1. CHAPTER 22 Cultural Conflict, Bubble, and Bust, 1919‒1932
James A. Henretta
Eric Hinderaker
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self
America’s History Eighth Edition America: A Concise History Sixth Edition
CHAPTER 22
Cultural Conflict, Bubble, and Bust,
1919‒1932
Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

2. 1. Describe this Life magazine cover from July 1926
1. Describe this Life magazine cover from July Who are the people depicted, and what are they doing? (Answer: Image presents a young woman—a flapper—front and center. She is between two men who are playing music, probably jazz.)
2. What is this image supposed to represent? What is the viewer supposed to understand about their values and priorities? (Answer: This image celebrates the modernism that was manifest in much of 1920s culture. The people in the drawing are young and enjoying jazz in a commercial setting. The flapper in the image symbolizes the independent “new woman” who rejected traditional femininity in favor of more revealing clothing, bobbed hair, and expressive sexuality. Presenting these images on a magazine cover that celebrates the Fourth of July also suggests that these new elements are quintessentially American.)

3. I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
A. Racial Strife 1. White Violence 2. Competition
I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
A. Racial Strife
1. White Violence – African Americans were determined to achieve citizenship rights after World War I; return of black war veterans and increase of black migrants to the North led to backlash by whites; lynchings in the South rose (48 in 1917, 78 in 1919); several black men were lynched in uniform; lynching in Rosewood, Florida, in 1921 led to black residents arming themselves, mobs of whites burned their houses and attacked black citizens with no intervention by police.
2. Competition – Large numbers of blacks, immigrants, and whites seeking work and housing increased tension in northern cities; deadly riots in East St. Louis (1917) and Chicago (1919); an alleged rape in Tulsa, Oklahoma, led to a white mob (aided by the National Guard) burning 35 blocks of Greenwood, Oklahoma, and killing several dozen blacks.

4. I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
B. Erosion of Labor Rights 1. National War Labor Board 2. Public employees 3. Welfare capitalism
I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
B. Erosion of Labor Rights
1. National War Labor Board – Increased workers’ expectations of what employers could do for them; postwar conditions changed, workers frustrated; during 1919 one in five U.S. workers went on strike; U.S. Steel hired Mexican and black workers to break strikes; new industries sought to hire nonunion employees.
2. Public employees – In 1919, Boston police force went on strike over the right to form a union; Governor Coolidge fired the entire force and was supported by the public and by antilabor Supreme Court rulings; union membership fell from 5.1 million (1920) to 3.6 million (1929).
3. Welfare capitalism – Henry Ford and some other employers took on some responsibility for employees’ well-being, providing health insurance, old-age pensions, athletic facilities, and paid vacations, hoping this would build a loyal workforce and head off labor unrest; these plans covered only 5 percent of industrial workforce.

5. I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
C. The Red Scare 1. Bolsheviks 2. Palmer raids 3. Sacco and Vanzetti
I. Conflicted Legacies of World War I
C. The Red Scare
1. Bolsheviks – Fear of Russian Bolsheviks grew in the United States, coinciding with the rising cost of living (up 80 percent between 1917 and 1919); some new immigrants were socialists; U.S. Communist Party was small (fewer than 70,000 people) but the Bolsheviks’ founding of the Third International (Comintern) in 1919 increased fears among Americans that they would seek a revolution in the United States.
2. Palmer raids – In April 1919, 34 mail bombs were sent to government officials; in June a bomb exploded outside the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer; Palmer established an antiradicalism division in the Justice Department (FBI) and named J. Edgar Hoover to direct it; in November, raids of radical organizations began; raids peaked in January 1920 with the arrest of 6,000 radicals; situation abated by summer.
3. Sacco and Vanzetti – In May 1920, Nicola Sacco (shoemaker) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (fish peddler) were arrested in Massachusetts for the murder of two men during a holdup; these self-proclaimed anarchists were convicted and sentenced to death despite lack of evidence and clear bias of prosecutor.

6. II. Politics in the 1920s
A. Women in Politics 1. Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act 2. Equal Rights Amendment 3. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
II. Politics in the 1920s
A. Women in Politics
1. Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act – Progressive women hoped voting rights would lead to passage of important legislation in the 1920s; this act provided federal money for medical clinics, prenatal education, and visiting nurses; first time Congress gave money directly to states to administer social welfare; critics claimed it would create socialized medicine, ended in late 1920s.
2. Equal Rights Amendment – In 1923, Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party persuaded congressional allies to consider an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution which stated: “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States;” opponents objected on the basis that it would threaten recently won protective legislation for women.
3. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – International peace organization created in 1919; Jane Addams was a founding member; protested imperialism and the negative repercussions of militarism; criticized during Red Scare.

