1. Politics of the Roaring Twenties
Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues “Normalcy” & Isolationism The Business of America The 1920s
Politics of the Roaring Twenties

2. President Woodrow Wilson
What Soldiers Left…
President Woodrow Wilson
Wilson’s “crusade” for democracy. A traditionalist America. A society that wanted to get involved with world affairs.

3. What Soldiers Came Back To…
President Warren G. Harding
A world power that strived for advancement, change, and enjoyment.
A thriving America, but not joyous for all…
“America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.”
-President Warren G. Harding

4. Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues
The Impact of WWI on the USA
4,743,826 Active Serving Troops
53,515 Troops Killed in Battle (or as a result of…)
320,710 US Casualties
THE WAR WAS WON,
But Americans Desired A New Path
1. Nativism
2. Isolationism
3. Conservatism

5. Changes Toward “Normalcy”
Nativism “A sociopolitical policy favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants.” Isolationism “A national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries.” Conservatism “Belief in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society.”

6. Nativism
Why is the idea of nativism dangerous or “un-American”? It creates an “us” verse “them” mentality. Breeds racist ideas. A Cause Behind: The Red Scare. The second rise of the KKK. The trial of Sacco & Vanzetti.

7. The Red Scare
The Russian Revolution of 1917 Lenin led a communist uprising in Russia to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Peace, Land, and Bread “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.” – Vladimir Lenin & his call for a communist revolution.

8. After the war, focus turned toward the communists.
The Red Scare
Small communist party formed in the United States during WWI, but did not get much attention.
After the war, focus turned toward the communists.
Fear was understandable… a small group had caused a revolution in Russia, what was stopping it from happening in the US?
Soviet communists were “champions of the workers”. American communists also sided with labor unions.
Americans were fed up with strikes, and thus connected labor unions to communist activity.

9. The Red Scare
The Red Scare of 1920
The Palmer Raids

10. A. Mitchell Palmer
After anarchists bombed his home: Few saw the difference between anarchists and communists. Palmer Raids resulted: 12 different cities conducted raids on anarchist meetings. Over 650 workers were arrested.

11. J. Edgar Hoover
Head of the Bureau of Investigation (Later known as the FBI)

12. Peaked at over 5 million members in 1923.
KKK in 1920
Peaked at over 5 million members in 1923.
Desired to protect an “ideal American life” from African-Americans, Catholics, Jews, and immigrant “corruption.”
Black Lynching in the United States from – – – – – – – – – 7 Total Killed: 281

13. NAACP Blots of Shame Map

14. The KKK

15. The Ku Klux Klan

16. Sacco & Vanzetti Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti 3 Strikes of
Immigrants
Anarchists
Location (Boston)

17. “If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure.
This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words — our lives — our pains — nothing! The taking of our lives — lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler — all! That last moment belongs to us — that agony is our triumph.”
Bartolomeo Vanzetti

18. Return to “Normalcy” Conservatism Isolationism
Seen in the clashing ideals of the 1920s (The Old v. The New) Flappers v. Traditionalists Prohibition & Crime Jazz
Seen in the policies of Warren G. Harding & Calvin Coolidge. Kellog-Briand Pact Fordney-McCumber Tariff Quota System