APUSH - The New Era: 1920's

Alfred Smith

Alfred Smith, governor of New York, ran for president in the election of 1928. As a Roman Catholic and an opponent of prohibition, Smith appealed to many immigrants voters in the cities. Many Protestants, however, were openly prejudiced against Smith. Smith was known for his drinking, he lost the election to Herbert Hoover.

Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge was Harding's vice president and successor, he had won popularity in 1919 as the Massachusetts governor who broke the Boston police strike. He was a man of few words who richly deserved the nickname of "Silent Cal." He restored honesty to government, and accelerated the tax cutting and antiregulation policies of his predecessor. His laissez-faire policies brought short-term prosperity from 1923 to 1929.Coolidge won easily the election of 1924, and believed in limited government that stood aside while business conducted its own affairs.

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh was an American aviator, engineer, and Pulitzer Prize winner. He was famous for flying solo across the Atlantic, paving the way for future aviational development .Americans listened to the radio for news on Lindbergh's flight and welcomed his return to the United States with ticker tape parades larger than those for the returning soldiers of World War 1. Lindbergh was considered a popular hero of the decade.

Clarance Darrow

Clarence Darrow was the famous lawyer that defend Scopes during the "Scope Money Trial." He earned fame defending the values of science and modernism in the 1925 Scopes Trial. He made William Jennings Bryan look like a foolish with his clever questioning. Additionally, Darrow was hired by Chicago millionaires to save their sons Leopold and Loeb, from the death penalty.

Consumerism: autos, radios, movies

Consumerism was the concentration on producing and distributing goods for a market which must constantly be enlarged. Automobiles became more affordable and sold by the millions, making the horse-and-buggy era a thing of the past. Many stores increased sales of the appliances and automobiles by allowing consumers to but on credit. The production of automobiles replaced the railroad industry as the key promoter of economic growth. The radio, which rose greatly in 1930 (there were about 10 million radios with 800 stations) enabled people from one end of the country to the other to listen to the same programs: news, sports events, comedies and more. The movie industry was centered in Hollywood, California; elaborate Movie Theater "palaces" were built for the general public. By 1929, over 80 million tickets to the latest Hollywood movies were sold each week.

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism was a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism. It stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the idea that god had created the universe in seven days, as stated in the Book of Genesis. A key point in fundamentalist doctrine was that creationism explained the origin of all life. Fundamentalist blamed the liberal views of modernist for causing a decline in morals.

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover was the president of the United States from 1929 to 1932. He was a republican who ran on a campaign of prohibition and prosperity. The early years of his presidency brought about a great deal of prosperity for the United States. Many people blamed him for the stock market crash. Hoover had served three presidents, mostly under the commerce section; he competed with Alfred Smith.

KKK

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan reemerged expressing extreme nativism. Unlike the original Klan, the new Klan used founded in 1915 was a strong as in the Midwest as in the South. Not only were they hostile against blacks, but also Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and suspected Communist. The new Klan used modern advertising techniques to grow to 5 million members by 1925' most of its support came from lower-middle-class white Protestants in small cities and towns. The Klan employed various methods for terrorizing and intimidating anyone targeted as "un-American". They would apply vigilante justice, burn crosses, punish their victims with whips, and even the hangman's loose. The KKK declined when the leader of the Indiana's Klan was convicted of murder.

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey, a charismatic immigrant, was the leader of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey advocated individual and racial pride for African Americans and developed political ideas of Black Nationalism. He established an organization for black separatism, economic self-sufficiency, and a back-to-Africa movement. Garvey's sale of stock in the Black Star Steamship line led to federal charges of fraud. In 1925, he was tried, convicted, and jailed. He later was deported to Jamaica, and his movement collapsed. Garvey's thinking helped inspire a later generation to embrace the cause of black pride and nationalism.

Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger was an American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early 1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of New York City, she had seen the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy. Sanger founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. Even though the use of contraceptives for birth control was against the law in almost every state, Sanger and other advocated of birth control achieved growing in the twenties.

