jazz Age”

24. Harlem Renaissance
The most popular author was Langston Hughes, who wrote poems & novels about black pride
Harlem represented the “New Negro”: the idea that African Americans should freely express themselves, embrace their culture, & strive for racial equality

26. America in the 1920s: The Changing Role of Women

27. Changing Role of Women Women’s roles changed in the 1920s
In 1920, the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote (But, many women did not vote)
New fashion trends, voting rights, & more leisure time led to an increased sense of freedom
Advertisers emphasized women’s sexuality & appearance

29. Changing Role of Women
Many young, unmarried women embraced their independence & sexuality as “flappers”:
Fashions like shorter hemlines, “bobbed” hair, & hats
Smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, danced at clubs, used makeup
Many had sex outside of marriage & used cars to “park” with boys
These behaviors were shocking to traditional-minded women

30. Flapper Fashion

31. America in the 1920s: Literature

32. Literature
The 1920s produced some of America’s most important literature
Authors F. Scott Fitzgerald & Sinclair Lewis were critical of 1920s consumerism & conformity
Some authors became part of a the “Lost Generation” who rejected war & were very critical of American society
Literature of the 1920s
The 1920s brought an outpouring of fresh and insightful writing, making it one of the richest eras in the country’s literary history.
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win a Nobel Prize in literature, was among the era’s most outspoken critics. In his novel Babbitt, Lewis used the main character of George F. Babbitt to ridicule Americans for their conformity and materialism.
It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who coined the term “Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s. In This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby, he revealed the negative side of the period’s gaiety and freedom, portraying wealthy and attractive people leading imperiled lives in gilded surroundings. In New York City, a brilliant group of writers routinely lunched together at the Algonquin Hotel’s “Round Table.” Among the best known of them was Dorothy Parker, a short story writer, poet, and essayist. Parker was famous for her wisecracking wit, expressed in such lines as “I was the toast of two continents—Greenland and Australia.”
Many writers also met important issues head on. In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton dramatized the clash between traditional and modern values that had undermined high society 50 years earlier. Willa Cather celebrated the simple, dignified lives of people such as the immigrant farmers of Nebraska in My Ántonia, while Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote poems celebrating youth and a life of independence and freedom from traditional constraints.
Some writers such as Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos were so soured by American culture that they chose to settle in Europe, mainly in Paris. Socializing in the city’s cafes, they formed a group that the writer Gertrude Stein called the “Lost Generation”. They joined other American writers already in Europe such as the poets Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, whose poem The Waste Land presented an agonized view of a society that seemed stripped of humanity.
Several writers saw action in World War I, and their early books denounced war. Dos Passos’s novel Three Soldiers attacked war as a machine designed to crush human freedom. Later, he turned to social and political themes, using modern techniques to capture the mood of city life and the losses that came with success. Ernest Hemingway, wounded in World War I, became the best-known expatriate author. In his novels The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, he criticized the glorification of war. He also introduced a tough, simplified style of writing that set a new literary standard, using sentences a Time reporter compared to “round stones polished by rain and wind.”

33. Significant Authors of the 1920s
T. S. Eliot
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald

34. America in the 1920s: Sports Mania

35. Sports Mania
New forms of entertainment emerged in the 1920s as Americans gained more leisure time & personal income
Baseball, boxing, & football were popular sports
Radio broadcasts brought sporting events to national audiences
Sports gave Americans a new generation of heroes

36. Sports Heroes of the 1920s
Boxer Jack Dempsey
Football star Red Grange
Gertrude
Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees was the biggest sports hero of the 1920s
Baseball was segregated; Satchel Paige & Josh Gibson were Negro League heroes

37. Sports Heroes of the 1920s
Football star Red Grange
Gertrudez
Heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey was so popular, his prize fights set financial & attendance records throughout the 1920s

38. Sports Heroes of the 1920s
Football star Red Grange
Gertrudez
Other sports heroes of the 1920s include: Red Grange, Gertrude Ederle, Bobby Jones

39. America in the 1920s: Movies & Radio

40. Popularity of Movies & Radio
Movies & radios became widely popular in the 1920s:
Over 500 stations connected the nation by broadcasting music, sports, as well as news, religious, comedic, & dramatic programming
“Talking” movies helped grow Hollywood & celebrity movie stars
By 1929, over 100 million people went to movies each week

