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William Jennings Bryan
"Great Commoner" + former congressman, secretary of state, 3-time presidential candidate - only he among national leaders had the support, prestige, and eloquence to transform fundamentalism into a popular crusade - passionately denounced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, insisting that "all the ills from which America suffers can be traced back to the teaching of evolution" - supported anti-evolution bills in numerous state legislatures
Marcus Garvey
- 1916: brought to Harlem the headquarters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) which he founded - insisted that blacks had nothing in common with whites = good thing - called for racial separation instead of integration in passionate speeches and in editorials in his newspaper, the Negro World - stressed black skin = glorious symbol of national greatness - saw every white person as a "potential Klansman" and endorsed the "social and political separation of all peoples to the extent that they promote their own ideals and civilization" - goal = build an all-black empire in Africa -> began calling himself the "Provisional President of Africa" raising funds to send Americans to Africa, and expelling any UNIA member who married a white crusade collapsed in 1923 when a court convicted him of mail fraud related to overselling shares of stock in steamship corporation intended to transport American blacks to Africa -> sentenced to 5 yrs in prison -> pardoned in 1927 by Pres Calvin Coolidge on the condition that he be deported back to Jamaica when died: memory of his movement kept alive an undercurrent that would reemerge in the 1960s under the slogan "black power."
Immigration Act of 1924
= Federal legislation intended to favor northern and western European immigrants over those from southern and eastern Europe by restricting the number of immigrants from any one European country to 2 percent of the total number of immigrants per year, with an overall limit of slightly over 150,000 new arrivals per year. (+ changed the standard to the 1890 census, which had included fewer "new" immigrants from southern and eastern Europe) - purpose: to favor immigrants from northern and western Europe and reduce those from southern and eastern Europe - prejudice felt by many rural American Protestants: "On the one side is beer, bolshevism, unassimilating settlements and perhaps many flags—on the other side is constitutional government; one flag, stars and stripes." - left the gate open to new arrivals from countries in the Western Hemisphere, so that an unintended result of the law was a substantial increase in the Hispanic Catholic population of the US: People of Latin American descent (chiefly Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans) became the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the country (new immigration laws excluded anyone from Japan or China)
jazz music
= a dynamic blend of several musical traditions - African American musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, uke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith ("Empress of the Blues") combined energies of piano-based "ragtime" with teh emotions of the blues - constant improvisations and variations and sensual spontaneity -> appealed to many ppl of all ethnicities and ages bc it celebrated pleasure and immediacy, letting go and enjoying the freedom of the movement - "absorbed the national spirit, that tremendous spirit of go, the nervousness, lack of conventionality and boisterous good-nature characteristic of the American, white or black." - especially American expression of the modernist spirit even though many were not fans of it (ex: Ladies' Home Journal)
consumer culture
A society in which mass production and consumption of nationally advertised products comes to dictate much of social life and status. most visible change during the twenties: powerful + urban-dominated "first importance to his country is no longer that of citizen but that of consumer. Consumption is a new necessity."
Niagara Movement
African American NAACP leaders came mainly from THIS = a group that had met each year since 1905 at places associated with the anti-slavery movement (Niagara Falls; Oberlin, Ohio; Boston; Harpers Ferry) and issued defiant statements against discrimination
Charlie Chaplin
English-born actor who rose to international fame as the "tramp"
Scopes Trial
Highly publicized trial of a high-school teacher in Tennessee (John T. Scopes) violating a state law that prohibited the teaching of evolution; the trial was seen as the climax of the fundamentalist war against : 12-day "monkey trial" begin on July 10, 1925 pit science against fundamentalism: Bryan (true believer in literal bible) for prosecution and Clarence Darrow (nation's most famous trial lawyer + tireless defender of hopeless causes who championed the rights of the working class) for defense: "Civilization is on trial" -> scopes guilty -> Tennessee Supreme Court, while upholding anti-evolution law, waived Scopes's $100 fine on a technicality = both sides claim victory
bootlegging
Making and selling alcohol illegally (sold in illegal saloons called "speakeasies"): Al Capone
shoemaker Nicola Sacco and fish peddler Bartolomeo Vanzetti
May 5, 1920: two Italian immigrants who described themselves as revolutionary anarchists eager to topple the American gov were arrested outside Boston, Massachusetts + charged with stealing $16000 from a shoe factory payroll and killing the paymaster and a guard both were armed with loaded pistols when arrest + both lied about their activities + both were identified as eyewitnesses (stolen money never found) become martyrs, victims of American injustice to millions around the world
Jazz Age
Term coined by writer F. Scott Fitzgerald to characterize the spirit of rebellion and spontaneity among young Americans in the 1920s, a spirit epitomized by the hugely popular jazz music of the era. revolution in manners and morals among young ppl, especially those on college campuses (Flaming Youth)
Highland Park Plant(1913)
The Ford Motor Company led the way in efficient and cost-cutting production methods: gravity slides and chain conveyors move each automobile down the assembly line
Sacco and Vanzetti case
Trial of two Italian immigrants that occurred at the height of Italian immigration and against the backdrop of numerous terror attacks by anarchists; despite a lack of clear evidence, the two defendants, both self-professed anarchists, were convicted of murder and were executed on Aug 23, 1927 (claimed innocence): occurred at the height of Italian immigration to the US and against the backdrop of numerous terror attacks by anarchists trial and conviction of these working-class Italian immigrants became a public spectacle amid the growing mood of nativism (charged atmosphere): most celebrated criminal case of 1920s = reinforced the connection between European immigrants and political radicalism The presiding judge openly revealed his biases, referring to the defendants as "anarchist bastards."
