The Twenties

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The Twenties

• I. A New Economic Era
• II. Cultural Change
• III. Culture Wars
• IV. The Economy Collapses

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Return to Laissez Faire
--Tax cuts --Limitations on Federal Trade
Commission --Court rulings against labor
--aid to farmers vetoed
Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge
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A Booming Economy

• GNP rises from 149 to 229 billion (5.5 average
  per year)
• Mass production and the assembly line
• Radios, appliances, entertainment
• Advertising budgets double
• (G.E. from 2 to 12 million)

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The Role of Advertising
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The Key Industry Automobiles
--number of cars from 8 to 27 million -- impact
on oil, steel, rubber, new industries
The Model T
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The Extent of Auto Manufacturing
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A Booming Economy But Not for All

• Farmers share of national income 15 in 1920 to
  9 in 1929
• 71 of people have incomes below 2,500 (minimum
  for decent standard of living)
• 42 earn less than 1,500

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A Booming Economy But Not for All
--machines substitute for workers --union
membership declines from 5 to 3 million --welfare
capitalism and yellow dog contracts --consumer
credit/installment buying
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II. Cultural Change

• Personal gratification/self-fulfillment
• Sexual freedom
• The new woman
• Consumption and the pursuit of pleasure

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The New Woman

• Decline of feminism
• Employment grows
• Birth control

Margaret Sanger
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III. Culture Wars

• Prohibition
• Immigration Restriction
• Revival of the Ku Klux Klan
• The Scopes trial
• The Election of 1928

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Clashing Values

• Work versus consumption
• Character versus personality
• Substance versus image
• Scarcity versus abundance
• Religion versus science
• Local culture versus mass culture

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The Debate over Prohibition Revives

• Widespread flaunting of the law alcohol
  consumption 70 of pre-World War I level by 1929
• Speakeasies--symbol of urban depravity
  prohibition supporterssymbol of moralistic
  meddlers
• Organized crime controls liquor trade

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Restricting Immigration The National Origins
Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reid)
--limit on numbers 161,000/year (1/5 of
immigrants in pre-World War I years) --quotas
based on 1890 census --all Asians excluded --no
restrictions on immigrants North and South America
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Revival of the Ku Klux Klan
--not only anti-black, but anti-Catholic and
anti-Jew
--4 million members --throughout nation, not just
South --Indiana governor, state legislators
Oklahoma legislature
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The Scopes Trial Fundamentalism v. Science and
Religious Modernism
Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan
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Culture Wars and the Election of 1928