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Chapter 24
The 1920s
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Prosperity during the 1920s
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Brief Post-World War 1 depression
Remarkable period of growth began in 1922
and lasted until 1929
Shift from capital goods to consumer goods
production
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Durables and perishables both
Led to complete transformation of American life
Stock buying also gained in popularity
People’s Capitalism
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Proliferation of consumer credit to facilitate
purchases
Many poor excluded from consumer
revolution
Rise of advertising and mass marketing
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To generate demand for products that could make
a product seem the answer to a consumer’s
desires
Advertisers played upon people’s emotions and
vulnerabilities
Changes in the Lives of Everyday
Americans
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Changing attitudes toward marriage and
sexuality
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Greater openness in attitudes toward sex
Push for compatibility and companionship in
marriage
Flapper culture among young women
Popularity of celebrities
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First appearance of large sporting events and
professional athletes
Depended on journalists and radio promoters
Business and Work during the
1920s
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Celebrating American business
– Reverence for the corporation
– Rise of welfare capitalism among employers
Position of industrial workers
– Aggregate demand for industrial labor slowed
– Dramatic increase in available workforce
– Became employer
– S rather than worker’s market
– Unions lost ground, government hostile to labor
Women workers
– Earned less than male workers, even for same jobs
– Drawn to white collar work for better opportunities
 Concentrated in “female” professions
– Female enrollment in college increased by 50 percent during
decade
The Politics of Business
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Warren G. Harding in office
– Selected as Republican nominee because of his malleability
– Aware of own intellectual shortcomings
 Made some excellent cabinet appointments
 Others, though, were disastrous
– Plagued by scandals perpetuated by “Ohio Gang
– Died in San Francisco mired in controversy
Calvin Coolidge in office
– Untainted by Harding scandals
– Believed in minimalist government
– Worked especially to reduce government’s control over the
economy
 Revenue Act of 1926
 Twice vetoed McNary-Haugen Bill
Herbert Hoover and the Politics of
“Associationalism”
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Hoover as commerce secretary for Harding
and Coolidge
Saw government as dynamic, even
progressive,economic force
Brought different functional groups together
to manage economy
Republican Foreign Policy
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Hoover hoped to apply “associationalism” to international relations
– Shut out of key decisions by Secretary of State Charles Evans
Hughes
Washington Naval Conference, 1921-22
– Five-Power Treaty
Dawes Plan, 1924
– Reduced German economy
– U.S. Aid to stabilize German economy
Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
– International compact outlawing war as a tool of national policy
Hands on approach in Latin America
Farmers Left Out of 1920s
Prosperity
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Agricultural depression during 1920s
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Nonpartisan League of North Dakota publicized
plight
Farm Bureau also facing cultural crisis
Farmers also facing cultural crisis
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1920 census reported U.S. 2as urban nation
Economic and cultural vitality of nation shifted to
the cities
Forced rural Americans toward efforts to protect
their way of life
Urbanization, 1920
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Efforts to Protect “Traditional”
American Values
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Prohibition
Initially, broad support for Eighteenth Amendment (1920
– Simply encouraged lawlessness and organized crime
– Ruralites continued to support Prohibition regardless of its
defects
Ku Klux Klan
– Added Jews and Catholics to original focus on blacks
– Preached message of “Anglo-Saxon” racial party, Protestant
superiority, and traditional morality
Efforts to Protect “Traditional”
American Values (cont.)
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Immigration restriction
– Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act, 1924
 Imposed national quotas for immigrants from outside Western
Hemisphere
 Favored “old immigrants” over “new immigrants”
Protestant fundamentalism
– Literal interpretation of the Bible
– Arose as reaction to liberal Protestantism and the revelation of
modern science
Scopes Trial
– Became test case in struggle between fundamentalism and
science
– Symbolic victory for modernism
Ethnic and Racial Communities
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European Americans
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Concentrated in cities of Northeast and Midwest
Flourishing of ethnic associations
Preservation of ethnic heritage and customs
Strong desire to become citizens
African-Americans
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Continued migration from rural South to the urban
North
Ethnic and Racial Communities
(cont.)
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Job and housing discrimination
Vigorous and productive cultural life
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Jazz
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Harlem Renaissance
 Black literary and artistic awakening
 Image of the “new Negro”
Mexican Americans
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Chief source of immigrant labor after JohnsonReed Act
Agricultural jobs, construction, manufacturing
Not generally interest in becoming citizens
The “Lost Generation” and
Disillusioned Intellectuals
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World War 1 created generation of
disaffected, alienated writers and artists
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Focused on psychological toll of living in
postwar period
Many came to question democracy itself
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Web
Many settled in Paris
Spurred debate over proper role of government in
economy and life in general