1. Adjusting to Peace
ESSENTIAL question: What difficulties did Americans have in adjusting to peace after the war?

2. TEKS and Objectives
We will…
I will…
(6A) analyze causes and effects of nativism and the Red Scare (16A) analyze Harding’s Return to Normalcy (19C) describe the effects of the Teapot Dome Scandal
List the causes and effects of event and ideas that took place in the U.S. between
Research important information about the presidents of the 1920s

3. American Isolationism
Americans disillusioned by the war
Refused to be involved in other nations’ problems/disputes
Temporary Economic Recession (decline)
Government wartime spending stopped
Soldiers returned looking for work
Factories converted from military to civilian production
Farmers lost markets in Europe

4. The Red Scare Spread of Communism Red Scare
Russia experienced a Communist revolution
Communists threatened to spread to other European countries (Germany and Hungary)
Wave of strikes hit the U.S. in 1919
Red Scare
Fear of Communists, anarchists, and immigrants
Anyone suspected of communist/anarchist beliefs could be arrested

5. Palmer Raids (January 1919)
Series of attacks on judges, politicians, and law enforcement
Attacks in 8 cities including Cleveland and New York
Attorney General Mitchell Palmer
Bomb set off outside his home
Ordered round-up of 4,000 suspects without warrants
Assistant Attorney General J. Edgar Hoover directed raids
Most released/600 deported

6. The Sacco and Vanzetti Case
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Italian immigrants
Charged of robbery/murder to obtain funds for anarchist revolution
Insufficient Evidence
Pressure from the world for their release
Americans feared looking weak
Convicted and executed

7. Rise of Nativism and Racism
Dislike of foreigners
Belief white Protestant Americans superior to others
Ku Klux Klan
Revived in 1915; biggest in U.S. history
Hostile towards immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and African Americans
Chicago Race Riots
Bloody summer
38 people killed; 1,000 African American families homeless after houses set on fire

8. Lynching Pictures

11. Presidents of the 1920s

12. Warren G. Harding Laissez-Faire Hawley Smoot Tariff
“hands-off”
Government should not intervene in business
Hawley Smoot Tariff
Highest tax rates in U.S. history
“Return to Normalcy”
Make America like it was before WWI
Ohio Gang
Group of Harding’s personal friends appointed to cabinet positions (patronage)
Teapot Dome Scandal
Secretary of the Interior sold illegal access to a government-owned oil field in exchange for bribes

13. The message below was delivered by President Harding as part of his Inaugural Address in 1921:
“We must seek the readjustment with care and courage. [W]e must strive for normalcy to reach stability…The forward course of the business cycle is unmistakable. Peoples are turning from destruction to production. Industry has sensed the changed order and [is] turning to resume their normal, onward way. The call is for productive America to go on. I speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax burdens, for sound commercial practices, for adequate credit facilities, for sympathetic concern for all agricultural problems, for the omission of unnecessary interference of government with business, for an end to government’s experiment in business, and for more efficient business in government administration.” How did Harding intend to return Americans “to normalcy?”

14. Calvin Coolidge “Silent Cal” Economic Policy
Harding’s Vice President
Took over after Harding’s death
Tried to restore faith in the government
Economic Policy
Huge supporter of Laissez-faire economics

15. Herbert Hoover Engineer and self-made millionaire
Predicted end of poverty if elected
“Rugged Individualism”
Americans are tough; don’t like handouts
Succeed through own merit
Dawes Plan
$2.5 billion to Germany
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Lent $2 billion to large businesses and companies