Coping%20with%20Change

1
Chapter 23

• Coping with Change
• 1920-1929

2
Introduction

• In many ways modern America began in the Roaring
  Twenties
• It was a time of rapid economic growth,
  technological advances, and changing social and
  cultural values
• With millions of cars coming off Detroits
  assembly lines, Americans took to the roads
• They were entertained by movies and radio
  programs
• They bought an array of new consumer products
• All of these new developments in society
  stimulated great artistic creativity, but also
  contributed to social tensions, fears, and
  culture wars

3
Introduction (cont.)

• 1.) Why was the economy so prosperous in the
  1920s and how were different social groups
  affected by the economic boom?
• 2.) What were the dominant political values of
  the 1920s, and how did Republican presidents of
  the period represent them?
• 3.) What was the new popular culture of the
  decade, and which Americans did it barely touch?

4
Introduction (cont.)

• 4.) What developments in the period contributed
  to both the social tensions and the artistic
  flowering?

5
A New Economic Order

• Booming Business, Ailing Agriculture
• Demobilization following WWI disrupted the
  economy
• Caused a sharp recession
• By 1922, recovery had set in
• For the rest of the decade the economy grew
  rapidly and prospered
• Development of electric appliances
• Refrigerators
• Washing machines
• Vacuum cleaners
• Development of the automobile industries

6
Booming Business, Ailing Agriculture (cont.)

• Mass production of cars
• created hundreds of thousands of jobs
• Stimulated a host of related industries
• Rubber
• Oil
• Steel
• Highway construction
• American business also invested heavily abroad
  and loaned to European nations to help them
  repay war debts
• High protective tariffs in the 1920s tended to
  suppress international trade

7
Booming Business, Ailing Agriculture (cont.)

• Wages rose overall during the decade
• But not all workers shared in the pay increases
• Southern workers
• African-Americans
• Mexican-Americans
• Recent immigrants
• Female workers

8
Booming Business, Ailing Agriculture (cont.)

• American farmers did well during WWI
• After the armistice European and domestic markets
  contracted
• Prices plunged
• Farmers need to repay loans and mortgages
• Farmers tried to compensate by growing more
• This created a surpluses that drown down produce
  prices further
• Agriculture remained a depressed sector of the
  economy throughout the 1920s

9
New Modes of Producing, Managing, and Selling

• Introduction of the assembly line and other
  technological advances brought more than 40
  increase in productivity between 1919 and 1929
• History Channel video--assembly line
• This led to bigger profits
• A wave of corporate merges
• By 1930, 100 corporations controlled almost 1/2
  of the business done in the U.S.A.
• Competition disappeared
• Corporations joined together in trade
  associations
• Fixed prices
• Divide markets

10
New Modes of Producing, Managing, and Selling
(cont.)

• A network of chain stores developed
• Displaced small, independently owned retail
  stores
• Big business successfully boosted sales and
  profits
• Introduced credit
• Relied heavily on advertising
• Business influence and values pervaded all areas
  of American life in the 1920s
• Big businessmen became the new cultural heroes
• Politicians vied to serve business
• Organized religion tired to copy its selling
  techniques

11
Women in the New Economic Era

• The proportion of women working outside the home
  stayed at about 24
• Working women earned less than men holding
  similar jobs
• The growth of large corporation increased the
  need for
• Secretaries
• Typists
• Filing clerks
• Few women broke into management positions
• Teaching and nursing were typical female
  professions

12
Struggling Labor Unions in a Business Age

• The 1920s were an unsuccessful time for
  organized labor
• Union membership fell from 5 million in 1920 to
  3.4 million in 1929
• Management discouraged the growth of unions
• Intimidation
• Violence
• Insistence on the open shop
• Use of scab labor during strikes
• Introduction by some companies of benefits such
  as stock purchase plans
• Employers often charged that unions and strikes
  were Communist led

13
The Harding and Coolidge Administrations

• Stand Pat Politics in a Decade of Change
• 1920 election
• Republicans nominated Warren G. Harding
• Democrats nominated James Cox
• Harding easily won
• Harding admin. was riddled with corruption
• He put friends in high positions which they
  abused

