The Roaring Twenties

1. The Roaring Twenties The political move away from progressivism and a clash of values, which begs the question: How “roaring” were the twenties?

2. America needs a “return to normalcy” • First election after World War I. • First election after Red Scare and Palmer Raids. • First election after the influenza epidemic of 1918-19. • http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/ • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/ • http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/collections/archives/agalleries/1918flu/1918flu.html

3. But on the business front… • The U.S. emerged from World War I the strongest economic power in the world! • The war transformed the country from the world’s leading debtor to its most important creditor. • As late as 1914, foreign investments in the U.S. were $3 billion more than U.S. investments abroad. • By 1919, European governments owed the U.S. $10 billion, and the U.S. reversed the investment imbalance (above), and by 1929 had increased it to $8 billion.

4. The Election of 1920 • After Wilson can’t run again, “badly divided” Democratic Party nominates Governor James Cox (of Ohio!) • Republican Party nominates U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding (of Ohio!); the text says “the handsome and genial Harding had virtually no qualifications to be president, except that he looked like one.”

5. Harding touches a nerve? • He said that “America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” • Harding wins the greatest electoral landslide to date, carrying every state outside of the South, and winning the popular vote 16 million to 9 million. • Significantly, the Republicans would also retain their majorities in the House and Senate as well.

7. The Harding presidency • Ohio Gang (“This is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies…but my damned friends…they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.”) • Teapot Dome Scandal (one of several) • Died in office of a heart attack in 1923.

8. Let’s see: war, commies, and the flu… • The 1921 Immigration Act set a maximum number (357,000) of new immigrants each year. Additionally, immigration was limited by country to 3% of the number of natives counted by the 1910 census • Not being restrictive enough, the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 reduced the numbers to: 164,000/2%/1890 (census). Additionally, all Asian immigration -- in particular Japanese -- was banned!

9. …which also helps explain the popularity of the KKK • Advocated “100 percent Americanism” and “the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy.” • Claimed to be the “righteous defender of the embattled traditional values of small-town Protestant America.” • Supported Prohibition, and attacked birth control, Darwinism, and the Roman Catholic Church.

10. The KKK’s popularity • By 1924, the Klan counted more than 3 million members across the country, mostly concentrated in South and Midwest. • Were a “powerful force” in the Democratic Party, including delegates to the 1924 Democratic National Convention. • And don’t forget President Harding (a Republican) joined the KKK in a special White House ceremony! • http://www.americanpresidents.org/chat092099.asp • http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEEDE153CF935A15757C0A961948260 • http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/keyevents/harding • http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/kkk_photos.php

11. …and the Sacco and Vanzetti case • Pair convicted in 1921 trial for murder and robbery in Massachusetts. Although carrying guns at the time of their arrest, neither had a criminal record. But they had been “active in militant anarchist circles, labor organizing, and antiwar agitation.” • “…finally executed in 1927, and for many years, their case would remain a powerful symbol of how the criminal justice system could be tainted by political bias and anti-immigrant fervor.” (OM, p. 834)

12. A “new era” in Republican politics • A “closer relationship” between the federal government and business community during the three Republican presidencies • Andrew Mellon, secretary of the treasury under all three presidents, believed in running the government like a corporation, which entailed cutting the budget and taxes (especially on businesses and the wealthy) • http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/warren-harding-curing-a-depression-through-austerity/2012/01/19/gIQA5VEsEQ_story.html

13. The financial impact of Mellon’s policies • “The Second Industrial Revolution.” • Electricity replaced steam (In 1914, 30% of factories had electricity, compared with 70% in 1929.) • Efficiency dramatically increased, as the average worker in manufacturing in 1929 produced roughly three-quarters more per hour than in 1919.

14. The financial impact of Mellon’s policies • Mass production techniques were applied to consumer goods, including cars, radios, washing machines, and telephones. • Oligarchy reigned: by 1929, the 200 largest corporations owned nearly half the nation’s corporate wealth, and half the total industrial income was concentrated in 100 corporations -- increasingly Americans were members of national consumer communities.

15. LARGE exceptions to the economic success stories • By 1920, farmers (25% of all workers) began to see a sharp decline in their profits…why? • The South seemed frozen in time. • In the pro-business climate, unions lost clout -- total union membership fell from about 5 million members in 1920 to 3.5 million in 1926. • The coal industry suffered as the oil and natural gas industries became successful.

17. The Calvin Coolidge presidency • “Silent Cal” worked four hours a day, and is most famous for the aphorism “The business of America is business.”

