1. { Politics & Society of the Roaring Twenties The Era Between World War I & The Great Depression

2.  Ban on the buying and selling of alcohol  Main goals of Prohibition:  Eliminate drunkenness and the resulting abuse of family members and others  Get rid of saloons, where prostitution, gambling, and other forms of vice thrived  Prevent absenteeism and on-the-job accidents stemming from drunkenness  The government was trying to protect the American citizens  Was not met with much support  Volstead Act (1919): provided a system for enforcing the 18 th Amendment, but was still not supported or taken seriously Prohibition

3.  Bootlegger: supplier of illegal alcohol  Made it at home or smuggled it into the country  Speakeasies: bars that operated illegally; very popular in the city areas  Organized crime: supplying illegal liquor helped lead to the development of organized crime  Successful bootlegging organizations moved into other illegal activities  Gambling, prostitution, racketeering Prohibition Society

4. Evolution & The Scopes Trial  Theory of evolution was not widely accepted – it was believed to contradict the history of creation as stated in the Bible  John T. Scopes  Schoolteacher in Tennessee  Challenged the law against the teaching of evolution in 1925  arrested  William Jennings Bryan v. Clarence Darrow  Took place in Dayton, Tennessee  First trial ever broadcast over American radio

5. Scopes Trial cont.  The judge ruled that the jury should determine only whether Scopes had taught evolution  Scopes did not win the trial; he was fined $100  Bryan was considered a martyr, Darrow a defender

6.  Woodrow Wilson: 1913-1921  Warren G. Harding: 1921-1923  Calvin Coolidge: 1923-1929  Cut taxes  Very visible  Did not address worsening economic plight  Herbert Hoover: 1929-1933 Politics

7.  Many different presidencies  Problems of the country were ignored  Focus on moving on from World War I – not enough attention was paid to what needed to be fixed  Age of prosperity – people went into debt, too risky with their monies and livelihoods  No one thought anything bad would happen again How did this lead into the Great Depression?