14
Stand Pat Politics in a Decade of Change (cont.)

• Charles Forbes
• Veterans Bureau chief
• Stole bureau funds
• Harry Daugherty
• Attorney General of the Justice Department
• Sold influence and immunity from prosecution
• Albert Fall
• Sec. of the Interior
• Leased govt. oil reserves at Teapot Dome, WY and
  other locations to favored businessmen in
  exchange for bribes

15
Stand Pat Politics in a Decade of Change (cont.)

• In the fall of 1923, Harding had a heart attack
  and died
• Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency

16
Republican Policy Making in a Probusiness Era

• In the Coolidge administration corruption
  lessened
• The probusiness attitudes continued
• High tariffs protected domestic manufacturers
  from foreign competition
• trickle down theory
• Supported by Sec. of Treasury Andrew Mellon
• Congress lowered federal taxes for the wealthy

17
Republican Policy Making in a Probusiness Era
(cont.)

• Supreme Court declared the federal child labor
  law unconstitutional
• Under Chief Justice William Howard Taft
• Appointed by Harding

18
Republican Policy Making in a Probusiness Era
(cont.)

• Even though Coolidge promoted govt. assistance to
  business, he opposed federal aid to all other
  groups
• He refused to extend relief to 1927 flood victims
• Twice vetoed the McNary-Haugen bill
• Which proposed to have Washington buy up surplus
  farm commodities at good prices

19
Independent Internationalism

• The U.S.A. followed an independent
  internationalism
• Protected what it saw as U.S. global interests
  only
• Did not join the League of Nations or the World
  Court
• International naval arms conference
• 1921
• In Washington D.C.
• Called by Hardings Sec. of State, Charles E.
  Hughes
• Treaties that imposed a 10-year moratorium on
  battleship construction
• Pledged the major powers to respect each others
  territorial possessions in the Pacific

20
Independent Internationalism (cont.)

• The 1920s Republican administrations also
  insisted that the WWI allies repay a portion of
  their war debts to the U.S.
• Then they made it difficult for them to do so
• Curtailed their sales of goods in the U.S. with
  high protective tariffs

21
Progressive Stirrings, Democratic Party Divisions

• Progressive reform sentiment did not completely
  disappear in the 1920s
• A coalition of labor and farm groups in 1924
  revived the Progressive Party
• Nominated Robert LaFollette for president
• Democrats nominated John W. Davis
• The party was split between urban and rural wings
• Republicans nominated Coolidge
• Coolidge easily won

22
Women and Politics in the 1920s A Dream
Deferred

• Ratification of the 19th amendment had less
  impact on politics in the 1920s than many
  womens rights advocates predicted
• The womens movement splintered
• Some feminists backed an equal rights amendment
• Other feared it would undermine laws protecting
  female workers

23
Mass Society, Mass Culture

• Cities, Cars, Consumer Goods
• This was the 1st decade in which the majority of
  Americans lived in cities
• City life-styles and values spread to more and
  more of the population
• The new consumer goods were most readily
  available to city dwellers
• New electric appliances transformed household
  duties
• Supermarkets
• Commercial bakeries

24
Cities, Cars, Consumer Goods (cont.)

• Automobiles had the biggest impact on American
  culture
• Traffic jams
• Parking problems
• Mounting accidental deaths
• Reduced parental supervision of young adults
• The spread of suburbs
• History Channel video--car

25
Soaring Energy Consumption and a Threatened
Environment

• The mass production and sales of cars and
  electric appliances took a heavy toll on the
  environment and natural resources
• Generating enough electricity to power the new
  appliances consumed millions of tons of coal
• The biggest users of oil and gasoline were the
  millions of automobiles

26
Soaring Energy Consumption and a Threatened
Environment (cont.)

• The nation wasted and needlessly depleted fossil
  fuels
• Pollution of the atmosphere all came from the
  cars, power plants, steel mills, and other
  industries
• Cars also made it easier for people to visit
  wilderness areas
• Tourists demands for good roads, hotels, and
  other amenities in pristine areas soon threatened
  to ruin them
• A few groups protested
• Americans on the whole were indifferent to the
  environmental threat

