1. America during the “Jazz Age.”
The Roaring Twenties
America during the “Jazz Age.”

2. The Postwar Economic Downturn
1919-the U.S. economy suffered a serious downturn. National Income dropped there was high unemployment and laborers were unable to buy the new technology of the time.

3. African-Americans
African-Americans had undergone a Great Migration north during the war. The North was seen as the land of hope but the end of the war limited their employment opportunities.
369th Regiment, 1919, shows the African American fighting unit of World War I.(van der zee)

4. Competition for Jobs
Severe downsizing developed into class and racial tensions and burgeoning intolerance.
Workers Unions were met with violence, government arrested members of left-leaning political parties and instituted anti-immigration legislation
Groups like the KKK persecuted members of minority groups and the U.S. government jailed black leaders advocating black power, like Marcus Garvey.
Fundamentalists battled scientists over evolution
Government plagued with scandal and corruption.

5. Political Scandals
President Harding failed to diffuse the tensions that permeated postwar society
His Cabinet was corrupt
Attorney General Daugherty and other presidential favorites allowed political allies to break the law, accept bribes and graft.
Teapot Dome Scandal
A. Fall leased the Navy’s gas reserve to private interests

6. Teapot Dome

7. Labor Unrest
1919= 3,600 strikes protesting wage cuts and long hours with no overtime pay.
Most laborers faced rigid and violent opposition
Major strikes included United Mine workers and the Boston Police Strike among others.
Union Membership dropped

8. American Radicalism Labor linked to Anti-Communist Fears
Small portion of Radicals in the US did seek to destroy the existing political order and promote anarchy.
From 1919 to 1920 anarchists delivered a series of bombs to political officials’ homes and offices nationwide
1919-Attorney General’s A. Mitchell Palmers house was bombed leading Palmer to declare
“that organized crime directed against organized government in the country shall be stopped”

9. The Red Scare
The Government organized attacks on Radicals and foreigners
Attorney General Palmer mobilized officials to arrest communists, these were know as the Palmer raids

10. Anti-Immigration Laws
The National Origins Act set an Immigration quota of 2% of each nationality living in the U.S. in 1890.
Large decline in Immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Restrictive Legislation on Asian immigrants
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), worked to represent “the rights of both individuals and minorities [which were being] violated.”

11. The Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
Happened in 1920 and was the culmination of various postwar societal tensions.
The prosecutions case lacked sound evidence but neither man could secure a written alibi and both had loaded weapons when arrested.
Both were executed, in 1927.

12. Rising Intolerance Organized racial discrimination
Asians in California
African Americans in Midwest
Anti-Semitism in the business community
Mexicans in the Southwest
The new KKK-restarted in 1915, claimed to be patriotic, benevolent organization that supported education, morality, and charity opposed to
Catholics, blacks, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, Asians, drug dealers, “wild women,” the pope, F.D.R.
Conducted swift justice on people they believed deserved punishment
Began declining in 1925

13. From Intolerance to Violence
Racial Riots
St. Louis 1917
1919-Red Summer, over 20 Major Racial riots killed or injured hundreds of people
Lynching-dramatic illustrations of racist violence

14. Marcus Garvey and Black Pride
African Americans looked for new leaders in the movement who had alternative solutions
Millions turned to Marcus Garvey who promoted
Black Pride
Separatism
The Universal Negro Improvement Society (UNIA)
Sought to empower African Americans toward
Economic, religious, psychological, & cultural independence
Also promoted a separatist vision of African Americans returning to Africa.

15. Marcus Garvey and Other African American Leaders
Booker T. Washington
Famous for prioritizing black economic gains as a route to social equality. Differed with Garvey’s separatism
W.E.B. DuBois
Famous for pushing African American Political Influence
James Weldon Johnson
Led the NAACP, and fought for legislation to protect African American Rights and outlaw lynching.

16. The Science and Religion Debate
Science, Fundamentalism and Modernism
The Scopes Trial (AKA The Monkey Trial)
Famous People at the Trial
Clarence Darrow- Famous Defense Attorney
William Jennings Bryan-Prosecution Witness, former Presidential Candidate
John Scopes-science Teacher backed by the ACLU
The Case became a two-sided argument between science and religion