Prohibition

Prohibition was the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. It was passed by the 18th amendment and 'enforced' by the Volstead Act. However, did this not stop people from drinking alcohol either in public places or at home. Rival groups of gangsters, organized crime, and the sale of illegal booze rose from prohibition. So did other illegal activities involving prostitution, gambling, and narcotics. With the coming of the Great Depression, in 1933, the Twenty-first amendment repealing the 18th amendment was ratified, and millions celebrated the New Year by toasting the end of prohibition.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian-born laborers and anarchists who were tried, convicted and executed via electrocution on August 23, 1927 in Massachusetts. They were killed for the 1920 armed robbery and murder of a pay-clerk and a security guard in South Braintree, Massachusetts. The case incited controversy based on questions regarding culpability, the question of the innocence or guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti, and conformance, the question of whether the trials were fair to Sacco and Vanzetti. Many believed they had been framed for the crime because of their anarchist and pro-union activities, and mainly because they were foreigners.

Lost Generation

Scorning religion as hypocritical and bitterly condemning the sacrifices of wartime as a fraud perpetrated by money interest were the dominant themes of the leading writers of the post war decade. The disillusionment of writers caused the writer Gertrude Stein to call them the "lost generation". Figures identified with the "Lost Generation" include authors and poets F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Peirce, and John Dos Passos. It also refers to the time period from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. More generally, the term is used for the generation of young people coming of age in the United States during and shortly after World War I.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff

The Fordney-McCumber Tariff was passed under Harding's presidency. This tariff was passed in 1922, and it reflected US isolationist inclinations following WWI. Congress adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward regulating business and pro-business attitude in passing the tariff. They promoted foreign trade through providing huge loans to the postwar Allied governments who returned the favor by buying US goods and by cracking down on strikes. The tariff basically increased tariff rates.

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a black artistic movement in New York City in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. With a population of almost 200,000 by 1930, Harlem became famous in the 1920s for its concentration of talented actors, artist, musicians, and writers. The Jazz age, and the UNIA (brought by Marcus Gravy) was a result of the Harlem Renaissance. Leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance were musician Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong, poet Counctee Cullen, poet Clude McKay, multitalented Paul Robeson, and the great blues singer Bessie Smith.

Jazz Age

The Jazz Age was the term used to describe the image of the liberated, urbanized 1920s, with a flapper as the dominant symbol of that era. Many rural, fundamentalist Americans deeply resented the changes in American culture that occurred in the "Roaring Twenties." The Jazz age was a time of cultural change; it generally refers to the arts such as writing, music, artwork, and architecture. American Jazz music emerges from African American church and community, and it becomes international, uniquely American. Jazz became a symbol of the "new" and "modern" culture of the cities.

National Origins Act of 1924

The National Origins Act of 1924 had the primary purpose to restrict the flow of newcomers from Southern and Eastern Europe. It established immigrant quotas that discriminated against Southern and Eastern Europeans. This was the primary reason for the decrease in the numbers of Europeans immigrating to the US in the 1920s. It basically limited immigration from southern and Eastern Europe, permitted larger members of immigrants from northern and western Europe, and prohibited immigration from Asia.

Scopes Trial

The Scopes trial occurred in 1925. It was a highly publicized trial where John Thomas Scopes violated a Tennessee state law by teaching evolution in high school. Scopes was prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan and defended by Clarence Darrow. He was convicted but the verdict was later. This trial displayed the fundamentalism prevalent in rural areas at the time, and focused on creationism v. evolution. In the trial, William Jennings Bryan argued on the side of fundamentalism, while Clarence Darrow argued for evolution. Bryan was left looking like a fool, and soon after, while preparing his speech, he died of a stroke.

Teapot Dome

The Teapot dome was located in Wyoming, and it was the scandal for Albert B. Fall and General Harry Daughtery. The Teapot is known as a Harding Administration scandal in which Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall profited from secret leasing to private oil companies of government oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. Daughtery also took bribed for agreeing not to prosecute certain criminal suspects. These scandal rose in 1924, shortly before, however, Harding died suddenly in August 1923. Therefore, he was never implicated for these scandals.

Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding was the 29th president of the United States, winning the election of 1920 against James Cox. He was a Republican from Ohio who was unclear about where he stood on every issue. Harding was handsome and well liked, yet his abilities as a leader were less than presidential. Therefore, recognizing his limitations and hoping to make up for them he appointed able men into his cabinet. Additionally, Harding pardoned the socialist leader Eugene Debs, and won his release from federal prison. Also, Harding approved an increase in tariff rates under the Fordney-McCumber Tariff.