1. TRANSITION TO MODERN AMERICA
America: Past and Present
Chapter 25

2. The Second Industrial Revolution
U.S. develops the highest standard of living in the world
The twenties and the second revolution
electricity replaces steam
modern assembly introduced

3. The Automobile Industry
Auto makers stimulate sales through model changes, advertising
Auto industry fosters other businesses
Autos encourage suburban sprawl

4. Patterns of Economic Growth
Structural change
professional managers replace individual entrepreneurs
corporations become the dominant business form
Big business weakens regionalism, brings uniformity to America

5. Glenwood Stove Ad

6. Economic Weaknesses Railroads poorly managed
Coal displaced by petroleum
Farmers face decline in exports, prices
Growing disparity between income of laborers, middle-class managers
Middle class speculates with idle money

7. City Life in the Jazz Age
Rapid increase in urban population
Skyscrapers symbolize the new mass culture
Communities of home, church, and school are absent in the cities

8. Women and the Family Ongoing crusade for equal rights
“Flappers” seek individual freedom
Most women remain in domestic sphere
Discovery of adolescence
teenaged children no longer need to work
indulge their craving for excitement

9. The Roaring Twenties
Decade notable for obsessive interest in celebrities
Sex becomes an all-consuming topic of interest in popular entertainment

10. The Flowering of the Arts
Alienation from 20s’ mass culture
"Exiled" American writers put U.S. in forefront of world literature
T.S. Eliot
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Harlem Renaissance--African Americans prominent in music, poetry

11. The Rural Counterattack
Rural Americans identify urban culture with Communism, crime, immorality
Progressives attempt to force reform on the American people
upsurge of bigotry
an era of repression

12. The Fear of Radicalism 1919-- “Red Scare”
illegal roundups of innocent people
forcible deportation of aliens
terrorism against “radicals,” immigrants
Sacco and Vanzetti executed

13. Prohibition 1918--18th Amendment ratified
1920--Volstead Act prohibits production, sale, or transport of alcoholic beverages
Consumption of alcohol reduced
Prohibition resented in urban areas
Bootlegging becomes big business
th amendment repealed

14. The Ku Klux Klan 1925--Klan membership hits 5 million
Attack on urban culture, inhabitants
Defense of traditional rural values
Klan seeks to win U.S. by persuasion
Violence, internal corruption result in Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930

15. Immigration Restriction
1924--Congress restricts all immigration
Preferential quotas to northern Europeans
Mexican immigrants exempt from quota

16. The Fundamentalist Challenge
Fundamentalism: stress on traditional Protestant orthodoxy, biblical literalism
1925--Scopes Trial discredits fundamentalism among intellectuals
“Modernists” gain mainline churches
Fundamentalists strengthen grassroots appeal in new churches

17. Politics of the 1920s Republican party apparently dominant
Urban wing of the Democratic party emerging as the most powerful force

18. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
Republican presidents appeal to traditional American values
Harding scandals break after his death
Coolidge represents America in his austerity and rectitude
Hoover represents the self-made man

19. Republican Policies Return to "normalcy" tariffs raised
corporate, income taxes cut
spending cut
Coolidge blocks Congressional aid to farmers as unwarranted interference
Government-business cooperation
Expansion of federal bureaucracy

20. The Divided Democrats 1924--Urban-rural split weakens Democrats
Major shift in political loyalties
Democrats gain more Congressional seats than Republicans after 1922

22. The Election of 1928 Democrat Al Smith carries urban vote
governor of New York
Roman Catholic
Republican Herbert Hoover wins race
Midwesterner
Protestant
Religion the campaign’s decisive issue

24. The Old and the New
Old historical view: the Depression ended the spirit of the twenties
New historical view: the twenties laid the foundations of modern America