1. Racial Intolerance, Anti-immigrant Attitudes, and the Red Scare

2. Topic: Prosperity, Depression and the New Deal (1919-1941)
The Post-World War I period was characterized by economic, social and political turmoil. Post-war prosperity brought about changes to American popular culture. However, economic disruptions growing out the war years led to worldwide depression. The United States attempted to deal with the Great Depression through economic programs created by the federal government.

3. Content Statement:
Racial intolerance, anti-immigrant attitudes and the Red Scare contributed to social unrest after World War I.

4. Expectations for Learning:
Describe how racial intolerance, anti-immigrant attitudes and the Red Scare contributed to social unrest after World War I.

5. The Great Migration
The relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West
Migrated north to
Escape poverty
Get jobs in factories making war items
Escape discrimination

6. Racial Tensions
After the war, whites came home
African-Americans had moved into their neighborhoods
African-Americans had taken their jobs
Leads to discrimination/violence

7. Race Riots and Lynchings
Discrimination continues
Bloody race riots
Thousands of lynchings took place
In the South, Jim Crow laws continued

8. Rise of the KKK was due to the ever changing of a traditional America
1925: Membership of 5 million
1926: Marched on Washington
Attack on urban culture and defends Christian/Protestant and rural values

9. KKK
Against immigrants from Southern Europe, European Jews, Catholics and American Blacks
Sought to win U.S. by persuasion and gaining control in local/state government
Violence, internal corruption result in Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930 but will reappear in the 1950s and 1960s

10. Nativism
The policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants
Most native born people objected to immigrants’ religious beliefs and felt that new religions would undermine America’s democratic institutions
Immigrants would also accept lower wages to work jobs

11. Emergency Quota Act of 1921
Newcomers from Europe were restricted at any year to a quota, which was set at 3% of the people of their nationality who lived in the U.S. in 1910

12. Immigration Act of 1924
The quota was pushed down to 2% and the origins base was shifted to that of 1890, when few southeastern Europeans lived in America

13. Quotas
Only 150,000 immigrants per year
Barred Chinese, Japanese, and Asians

14. Immigrants and Intolerance
An increase in immigration to the U.S. from southern and eastern Europe preceded World War I
Nativism after the war was reflected in the passage of immigration quotas
Intolerance toward immigrants, Catholics and Jews was exhibited by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan

15. Postwar Reaction
The end of war did NOT bring peace to Europe
Europe was torn apart and had many problems
People revolted against their governments
In the U.S. the end of the war led to fear of foreigners and radicals

16. Postwar Reaction
The end of the war saw a large amount of labor strikes
Many immigrants lost their factory jobs immediately after the war

17. The Red Scare
Fears brought on by strikes and race riots, were often blamed on foreigners
The Communists are victorious in the Russian Revolution
In 1919, now the Soviet Union, begins to export revolution around the world
Americans blame revolutionaries for the troubles here

18. The Red Scare
A time of great upheaval
U.S. “scared out of their wits”
“Reds” as they were called
“Anarchists”
“Outside Foreign-Born Radical Agitators” (Communists)

19. The Palmer Raids
Hysteria grows when a series of bombings occurred in the spring of 1919
The Post Office intercepted several packages addressed to leading politicians and businessmen, that were set to explode when opened
One bomb exploded outside the home of the attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer
Palmer sets up an anti-radical division of the Justice Department

20. The Palmer Raids
J. Edgar Hoover was appointed to direct what becomes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
November 1919, the first attacks, known as the “Palmer Raids” were made on private homes of suspected Communist sympathizers and on the headquarters of labor and radical organizations

21. The Palmer Raids
January 1920, More than 6,000 radicals were arrested as a result of the Palmer Raids
Civil liberties were violated as citizens and aliens alike were denied legal counsel and held without specific charges

22. Sacco - Vanzetti Case – May, 1920
The case began with the arrest of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder and armed robbery in Massachusetts
Although the evidence against them was inadequate, they were presumed guilty because they were anarchists
Anarchism - the idea that all forms of government are bad and should be done away with

23. Sacco - Vanzetti Case
The judge was openly prejudiced
This case illustrates what hatred and prejudice can do
The men were convicted, sentenced to death, and despite worldwide protests, they were executed in 1927
Many decades later they were posthumously exonerated by the Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis

24. Summary
Video