27
Mass-Produced Entertainment

• Americans increasingly turned to mass-produced
  entertainment
• Assembly line production made work less
  fulfilling and less time consuming
• Popular magazines built massive circulations
• Readers Digest
• All over the U.S. people listened to the same
  radio programs and watched the same movies
• Produced a more homogeneous national culture

28
Mass-Produced Entertainment (cont.)

• The new standardized culture did not permeate all
  segments
• In rural areas, evangelical Christians denounced
  much of the mass entertainment as godless
• Mexican-Americans and African-Americans
  maintained most of their own vibrant ethnic
  culture

29
Celebrity Culture

• Mass communication made possible by radio and
  film created nationwide heroes and media events
• Sports celebrities
• Babe Ruth
• Ty Cobb
• Jack Dempsey
• Charles Lindbergh
• Solo flight across the Atlantic
• History Channel video--flight
• History Channel speech--Coolidge on Lindbergh

30
Cultural Ferment and Creativity

• The Jazz Age and the Postwar Crisis of Values
• In the so-called Jazz Age,some young people
  rejected the values of their elders on sexual
  matters, dress, and decorum
• The ideas of Sigmund Freud became popular
• psychoanalysis
• Women asserted their freedom by discussing sex
  openly, wearing makeup, smoking, and shortening
  their skirts, and their hair

31
The Jazz Age and the Postwar Crisis of Values
(cont.)

• This upheaval in manners and morals primarily
  affected the urban middle class
• Most farmers, African-Americans, industrial
  workers, and recent immigrants were more
  concerned with economic survival than
  experimenting with new life-styles

32
Alienated Writers

• The 1920s saw the emergence of many talented
  writers writers
• Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott
  Fitzgerald
• They were often critical of
• the narrow-minded, small-town values of prewar
  America
• the materialistic business culture of the
  twenties
• Some felt so uncomfortable with the 1920s
  America that they spent much of the decade abroad
• They did care deeply about finding and creating
  an authentic American culture through their
  works

33
Lewis, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald
34
Alienated Writers (cont.)

• In his American Mercury magazines, Henry L.
  Mencken championed the works of these new writers
• He also kept up a steady barrage of ridicule of
  American politics and society

35
Architects, Painters, and Musicians Confront
Modern America

• architecture
• American cities in the 1920s were filled with
  skyscrapers
• Painters
• American artists painted the American scene
• Urban and rural
• Past and present
• Thomas Hart Benton
• Edward Hopper
• Joseph Stella
• Georgia OKeeffe

36
Architects, Painters, and Musicians Confront
Modern America (cont.)

• Musicians
• New classical composers appeared
• Aaron Copland
• The unique contribution of America to the musical
  world was jazz
• George Gershwin
• Jelly Roll Morton
• Louis Armstrong
• Duke Ellington

37
The Harlem Renaissance

• Led by the growing African-American population in
  the northern cities
• Harlem in New York City
• New York City had a concentration of
• Recording companies
• Book and magazine publishers
• Theater productions
• African-American civil-rights organizations
• NAACP headquarters
• These drew African-American artists, writers,
  composers, musicians, and intellectuals
• Most of the U.S.A. and the West Indies

38
The Harlem Renaissance (cont.)

• Whites flocked to Harlems jazz clubs to hear
  these musicians
• All-black stage shows played on Broadway
• White-owned publishing houses printed the novels
  and short stories
• Langston Hughes
• Claude McKay
• Explored the African-American experience in their
  works

39
The Harlem Renaissance (cont.)

• Some sympathetic whites also produced works
  portraying African-American life
• George Gershwins musical Porgy and Bess
• Many whites though held romanticized and
  stereotyped views of Harlem and African-Americans

40
A Society in Conflict

• Immigration Restriction
• In 1924 and 1929, the U.S. govt. passed
  restrictive laws that drastically cut the total
  of immigrants permitted to enter the U.S.A.
• They also established quotas for each nationality
• Laws excluded Chinese and Japanese entirely and
  eastern and southern Europeans received small
  quotas
• Reflected the fears and intolerance of the time
• Total immigration fell to 280,000 in 1929
• It averaged 1 million a year between 1900-1914
• This discriminatory, national-origins quota
  system remained in U.S. law until 1965

