1. Understanding Postwar Tensions
The 1920’s
Understanding Postwar Tensions

2. Emerging Economic Tensions
During WW1  low unemployment, booming industry, economy heavily controlled by government
WW1 ends  contracts cancelled, factories closed, crop prices ↓, millions out of work
Soldiers returning and looking for work ($60 and a one-way ticket)
= MESS!!!

3. Rising Labor Tensions During the war: wages and working conditions ↑
Remember: National War Labor Relations Board
After the war: Government backs away
What recourse do workers have?
They joined unions

4. Rising Labor Tensions
American Federation of Labor (AFL): group of unions, represented skilled laborers
Focus: improving wages and working
International Workers of the World (IWW) = “Wobblies”
Socialism is the answer
1919: 3500 strikes across country including general strike in Seattle

5. Rising Labor Tensions Unions lose support
Viewed as radical, anarchists, ineffective, discriminatory
Supreme Courts rulings against unions

6. Growing Political Tensions
Many Americans worried that radicalism was threatening public order
Many blames socialists, communists, and anarchists
What’s the difference???
Communists influenced by Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution
“The Red Scare”
Many Americans were terrified that Communism would spread to the US

7. Growing Political Tensions
The Palmer Raids
June, 1919: 8 bombs explode around the country including Wilson’s AG Palmer’s house
Palmer raids “subversives”
Looking for weapons, and evidence many times without warrants or permission
6,000 arrested
Many foreign born deported
Found 3 pistols
Many Americans were willing to give up civil liberties to stop radicalism

8. Increasing Social Tensions
: 1million immigrants/year
: immigration ↓ during WW1
Post WW1: immigration ↑
As immigration ↑, nativism ↑
Immigration Act of 1921
375k immigrants max
Quota system: 3% of a country’s residents in the US in 1910
Immigration Act of 1924:
164k max immigrants
Quota: 2% of country’s residents in the US in 1890
Banned Asian immigration

9. Increasing Social Tensions
↑ nativism → ↑ KKK
“America for Americans”
Most powerful bloc of the Dem party
Anti African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, unions
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Formed in the 1920’s by social activists to protect freedom of speech
Defending unpopular people and positions
Palmer Raids, Wobblies,

10. Enduring Racial and Religious Tensions
Italians, Asians, and African Americans discriminated against
More than 70 lynchings of African Americans in 1919
Marcus Garvey
“Back to Africa” movement
Should African Americans create a separate society or
work toward integration?

11. Enduring Racial and Religious Tensions
Anti-Semitism and anti-Catholic prejudice ↑
Anti-Defamation League formed to stop prejudice against
Jewish people
1928: Al Smith: Dem candidate for President
Catholic
Lost