7. II. Politics in the 1920s
B. Republicans and Business 1. Warren Harding 2. Calvin Coolidge
II. Politics in the 1920s
B. Republicans and Business
1. Warren Harding – Ohio senator who promised normalcy; won in a landslide over James Cox; appointed Herbert Hoover as secretary of commerce; died of a heart attack in August 1923; scandals revealed, included leasing of oil reserves to private companies (Teapot Dome scandal).
2. Calvin Coolidge – Wanted limited government, isolationism, and tax cuts for businesses; Republicans did not want to continue most progressive measures from the 1910s, did not enforce antitrust laws. 7

8. II. Politics in the 1920s
C. Dollar Diplomacy 1. Foreign affairs 2. On the defensive
II. Politics in the 1920s
C. Dollar Diplomacy
1. Foreign affairs – All three Republican presidents wanted private banks to make loans to foreigners, hoping to stimulate the U.S. economy by increasing demand for products; banks wanted government to ensure that loans would be paid back, even by unstable governments; banks gave loans with conditions such as oversight by bank commissions and military force by the United States; U.S. Marine occupation of Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Haiti began as part of forced repayment; Americans saw these lands as “possessions.”
2. On the defensive – Critics denounced loan guarantees and military intervention as dollar diplomacy; African Americans criticized American involvement in Haiti; WILPF visitors to Haiti in 1926 claimed that U.S. soldiers were exploiting Haitian women; calls for isolationism forced presidents to defend these foreign relationships.

9. II. Politics in the 1920s
D. Culture Wars 1. Prohibition 2. Evolution in the Schools
II. Politics in the 1920s
D. Culture Wars
1. Prohibition – Rural and native-born Protestants wanted prohibition, aided by calls that drinking German beer was “unpatriotic” during World War I; Eighteenth Amendment passed in 1917 and ratified by 1920; prohibited manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors.
2. Evolution in the Schools – State and local school boards in some areas wanted to mandate school curricula based on Biblical teachings; Tennessee took the lead on this by outlawing the teaching of any theory that did not hold Biblical teachings central to the existence of humans; American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) intervened in the case of John Scopes (high school biology teacher) who faced a jail sentence for teaching evolution; press called case “the monkey trial;” jury took eight minutes to find Scopes guilty, Tennessee Supreme Court later overturned. 9

10. II. Politics in the 1920s
D. Culture Wars (cont.) 3. Nativism 4. The National Klan 5. The Election 1928
II. Politics in the 1920s
D. Culture Wars (cont.)
3. Nativism – Fears about unrestricted immigration by native-born Protestants who believed them to be the cause of problems in United States; Catholics and Jews were targets of hostility; Coolidge: “America must be kept American;” arguments that immigrants undermined Christianity and imported anarchism and socialism; the National Origins Act (1924) used the 1890 census to determine how many people could enter from individual nations; further restricted immigration from Europe in 1929; immigrants from Western Hemisphere were unrestricted leading to increasing numbers of Latin American immigrants, including 1 million Mexicans; Great Depression led to cuts in immigration from Mexico; hostility towards Asians grew in California which passed a law making it illegal for noncitizens to own property.
4. The National Klan – Following Birth of a Nation (1915 film) the KKK grew, targeting Jews and Catholics; ran for political offices and won; more than 3 million members at height.
5. The Election of 1928 – Catholic Governor Al Smith (D-NY) ran against Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce; opponents: “No Governor can kiss the papal ring and get within gunshot of the White House;” Hoover won 58 percent of popular vote and 444 electoral votes. 10

14. III. Intellectual Modernism
A. Harlem in Vogue 1. Black Writers and Artists 1. Jazz 2. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA
III. Intellectual Modernism
A. Harlem in Vogue (Black population of New York tripled between 1910 and 1920; black artists and writers migrated to Harlem.)
1. Black Writers and Artists – Writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer published works that championed black pride; Zora Neale Hurston documented black folklore, songs, and religious beliefs that she incorporated into short stories and novels.
2. Jazz – Most visible piece of Harlem culture for most Americans; started in New Orleans before World War I; combination of blues, ragtime, and other musical forms; improvised solo made trumpeter Louis Armstrong a star; radio helped grow the nationwide popularity of jazz; 1920s saw advent of companies producing race records for black audiences, records for immigrant communities in native languages.
3. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA – Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) formed in 1920s in Harlem; Garvey: born in Jamaica, advocated black separatism, claimed to have 4 million followers; published Negro World and sought to create a steamship company to bring blacks back to Africa, Black Star Line; Garvey imprisoned for mail fraud and deported in 1925; symbol of emerging pan-Africanism: idea that people of African descent had a common destiny and should cooperate in political action.

