1. Chapter 26: Understanding Postwar Tensions
What effects did postwar tensions have on America’s founding ideals?

4. Economic Tensions Demobilization causes massive unemployment
During WWI, industrial production doubled, agricultural production tripled
And when the war ended?
Inflation after the War
Spending spree (after much saving)
Inflation
A rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy
When the price level rises, currency buys fewer goods and services
Unemployment + Inflation = Recession

5. Labor Tensions Businesses return to prewar labor practices
No more cooperation or the mediation of disputes by the War Labor Board
Corporations fought unions and the gains they had made
AFL (American Federation of Labor)
Group of unions represented skilled laborers
“bread and butter” issues (better wages/better conditions)
The more radical Wobblies (I.W.W.) wanted more
3600 strikes across the U.S. in 1919

6. Labor Tensions In Seattle In Boston
35, 000 shipyard workers were joined by 100,000 more in a general strike
In Boston
The police force walked off the job with the support and sympathy of the citizens, at first
Anarchy resulted
Calvin Coolidge as Governor of Massachusetts
“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

7. Unions Lose Public Support and Membership
Americans viewed unions as a threat
Strike related violence could lead to anarchy
The strikes didn’t achieve lasting effects
“Politics” of union membership
Unskilled workers often were left out
Immigrants were not welcomed
African-Americans were excluded
The Supreme Court rejected child labor laws and minimum wage laws

8. Bomb Scares Fuel Fear of Radicals
Senators, mayors, business leaders and even a Supreme Court justice either received bomb packages or were going to
Radicalism = extreme change in the social or economic structures
Could be Communists, Socialists or Anarchists (who are opposed to all systems of government)
Communism called for the public ownership of all means of production leading to a classless society
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia accomplished this
The Red Scare

9. The Red Scare Leads to Raids on Subversives
Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and his assistant J. Edgar Hoover raid homes, businesses and meeting places often without cause (known as “Palmer Raids”)
Civil Liberties were trampled

10. Increasing Social Tension
Nativism
“they” could never be 100% American
“they” are overcrowding our cities and taking our jobs
Emergency Immigration Act of 1921
Set quotas to limit immigration
The Ku Klux Klan
Anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic
Their membership reached 3-4 million in the 1920’s
In 1920 the ACLU was founded to defend those whose rights were being violated (not always popular)

11. Enduring Racial and Religious Tension
Race riots exploded as a result of the Great Migration
Black veterans couldn’t find jobs (white veterans had their jobs taken by blacks)
Back to Africa Movement
Marcus Garvey
Raised the question of a separate society versus an integrated one
Anti-Semitism
Prejudice against Jews
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is founded to combat discrimination against Jews

12. The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti
A Case Study for Understanding Post- World War One America
ECONOMIC TENSIONS:
LABOR TENSIONS:
POLITICAL TENSIONS:
SOCIAL TENSIONS:

13. Chapter 27: the politics of normalcy
Did the Republican Era of the 1920’s bring peace and prosperity to all Americans?

16. Chapter 28: Popular culture in the roaring twenties
What social trends and innovations shaped popular culture during the 1920’s?

17. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s
A new consumer culture
New appliances, electricity in homes
Advertising builds demand
Installment buying allows credit

18. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s
Americans take to the road and air
Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis become heroes
Barnstorming air shows with wing walkers gain popularity
Amelia Earhart flies solo across the Atlantic
Henry Ford mass produces affordable automobiles
The isolation of farm life ends
Suburbs can grow
Roadside advertising becomes big business

19. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s
The importance of mass media
Newspapers and magazines keep Americans informed
Radio pioneers like David Sarnoff provide entertainment (NBC)
Music, comedies, dramas all on the radio
People flock to movie houses
The Jazz Singer was the first full length “talkie”
“Radio told the masses what to do, movies showed them how to do it.”
Fashions, hair styles, behaviors

20. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s
Women move toward greater equality
League of Women Voters to educate women on the issues and support political activity
Equal Rights Amendment championed by Alice Paul is proposed but never ratified
Women enter professions, seek greater opportunities and rebel against traditional roles, clothing, behavior and customs
Margaret Sanger opens the country’s first family planning clinic

22. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s
The “Jazz Age”
Distinctly American form of music
African rhythms, European harmonies, African-American folk music
Improvisation not necessarily a written score
Harlem in NYC doubled in population with the Great Migration
The most famous club of all was the Cotton Club

23. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s (writers and artists)
Harlem Renaissance
“revival” or “rebirth”
The Great Migration congregated black populations in large, northern cities
war opportunities
limits in immigration
poor conditions in the south and oppression by whites
None larger than in Harlem, New York
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor - Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now- For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

24. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s (writers and artists)
Jazz Age Authors
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Moral emptiness, lost promises from World War I
The Lost Generation
Critical of American life
Many headed to Paris
e.e. cummings used no capital letters
Artists like Georgia O’Keeffe found inspiration in nature

25. Pop. Culture Trends of the 1920’s (sports heroes)

26. Chapter 29: The class between traditionalism and modernism
How did social, economic and religious tensions divide Americans during the Roaring Twenties?

27. TRADITIONALISTS
MODERNISTS
Respect for long held social, cultural and religious values
Those provide stability and order
A desire for the “simple life”
Embrace of new ideas, styles and social trends
Traditional values were chains that restricted individual freedoms and the pursuit of happiness

28. Urban Attractions and Rural Problems
Life in the City
Wages and per capita income rose
Standards of living improved
Movies, museums, concerts, clubs
Life in the Country
New ideas and behaviors were cause for suspicion
Crop prices fell after the war and farmers could not pay loans
The Republican administrations did not want to interfere with the markets and help

29. Urban Modernists vs. Rural Traditionalists
Small town values were mocked by modernists while the traditionalists fought to preserve and defend all that was good in American life
Cities = immoral, materialistic, money-grubbing
Fundamentalism in the country = the idea that religious texts and beliefs should be taken literally and treated as the ultimate authority on behavior
Billy Sunday gained popularity as the most prominent fundamentalist preacher of the day
Rural areas were losing population to the cities

30. The Young vs. The Old High School and college enrollment was growing
Youth Perspective
AduLT PERSPECTIVE
High School and college enrollment was growing
Fads and trends develop
Flappers w/ their new clothing styles and behaviors
Mass media and cars provide “escapes”
The young were reckless and immoral
The Hays Office issues moral codes for movie behavior
Legislate more conservative behavior

31. Wets vs. Drys
Dry perspective
Wet perspective
Support the 18th amendment (Volstead Act) for a happier and healthier society
Prohibition would help control “foreign” influences
Government couldn’t (or shouldn’t) legislate morality
Too difficult to enforce
Speakeasies allowed drinking in secret clubs
Bootleggers got rich

32. Creationism vs. Evolution
Charles Darwin
The Bible is the word of God

33. Creationism vs. Evolution
Natural Selection
Survival of the Fittest
“Social Darwinism”
The fittest or most powerful should rule the less powerful
Science can explain how the physical world works
Taken literally, “God created the Universe.”
Fear of eugenics
The human species could be improved by forbidding people with undesirable characteristics from reproducing

34. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925)
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution holds that inherited characteristics of a population change over generations, which sometimes results in the rise of a new species.
According to Darwin, the human species may have evolved from an ape-like species that lived long ago.
Fundamentalists think this theory is against the biblical account of how God created humans and that teaching evolution undermines religious faith.
Laws were passed preventing evolution being taught in schools
One group in Tennessee persuaded a young science teacher named John Scopes to violate the law, get arrested, and go to trial.

35. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925)
Scopes was represented by Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan, three-time candidate for president, represented the prosecution.
John Scopes was obviously guilty, but the trial was about larger issues.
Scopes was convicted and fined $100
The Tennessee law remained in place until the 1960s.