Affluence and anxiety during the Jazz Age
New Technology Automobile Vacuum cleaner Radio Air planes for non-military use Aerosol spray Antibiotics Frozen Food Hearing aides Liquid fuel rockets Quartz time keeping Talking pictures (movies w/ sound)
New Fads Flag pole sitting Counting Babe Ruth’s homeruns Dance marathons Crossword puzzles Watching the stock ticker Shipwreck Kelly
New Music & Dance Jazz music The Charleston
Advertising: A billion $ industry Bromodosis (foot odor) Homotosis (lack of nice furniture) Acidosis (upset stomach) Coalitosis (use of coal instead of oil heat) Ashtray breadth
Ads and magazines target women
Cigarette Ads
New foods
New female images/roles Clara Bow Josephine Baker Flappers Vogue
New problems Traffic jams Organized crime
New Vocabulary Bee’s Knees Big cheese Blind date Cake-eater Carry a torch Cheaters Crush Drug store cowboy Fall guy Flat tire Frame Gold digger Jake Kiddo Kisser Main drag Run-around Lounge lizard Pet Scram Smeller Stuck-on Speakeasy Swell
New Heroes Charles Lindbergh Miss America Babe Ruth Jack Dempsey Rudolph Valentino
New Racial Pride Marcus Garvey Harlem Renaissance Marcus Garvey Zora Neal Hurston Langston Hughes
Anxiety amid affluence Urban v. rural conflict Old v. young Traditional v. modern Native born v. immigrant Grant Wood Sacco & VanzettiF. Scott Fitzgerald/Zelda C. Lindbergh
Prohibition The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol (i.e. the beginning of Prohibition). It was ratified on January 16, 1919 and repealed by the 21st Amendment in Volstead Act provided for the enforcement of prohibition.
“The Noble Experiment” Elliot Ness
Art Art Deco and regionalism
Literature: The Lost Generation F. Scott Fitzgerald Sinclair Lewis H. L. Menken Ernest Hemingway
Presidents Warren G. Harding ( ) Calvin Coolidge ( ) Herbert Hoover ( ) Republicans Pro-business Not activist presidents
Teapot Dome Scandal In 1921, by executive order of President Harding, control of U.S. Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming were transferred from the U.S. Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. The petroleum reserves had been set aside for the Navy by Taft. In 1922, Albert B. Fall, Secretary of the Interior, leased, without competitive bidding, the Teapot Dome fields to associates. In 1922 and 1923, these transactions became the subject of a sensational Senate investigation.
Teapot Dome Scandal: Graft Albert B. Fall
Silent Cal 30 th President of the U.S. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, and also as a man who said very little. "The business of America is business. The man who builds a factory, builds a temple. The man who works there worships there.” –Coolidge, 1925
Boston Police Strike 1919 “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time.” Telegram from Governor Calvin Coolidge to Samuel Gompers September 14, Governor Calvin Coolidge inspects the militia during the Boston Police Strike
Cash Register Chorus Business croons its appreciation of Coolidge Prosperity.
The Citizenship Act of 1924
Indians as dual citizens “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided, That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.”
Herbert Hoover Hoover was a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business under the rubric "economic modernization". Defeated NY Democrat Al Smith to win the presidency in 1928.