The Roaring

Twenties
 Roaring Twenties
Women had right to vote
Fashion more liberal
Alcohol was banned
Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh
Movies
Jazz
 Decade of Prosperity and Play
Unemployment was low
60% of wealth with just a few
families
27,500 wealthiest had as much
as 12 million poorest
 Desire to return to normalcy but:

High prices
Increased demand for goods
Wages low
Labor strikes; Boston Police,
steel workers, (both
unsuccessful)
 Civil Unrest
Red Scare
Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer
Palmer Raids
Sacco - Vanzetti Case
 ELECTION of 1920
 Republican
 Warren G. Harding and Calvin
Coolidge
 “Return to Normalcy”
 Isolationism, Laissez -faire
 Landslide victory for Republicans
 Warren G.Harding
1921-1923
 Popular
 Wife , Florence King DeWolfe ran
his campaign
 Golfed, Played poker, had a
mistress
 Poor judge of character
 Warren G. Harding
 Teapot Dome Scandal
– Govt. oil reserves sold for business
interests
– Sec. of Interior Albert Fall
 NavalLimitation Treaty
 Immigration Legislation
 Harding
 “I have no trouble with my enemies, but
my friends keep me walking the floor at
night”

 Many took bribes, many caught

 POLITICAL SCANDALS
Teapot Dome Scandal
–Albert Falls: oil rich public lands
set aside for the Navy
–Secretly leased to oil companies
for cash and cattle
 POST WAR ECONOMY
 Assembly line: (Henry Ford) increases
productivity by 40%
 Corporate mergers
 Oligopolies: Fix prices, lead to chain
stores
 Advertising
 Installment-buying plans
 ORGANIZED LABOR
 Organized labor membership falls
 Managers offer benefit plans
 Wages rise slowly
 POST WAR ECONOMY
Inflation
–Caused by wartime shortages
1919 - 3,600 strikes
Boston Police Strike
Steel and Coal Strikes
 LABOR under HARDING
 AmericanPlan
–UnAmerican to join a Union to get a
job
–Employees offered benefits, wage
increases, stock options to show
unions were unnecessary
–Harding pardoned many Union leaders
 Gov. Calvin Coolidge
 “There is no right to strike
against the public safety by
anyone,anytime,
anywhere!”
 CALVIN COOLIDGE
1923-1929
Republican
VP: Charles Dawes
“Silent Cal”
“Business of America is
Business”
Prohibition
 Prohibition
Ban on Alcohol
Eighteenth
Amendment
Bootlegging
 PROHIBITION
Volstead Act: Enforce
Criminal acts
1933 – 21st Amendment to
repeal
SPEAKEASIES
Moonshiners
Made illegal alcohol from grain
Shipped from Ireland Canada
Speedboats delivered liquor
faster than Coast Guard ships
Souped up cars out ran
government agents
Early beginnings of NASCAR
Speakeasies
Illegal clubs
 Criminal Gangs
 Al Capone
 Gang violence
Organized Crime
Al Capone
Racketeers
Made businesses pay
“protection money
Finally convicted on White
Collar crime not violent crime
Income Tax evasion landed
Capone in jail
 African American Migration
 Reached millions
 Racial Prejudice everywhere
 Marcus Garvey
 W.E.B. Dubois
 KKK
 Immigration laws: Quota System
 SOCIAL VALUES
 Women
 Divorce: 1-17 ; 1-6; now 1-2
 Religion; suffered decline
 Scopes – Monkey Trial
–Darwin v Creation
–Fundamentalism
 SOCIAL VALUES
Fundamentalism
Biblecontained no
contradictions or errors
Supported Bible is literally true
Every story actually took place
as written
 SOCIAL VALUES
Scopes Trial
Evolution vs. Fundamentalist
Tennessee passed
Illegal to teach Evolution
 SOCIAL VALUES
John T. Scopes challenged law
Trial combatants
William Jennings Bryan
Clarence Darrow
 SOCIAL CHANGES
CivilRights
Riots
25 cities summer of 1919
Chicago hard hit
Rock fight
 SOCIAL CHANGES
17 year old African American
was struck and killed while
swimming
Several days of rioting broke
out
 SOCIAL CHANGES
Revival of KKK
Colonel William J. Simmons
revived
Not only in South
Indiana had lad the largest
membership
 SOCIAL CHANGES
4 million members
African Americans, Catholics,
Jews, Immigrants, all were
victims
1925 leader of Indiana Klan
Was sent to prison
 Youth Culture
 Flappers
 SPORTS
Baseball
Football
Boxing
Tennis
 FAMOUS PEOPLE
Heroes
Lucky Lindy
First to fly across Atlantic solo
Became National hero
Remained modest thus
increasing popularity
 FAMOUS PEOPLE
Amelia Earhart
 first woman to fly solo across
Atlantic
First successful flight from
Hawaii to California
 CULTURAL CREATIVITY
Literature
–Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis,
Hemingway
 HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Harlem Renaissance
–Grew from 50,000 to 200,000 in
16 years
–Literature and music of African
Americans
 NAACP
 James Weldon Johnson
 Alain Locke The New Negro
– African American Culture
 Langston Hughes
 Joys and difficulties of being
American and black
 College Life
Enrollment tripled
New target group
 Leisure Fun and fads
 Dance Marathons
 Beauty Contests- Miss America Pageant
 Pole Sitting
 Music & Dance
Berlin,Gershwin, Porter
Jazz: Louie Armstrong,
Duke Ellington
Flappers
Theaters rose from 500 in
1910 to 22,500 in 1930
Elaborate design ornate
lobbies balconies place to go
125,000 million people in the
United States
Magazines and Newspapers
More readers less independent
newspapers
Tabloids instead of Hard News
Magazines
Saturday Evening Post
Readers Digest
Time
Ladies Home Journal
Jazz Age
African American music of the
south
Radio popularized Jazz
Jazz clubs allowed musicians to
play
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Benny Goodman
Charleston became popular
Jazz sprung Off shoots
George Gershwin
“Rhapsody in Blue”
Combination of symphonic and
jazz
 Mass Entertainment
 Bigger Paychecks/more free time
 RADIO
–800 stations by 1929
–Broadcast church
services,news,music, sporting
events
–advertising
 MOVIES
SilentFilm,dramas,
westerns
Showed changes in
morality, sexuality
 SPORTS
Professional,college level
Football Baseball
Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey
 Divisions in American Society
Farm Crisis
Migration to city- fewer
farmers needed
1900- 42% of America on
Farms
1920 – 25% on Farms
 Farm Depression
Over-production
Mortgage payments
½ million lost farms
McNary-Haugen Bill (Govt.
buys surplus and resells
abroad)