1. Social Changes in the “Jazz Age”

2. The Flowering of the Arts Harlem Renaissance ■The Harlem Renaissance reflected the explosion of black culture & the “New Negro”: –Jazz & Blues expressed the social realities of blacks; Louis Armstrong became very popular –Langston Hughes’ poetry, novels, & plays promoted equality, condemned racism, & celebrated black culture

3. “You could be black & proud, politically assertive & economically independent, creative & disciplined—or so it seemed” Josephine Baker, internationally renowned singer/dancer

4. The Flapper

5. The Flowering of the Arts ■The 1920s gave rise to a new class of intellectuals who condemned the new American industrial society & materialism: –Pessimistic Literature –Pessimistic Literature: TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, Sinclair Lewis, F Scott Fitzgerald, Hemmingway –Playwrights –Playwrights: Eugene O’Neill –Music –Music: Gershwin & Copland “The Waste Land” focused on a sterile U.S. society Poetry discussed a “botched wasteland” “Main Street”–narrow-minded small towns “Great Gatsby”—human emptiness Romantic individualism & violence Plays of tragic pipedreams

6. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed for armed robbery & murder without evidence The judge in the case even referred to Sacco & Vanzetti as “those anarchist bastards”

7. The Fundamentalist Challenge ■The most long-lasting reaction of rural America was a retreat to Christian beliefs –Aggressive fundamentalist churches provided a haven for rural American values Scopes “Monkey Trial” –The Scopes “Monkey Trial” revealed the rural attack on evolution in schools Pentecostals, Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses all grew in membership

8. Scopes Monkey Trial Attorney Clarence Darrow represents the defendant, high school biology teacher John Scopes, in what became known as the Monkey Trial. Legendary defense lawyer Clarence Darrow faces off against William Jennings Bryan in the Dayton, Tennessee trial of schoolteacher John Scopes. Bryan died in Dayton five days after the trial ended.

9. The Ku Klux Klan ■The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 (Stone Mtn, GA) was aimed at blacks, immigrants, Jews, Catholics, & prostitutes ■The “Invisible Empire” sought to ease rural anxieties in the face of changing cultural attitudes ■Used violence, kidnapping, murder, & politics to affect change

10. The KKK provided a sense of identity to its members: “Women’s Order, Junior Order for boys, Tri-K Klub for girls, Krusaders for assimilated immigrants Klan violence met resistance & membership declined by 1925

11. ■Marcus Garvey was the preeminent civil rights activist of the 1920s ■Oppression in the U.S. necessitated strict segregation & black nationalism ■He formed the United Negro Improvement Assoc & advocated a return to Africa Marcus Garvey “The most dangerous enemy of the Negro race” —W.E.B. DuBois

12. City Life in the Jazz Age ■The 1920 census revealed for the 1 st time that more Americans lived in cities than the countryside The New York City skyline in 1930: Skyscrapers gave cities a unique architectural style The shift in focus from the countryside revealed that urban life was different; traditional ties of home, church, schools were absent

13. The Rural Counterattack ■Rural Americans identified cities with saloons, whorehouses, communist cells, & immorality ■The 1920s saw an attempt to restore a “Protestant” culture in America & an attack on any “un-American” behavior like drinking, illiteracy, & immigration

14. Prohibition Volstead Act ■In Jan 1920, Congress passed the Volstead Act to enforce the 18 th Amendment (1917) ■26 states had already banned alcohol but the real conflict came when prohibition was applied to urban ethnic groups ■Rural America became dry & urban consumption dropped but was severely resisted A rural, Protestant attack on the “social disease of drunkenness”

15. Per capita consumption of alcohol (1910-1929)

17. The Fear of Radicalism ■The most dramatic rural reaction was the Red Scare (1919-1920): –A general workers strike in Seattle, police strike in Boston, & series of mail bombs led to fears of anarchy & socialism –Deportation without due process, searches without warrants, & imprisonment of innocent people was initially backed by the American people Including the bombing of Attorney General Palmer’s house in 1919

18. Palmer’s “Soviet Ark” “Stand them up before the firing squad and save space on our ships” “Place the Bolsheviks on ships of stone with sails of lead” The solution is simple: “S.O.S.—ship or shoot”

19. Dealing with War Debt/The Dawes Plan Dire economic conditions in Germany led to default on the reparation payments and the imposition of a moratorium by the creditor nations, which hoped that a temporary cessation of payments would allow the German economy to recover so that payments could be resumed. France decided not to wait for the moratorium to expire and in January 1923, occupied the vital German industrial region in the Ruhr Valley in hope of extracting payment from what they regarded to be a reluctant debtor. An international committee was formed with two representatives each from Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and the United States. The American delegates were financier Charles G. Dawes, who headed the effort, and financier Owen D. Young. A report was issued in April 1924 that called for the following: -A series of financial reforms was to be implemented in Germany, including the backing of the mark with gold reserves as a means to stabilize the currency; -a variety of new taxes was to be introduced in Germany; -the reparation payment schedule was reworked to require annual installments that would increase from one billion gold marks due in 1924, to two and a half billion marks due four years later; -a massive series of loans was to be extended to Germany, many of them from the U.S.; -France agreed to evacuate its forces from the Ruhr.

20. Conclusions ■Urban America came to define all of the United States in the 1920s: –Radio, movies, advertising reflected urban culture –Consumer goods were made in American cities –Small-town whites, blacks, & immigrants moved to cities ■But, conservative rural Americans (religious fundamentalists & KKK) attacked these new, urban ideas