1. Chapter 23: The New Era

2. 1920s
The Era: A great divide existed with regard to developments in the economy, culture, and for women, African-American Americans, and immigrants

3. The New Economy Economic growth w/inequality, poverty Causes of boom:
WWI, technology,
radio & film, the
automobile; &
laissez faire gov.

4. New Economy--Corporations
Assembly line production
Taylorism: Scientific Management
Mass advertising
“Welfare capitalism” first developed by Henry Ford
The gov’t reduce corporate taxes, left monopolies alone, and raised tariffs (Fordney-McCumber 1922)

5. New Economy--Minorities
Women: pink collar jobs
African Americans:
The Great Migration;
Phillip Randolph formed
The Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters

6. New Economy--Labor American Plan/ “open shop”
Blacks often hired as “scabs”
What happened to union membership during 1920s?

7. New Economy--Agriculture
Wartime prosperity gave way to hard times
Overproduction
Proposed solution: parity (McNary-Haugen bill vetoed by Coolidge in 1928)

8. New Culture: Consumerism
-Buying goods for pleasure, often on installment
-Fueled by marketing on the radio & newspapers
-The automobile stimulated other industries & had a great impact on geography, youth, women
-Gas & electric appliances

9. New Culture: Mass Entertainment
More leisure time and disposable income
First talkie film The Jazz Singer in 1927
Radio was
inexpensive &
created a
common culture
Life, Readers
Digest, & The Saturday Evening Post

10. New Culture: Women
limited work opportunities; 25% of married women worked outside home
Divorce rate doubled; birth control introduced by Margaret Sanger

11. New Culture: Women
The flapper: they could drink, smoke, & dance publically; go on unchaperoned dates; wear short skirts and bobbed hair

12. New Culture: Women
Women’s rights: National Women’s Party, League of Women Voters; ERA proposed
Sheppard-Towner Act established prenatal healthcare programs

13. New Culture: Celebrities
Charles Lindbergh (pilot); Babe Ruth (baseball); movie stars; singers

14. New Culture: Writers The Lost Generation “debunkers”
Criticized materialism, conformity, fundamentalism
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, H.L. Mencken, Hemingway

15. New Culture: Harlem Renaissance
A flourishing black culture in Harlem
Poets, playwrights, musicians
Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith

16. Conflict of Cultures: Wets vs. Drys
Prohibition—18th amendment – lost support of Progressives; gained support of rural areas and Protestants
During 1920s, lacked enforcement and popular support
Speakeasies, bootleggers
Organized crime-
Al Capone
Repealed in 1933

17. Conflict of Cultures: Anti-Immigration
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
National Origins Act of 1924
Limited/banned immigrants into U.S. based on country of origin (particular discrimination against East Asians and Eastern Europeans)

18. Conflict of Cultures: Racism
Rise of the KKK in north and south
Lynchings increased
Defacto segregation in northern cities
White gangs attacked blacks
Race riots

19. Conflict of Cultures: Modernists vs. Fundamentalists
The Fundamentals believed in a literal interpretation of Bible
Billy Sunday
Aimee Simple
McPherson
Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 1927: ultimately, Scopes fined; Wm. Jennings Bryan (prosecutor) ridiculed