41. Radio in the 1920s

42. Music of the 1920s
Tin Pan Alley produced 90% of the popular music in the 1920s, focusing on ragtime, dance music, & jazz
American Popular Music had arrived!
Within a year, Irving Berlin published "Alexander’s Ragtime Band," which mixed the popular beat of the day along with the legend of Ragtime. The song gave Tin Pan Alley its crowning achievement and Berlin his first million. The song also changed the way America listened to music, "Alexander’s Ragtime Band" has often been credited, in part, for the increase in the sales of radios and phonographs, both rather new to the buying public.
Soon the attention of Tin Pan Alley shifted from Ragtime to other popular topics such as dances (The Charleston, the Fox Trot) and other music forms (Blues, jazz).
Towards the end of World War I, Tin Pan Alley’s publishing companies moved closer to the Broadway and vaudeville districts. Once the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was formed, Tin Pan Alley became a mega force in popular music, producing over 90% of the commercial songs and inspiring the sales of millions of copies of both sheet music and 78 recordings.
Irving Berlin was the most popular of the ragtime composers of the 1920s

43. “The Jazz Singer” was the first “talking” picture
Movies in the 1920s
“The Jazz Singer” was the first “talking” picture

44. America in the 1920s: Improved Transportation

45. Improved Transportation
Automobiles transformed America:
Henry Ford’s assembly line made cars affordable; By 1929, 1 of 5 Americans owned a car
Car manufacturing became the biggest industry in the nation & stimulated the U.S. economy
New roads, gas stations, & shopping centers were built
Cars gave people freedom & became a symbol of status
Two automotive titans, Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan, symbolized the profound transformations that took place in American industry during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1913, the 50-year-old Ford had revolutionized American manufacturing by introducing the automated assembly line. By using conveyor belts to bring automobile parts to workers, he reduced the assembly time for a Ford car from 12 ½ hours in 1912 to just 1 ½ hours in Declining production costs allowed Ford to cut automobile prices--six times between 1921 and The cost of a new Ford was reduced to just $290. This amount was less than three months wages for an average American worker; it made cars affordable for the average family. To lower employee turnover and raise productivity, Ford introduced a minimum wage of $5 in twice what most workers earned--and shortened the workday from nine hours to eight hours. Twelve years later, Ford reduced his work week from six days to five days. Ford demonstrated the dynamic logic of mass production: that expanded production allows manufacturers to reduce costs, and therefore, increases the number of products sold; and that higher wages allow workers to buy more products.
Alfred Sloan, the president of General Motors from 1923 to 1941, built his company into the world's largest automaker, not by refining the production process, but by adopting new approaches to advertising and marketing. Sloan summed up his philosophy with these blunt words: "The primary object of the corporation was to make money, not just to make cars." Unlike Ford, a farmer's son who wanted to produce an inexpensive, functional vehicle with few frills (Ford said that his customers could have any color that they wanted as long as it was black), Sloan was convinced that Americans were willing to pay extra for luxury and prestige. He advertised his cars as symbols of wealth and status. In 1927, he introduced the yearly model change to convince motorists to trade in old models for newer ones with flashier styling. He also developed a series of automobile divisions, differentiated by status, price, and level of luxury. Hence, Chevrolets were less expensive than Buicks or Cadillacs. He set up the nation's first national consumer credit agency in 1919 to make his cars affordable. If Henry Ford demonstrated the efficacy of mass production, Sloan revealed the importance of merchandising in a modern consumer society.
Cars were the symbol of the new consumer society that emerged in the 1920s. In 1919, there were just 6.7 million cars on American roads. By 1929, there were more than 27 million cars--or nearly one car for every household in the United States. In that year, one American out of every five owned a car--compared to one out of every 37 English and one out of every 40 French car owners. Car manufacturers and banks encouraged the public to buy the car of their dreams on credit. Thus, the American love affair with the car began. In 1929, a quarter of all American families purchased a car. About 60 percent bought cars on credit, often paying interest rates of 30 percent or higher.
Cars revolutionized the American way of life. Enthusiasts claimed that the automobile promoted family togetherness through evening rides, picnics, and weekend excursions. Critics decried squabbles between parents and teenagers over use of the automobile and an apparent decline in church attendance resulting from Sunday outings. Worst of all, charged critics, automobiles gave young people freedom and privacy, serving as "portable bedrooms" that couples could take anywhere.
The automobile also transformed the American landscape, quickly obliterating all traces of the horse and buggy past. During the 1920s, the country doubled its system of roads and highways. The nation spent over $2 billion annually building and maintaining roads. By 1929, there were 852,000 miles of roads in the United States, compared to just 369,000 miles in The car also brought pollution, congestion, and nearly 30,000 traffic deaths a year.
The automobile industry provided an enormous stimulus for the national economy. By 1929, the industry produced 12.7 percent of all manufacturing output, and employed 1 out of every 12 workers. Automobiles, in turn, stimulated the growth of steel, glass, and rubber industries, along with the gasoline stations, motor lodges, camp grounds, and hot dog stands that dotted the nation's roadways.

46. The Automobile

47. The Automobile

48. Improved Transportation
Airplanes captured the attention of Americans in the 1920s
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the 1st trans- Atlantic solo flight, becoming the biggest celebrity of the 1920s

50. America in the 1920s: Dance