15. 1. Describe this scene—who is pictured, and what are they doing
1. Describe this scene—who is pictured, and what are they doing? (Answer: Scene depicts people in a dance club, probably in New York or Chicago. All the people are African Americans: some are dancing, some playing music, some listening while they drink cocktails.)
2. How does this painting exemplify the Harlem Renaissance? (Answer: The painting is a good example of the work that urban black artists were making in the 1920s. It both documents and celebrates black culture—its music and its people—and promotes black pride. Like the work of Hurston and others, the painting articulates and celebrates what it meant to be “both a Negro and an American.”)
3. Based on this image, what can we learn about how the experiences of African Americans living in the North after World War I differed from those who remained in rural areas of the South? (Answer: The artist, Archibald Motley, was trained at the Art Institute of Chicago. The fact that he could acquire the training and create this painting demonstrates that some African Americans living in the North after World War I had access to opportunities that those living in rural areas of the South did not. The image also shows black people who have assimilated to white culture to some degree—they are wearing 1920s clothes and sporting the hairstyles of the era—but who are also participating in their own form of urban culture. The people in this painting occupy an economic status far above rural African Americans in the South as well.)

16. III. Intellectual Modernism
B. Critiquing American Life 1. The Lost Generation 2. The dark side
III. Intellectual Modernism
B. Critiquing American Life
1. The Lost Generation – Post-World War I voices proclaimed growing dissent: Gertrude Stein called those who survived the war the Lost Generation; John Dos Passos criticized the war in The Three Soldiers (1921), as did Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms (1929).
2. The dark side – Examinations of the dark side of human beings: Eugene O’Neill in Desire Under the Elms (1924) and The Emperor Jones (1920); Sinclair Lewis criticized conformity in Babbitt (1922); Lewis was first American to win Nobel Prize for literature in 1930; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) criticized the pursuit of pleasure and wealth.

17. IV. From Boom to Bust
A. The Postwar Economy 1. Corporate monopolies 2. Languishing industries
IV. From Boom to Bust
A. The Postwar Economy
1. Corporate monopolies – By the 1920s, corporations were the major form of business in the United States; a few major producers were at the top of most markets (oligopoly); mergers between banks made Wall Street the financial center of the United States; post-World War I inflation was followed by two years of recession with 10 percent unemployment; between 1922 and 1929, national per capita income rose.
2. Languishing industries – Despite boom, U.S. economy had weak agricultural sector due to falling prices; coal and textile industries languished for similar reasons; rural Americans did not benefit from prosperity.

18. IV. From Boom to Bust
B. Consumer Culture 1. The Automobile 2. Hollywood
IV. From Boom to Bust
B. Consumer Culture
1. The Automobile – Mass production led to Americans spending $2.58 billion on automobiles in 1929; other industries were stimulated: steel, petroleum, chemical, rubber, and glass; suburbs grew and new shopping centers were developed; hurt the railroad industry; changed the way people spent leisure time.
2. Hollywood – By 1910, moviemaking industry was growing in California on cheap land; young people followed the fashions of movie actors and actresses, including flapper Clara Bow; flappers represented social and sexual emancipation for women.

19. 1. Describe this photograph—what is the image captured by the photographer? (Answer: This is a beach in Jacksonville, Florida, in It is covered with parked cars that have carried people to the beach for the day. There are many people walking toward and on the beach on what looks to be a beautiful day.)
2. What does the photograph reveal about how the proliferation of automobiles might have changed the way people spent their time? (Answer: Photograph suggests that wider availability and affordability of cars caused people to spend their leisure time driving and heading toward destinations that might have been previously inaccessible to them. The sheer number of cars on this beach suggests that the visitors are not just wealthy people, but a variety of middle- and working-class people who have come to the beach for the day.)
3. What does the photograph suggest about how the United States was still in the midst of a transition to a society built around automobiles in 1923? (Answer: Large-scale ownership of cars was a relatively new phenomenon in the 1920s. In this photograph, cars are parked on the beach and there is no parking lot. Cars are parked semi-haphazardly, showing that conventions about parking in neat rows were still developing.)

21. IV. From Boom to Bust
C. The Coming of the Great Depression 1. Causes 2. Effects
IV. From Boom to Bust
C. The Coming of the Great Depression
1. Causes – Too much lending ($7 billion per year by 1927); drop in consumer spending as credit became more difficult to get; global economic problems; adherence to the gold standard, which the British and Germans had abandoned with some positive results in 1931.
2. Effects – During the first four years, industrial production fell 37 percent, construction fell 78 percent, and, by 1932, unemployment had reached 24 percent; Americans cut back dramatically and falling demand deepened the crisis; bank failures; desperate people turned to private charity for aid; couples delayed marriage; birthrate fell to a historic low; African Americans were affected more deeply than whites.