1. The Roaring Twenties

2. Conservative Presidents Limited Government – Pro Business
1920’s Presidents
Harding
“Return to Normalcy”
“Teapot Dome” Scandal
Coolidge
supported business
Warren G. Harding
“Return to Normalcy”
Presidency filled with scandal
“Teapot Dome” – Harding’s Secretary of the Interior agreed to secretly lease out government oil reserves to his friends
Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge
“The business of the American people is business”
Limited regulation, encouraged buying and spending
Result is a decade known for prosperity and consumerism – the Roaring Twenties

3. Consumerism Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy
Wages rose for most workers
New ways to buy on credit including installment plans
New products (like electrical appliances) became available
Advertising evolved to include catchy slogans and lure Americans into more buying
Most Americans thought the prosperity would never end
Consumerism
People had money
People spent money
People used credit and paid in installments
New products and advertisements

4. Change (Liberals)
Women
More Freedom, new jobs
New Style – Flappers

5. Entertainment Radio Silent Movies Sports (Babe Ruth)
Heroes (Charles Lindbergh)
Fads – flagpole sitting

6. Reaction to Change (Conservatives)
Christian Fundamentalism – belief in all parts of the Bible, skeptical of scientific knowledge
Evangelists like Billy Sunday
Scopes Monkey Trial (Clarence Darrow versus William Jennings Bryan) – about teaching evolution in schools

7. Prohibition
Prohibition
18th Amendment
Speakeasy – place where illegal alcohol was sold
Bootlegger – person who smuggled in alcohol
Organized Crime (Gangsters) – Al Capone
21st Amendment Repealed it
18th Amendment banned alcohol – the Volstead Act enforced this law
Speakeasies (hidden bars) and bootleggers (liquor smugglers) got around the laws
Organized crime – Al Capone
Prohibition was ended in 1933 when it was repealed by the 21st Amendment

8. Reaction to Change (Conservatives)
Red Scare
After the Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution in Russia, radical Communist parties formed in the US
Palmer Raids against Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, and foreign born Radicals
Sacco and Vanzetti trial
The Red Scare fueled anti-immigrant feelings (nativism), a growth of the KKK, and marked a return to isolationism and limits on immigration (quotas)