18. Henry Ford & the moving assembly line • In 1913, it took thirteen hours to make one car. • In 1914, at his new plant outside Detroit, Ford reduced production time per car to ninety minutes. • By 1925, cars were rolling off the assembly line every TEN SECONDS!!! • The car was cheap -- it could be bought by an employee with three months salary.

19. The “A-U-T-O” Age • “No other single development could match the impact of the postwar automobile explosion on the way Americans worked, lived, and played.” • The rise of consumer durables: • During the 1920s, America made approximately 85% of the world’s cars. • In 1929 alone, the industry added 4.8 million cars to the 26 million -- roughly one for every five people -- already on American roads.

20. The impact of the car • The federal census for 1920 was the first in American history in which the proportion of the population that lived in urban places exceeded rural areas. • Cities with 100,000 people: • 1910 -- 60; 1920 -- 68; 1930 -- 92 • The car enabled people to move both to the city and out of the city (suburbs like Upper Arlington -- established 1918). http://www.uaoh.net/historical/index.php?fDD=113-0

21. (More) impact of the car • The auto industry stimulated demand for makers of steel, rubber, glass, and petroleum products. • It created new business opportunities, including repair shops, gas stations, and motels. • It would force governments (state and federal) into the road construction business. • http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ford.htm • http://www.americaslibrary.gov/es/mi/es_mi_detroit_1_e.html

23. New MASS Culture • The phrase “Roaring Twenties” helps capture the explosion of sound that became a normal part of life in the period. • Whether through movies, radio, the recording industry, and even advertising, the country as a whole was exposed to a “new culture of consumption.” • http://www.1920-30.com/ • http://vlib.iue.it/history/USA/ERAS/20TH/1920s.html

24. The Movies • The dominant studios: Paramount, Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Universal, and Warner Brothers, who released The Jazz Singer (1927)

25. Radio • In 1920, Westinghouse’s KDKA offered nightly broadcasts, including results for the election in November of that year. • By 1923, there were 600 licensed stations. • Radio networks (that could reach anywhere telephone wires existed) were formed, including the National Broadcasting Company (1926) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (1928). • By 1930, broadcasts were reaching 12 million homes, or 40% of American families.

26. Phonograph and Recording Industry • In 1921, 200 companies were producing 2 million records, with annual sales reaching 100 million • Dance crazes: fox trot, tango, grizzly bear, and the Charleston • http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3chrlst.htm

27. Josephine Baker dancing the Charleston in Paris, 1926

28. Sports and Celebrity

29. A New Morality? • The question is how representative the movies stars, radio personalities and musicians, sports heroes, and writers were of the larger population(?) • The flapper as the example! • Zelda: “I think a woman gets more happiness out of being gay, light-hearted, unconventional, mistress of her own fate…I want (my daughter) to be a flapper, because flappers are brave and gay and beautiful.”

30. Actress Louise Brooks, 1927http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/jazzage.html

31. The Scopes “monkey trial” • “Paralleling political nativism in the 1920s, was the growth of religious fundamentalism.” • “Many Protestant churches…focused less on religious practice…than on social and reform activities in the larger community.” • Specifically reacted to Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the fact that it had become a standard part of science curriculums. • http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scopes/scopes.htm • http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4723956 • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/ • http://siarchives.si.edu/research/scopes.html

32. The Great Migration (continues) • Between 1914-1920, approximately 400,000 African Americans moved from the South to the North, headed for places like Chicago and Detroit. • During the 1920s, 1.5 million African Americans moved, to cities including New York and Houston. • Harlem would emerge as “the demographic and cultural capital of black America.” • http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/harlem/harlem.html • http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/circle/harlem-ren-sites.html • http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/9intro.html

33. Harlem’s sudden “emergence” • In 1910, blacks constituted about 10 percent of central Harlem’s population. By 1930, the beginnings of the great migration from the South and the influx from downtown Manhattan neighborhoods where blacks were feeling less welcome transformed them into a 70 percent majority. Their share of the population (98 percent) and total numbers (233,000) peaked in 1950.

34. The Harlem Renaissance • Langston Hughes in 1921: “I can never put on paper the thrill of the underground ride to Harlem. I went up the steps and out into the bright September sunlight. Harlem! I stood there, dropped my bags, took a deep breath and felt happy again.” • A “new spirit” of optimism emerged that encouraged blacks to develop and celebrate their culture because “nothing can go farther to destroy race prejudice than the recognition of the Negro as a creator and contributor to American civilization.” (James Weldon Johnson)

36. The Herbert Hoover presidency • Secretary of Commerce under Harding and Coolidge, believed that “enlightened business, encouraged and informed by the government, would act in the public interest.” • http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=953