41
Needed Workers/Unwelcome Aliens Hispanic
Newcomers

• The 1920s, National Origins Act did not curtail
  immigration from Western Hemisphere countries
• By 1930, about 2 million Mexicans had arrived in
  the U.S.A.
• Most lived in the Southwest
• Most worked in agriculture
• Agribusiness wanted the cheap labor
• Mexicans experienced bitter resentment from
  nativist Americans

42
Nativism, Anti-Radicalism, and the Sacco-Vanzetti
Case

• The Sacco-Vanzetti case further illustrated the
  intolerance and divisions in society in the
  1920s
• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian
  immigrants
• They were convicted of robbery and murder

Vanzetti (on left) Sacco (on right)
43
Nativism, Anti-Radicalism, and the Sacco-Vanzetti
Case (cont.)

• The evidence against them was circumstantial
• The prosecution probably prejudiced the jury by
  stressing their ethnic origin and political
  radicalism
• They were found guilty of the crimes and were
  executed in 1927

44
Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial

• Several states passed laws prohibiting the
  teaching of any scientific theory that
  contradicted the account of human origin given in
  the Bible
• John T. Scopes
• High school teacher in Dayton, TN
• Challenged the states law by teaching Charles
  Darwins theory of evolution

45
Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial (cont.)

• The American Civil Liberties Union hired a team
  of distinguished lawyers headed by Clarence
  Darrow to defend Scopes
• William Jennings Bryan assisted the prosecution
• Scopes was convicted

46
Fundamentalism and the Scopes Trial (cont.)

• The fundamental religious position was ridiculed
  in the courtroom and in the national press
• But states still passed anti-evolution laws
• Textbook publishers deleted mention of Darwins
  theories to appease local school boards
• History Channel video--Scopes trial

47
The Ku Klux Klan

• Another indication of social conflict and
  intolerance was the rise of the KKK
• Preached hatred toward blacks, Jews, Catholics,
  immigrants, and the new urban values
• Membership grew to an estimated 5 million
• For a short time it exerted real political power
  in a few states
• OR, OK, IN
• It threatened, intimidated, beat, and murdered
  those it considered to be dangerous to a
  purified America

48
The Garvey Movement

• Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
• Led by Marcus Garvey
• Mostly poor urban African-Americans
• Preached black pride
• Black economic solidarity
• A return to Africa
• At its peak the UNIA had 80,000 members
• The first mass movement among African-Americans

49
Prohibition Cultures in Conflict

• Prohibition split Americans
• Supporters
• Native-born
• Fundamentalist Protestants
• Rural areas
• Opponents
• Liberals
• Intellectuals
• Rebellious youths
• Big-city immigrants

50
Prohibition Cultures in Conflict (cont.)

• Enforcement of prohibition broke down almost
  immediately
• Many Americans did not believe in it
• Organized crime was busy supplying the demand for
  illegal liquor
• Prohibition became a big issue in the 1928
  election
• History Channel video--prohibition raid

51
Hoover at the Helm

• The Election of 1928
• Democrats nominated Alfred Smith
• Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover
• Hoover easily won
• Many fundamentalist Protestants would not vote
  for Smith because he was a Catholic, did not
  support Prohibition, and came from NYC
• The biggest reason for Hoovers victory was
  economic prosperity and Republican promises that
  things would get even better

52
Herbert Hoovers Social Thought

• Hoover encouraged voluntary cooperation among
  corporate leaders
• Raise wages
• Plan production and marketing
• Standardize products

53
Herbert Hoovers Social Thought (cont.)

• He believed in self-regulation by business would
  ensure economic growth and a better life for all
• He did not believe in govt. intervention
• After the Great Depression set in, he clung to
  voluntarism and was reluctant to use govt. power
• This greatly handicapped his ability to deal with
  a sick economy

54
Conclusion

• In the 1920s Americans tried to adjust to the
  mass production, mass culture, and urban society
  that had emerged
• The decades political leadership was for the
  most part conservative and backward looking
• Those who found this new world unfamiliar and
  threatening often reacted with repression and
  hate
• Supporters of prohibition, fundamentalists, KKK

55
Conclusion (cont.)

• Others embraced the new life-styles made possible
  by radios, cars, movies, and electric appliances
• The social ferment also produced an outpouring of
  creative energy
• Harlem Renaissance
• Jazz
• American literature