New Era
US economy entered THIS in which the consumption of goods became a national consumption (convert ppl into carefree shoppers)
appealed: African Amrican living in slums in northern cities appalled: other black leaders (ex: WEB Du Bois)
Who did Garvey's message of black nationalism and racial solidarity appeal to and who did it appall?
flappers
Young women of the 1920s whose rebellion against prewar standards of femininity included wearing shorter dresses and minimal underclothing, bobbing their hair (cut short), dancing to jazz music, driving cars, smoking cigarettes, and indulging in illegal drinking and gambling. (defiance of proper prewar standards) wanted more out of life than marriage and motherhood : carefree version of feminism
- first = Wilbur and Orville Wright in North Carolina - airplane technology advances slowly until the outbreak of war in 1914, after which Europeans rapidly adapted the airplane as a military weapon (America flew European planes) - American aircraft industry arose during the war but collapsed in the postwar demobilization - Kelly Act 1925: the federal government began to subsidize the industry through the awarding of airmail contracts - Air Commerce Act 1926: provided federal funds for the advancement of air transportation and navigation, including construction of airports
advance in transportation: airplanes
Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
allowed women to vote and to experience many freedoms previously limited to men (blacks still prevented)
Charles A. Lindbergh Jr.
aviation industry received huge psychological boost in 1927 when HE made the first solo transatlantic flight, traveling from NYC to Paris (dramatic) -> won $2500 and Congressional Medal of Honor dance step in his honor: Lindy Hop
F Scott Fitzgerald
became "voice of his generation" after his best-selling first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), recreated the unadultered hedonism of student life at Princeton made famous the Jazz Age as the evocative label for the spirit of rebelliousness and spontaneity he saw welling up among young americans
psychoanalysis
became the most celebrated - and controversial - technique for helping troubled ppl come to grips w their psychic demons ("talk therapy")
most significant economic and social development of the early 20th century was widespread ownership of automobiles: - first motorcar manufactured for sale in 1895 - founding of Ford Motor Company in 1903 revolutionize the infant industry,, for Henry Ford vowed to democratize the automobile: everyone able to afford one and everyone will have one (wanted his employees to be able to buy his product thru increasingly efficient production techniques enabling him to sell cars to less money: mass production techniques and efficiency) - automobile revolution benefit from discovery of vast oil fields creating a moving assembly line rather than having a crew of workers assemble each car in a fixed position: each worker performed a singular task = monotonous, mind-numbing experience helped fuel the economic boom of the 1920s by creating tens of thousands of new jobs and a huge demand for steel, rubber, leather, oil, gasoline -> stimulate road construction, sparked real estate boom in Florida and California, dotted landscape with gasoline stations, traffic lights, billboards, motor hotels ("motels")
car culture
Emergency Immigration Act of 1921
concerns abt an invasion of foreign radicals led a reactionary Congress to pass THIS which restricted annual immigration from each European country to 3% of the total number of that nationality represented in the 1910 census
"new woman"
eagerly discarded the confining wardrobe of their "frumpy" mothers in favor of more daring attire (tempting boys by their dress and conversation)
mass advertising
first developed in late 19th century, grew into huge enterprise driving the mass-production/mass-consumption economy (aimed at women bc they did most of the spending: 2/3) ex: Popular new weekday radio programs were sponsored by national companies trying to sell laundry detergent and hand soap—hence the term soap operas.
Sigmund Freud
founder of modern psychoanalysis: his writings on the subconscious, dreams, and latent sexual yearnings captured the attention of many Americans, especially young adults changed the way people understood their behavior and feelings by insisting that the mind is essentially and mysteriously "conflicted" by unconscious efforts to control or repress powerful irrational impulses and sexual desires ("libido") -> frank treatment of sex provided scientific justification for rebelling against social conventions and indulging in sex for many young americans
- first moving-picture show in NYC in 1896 - silent films 2/sutitles: nation's chief form of mass entertainment - 1928: "talking" movies appeared -> surge in movie attendance
growth of movies
city dwellers could easily drive into the countryside; visit friends and relatives; go to ballparks, stadiums, or boozing rings to see baseball or football games and prizefights -> americans fell in love with mass spectator sports (mass popularity of baseball ("the national pastime"), football, boxing) Babe Ruth, Harold Edward "red" Grange (football), William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (boxing)
how did widespread ownership of automobiles as well as raising incomes change the way ppl spent their leisure time
- electricity - indoor plumbing - washing machines - automobiles (travel easily -> expose to new values and diff viewpoints) - moderately prices create comforts and conveniences "dissolution of ancient habits"
improvements to everyday life
militant new fundamentalism
in response to "modern" notions that the bible should be studied in the light of modern scholarship (the "high criticism") or that it sold accommodate Darwinian theories of biological evolution, conservative Protestants embraced THIS, which was distinguished less by a shred faith than by a posture of hostility toward "liberal beliefs and its insistence on teh literal truth of the Bible"
a new system of values celebrating leisure, self-expression, and self-indulgence, all achieved through the purchase of "name-brand" products: extravagant buying = reckless spending take place of saving, waste replace conservation rise of mass culture: new emphasis on spending, advertising, credit, and conveniences
in the twenties, old virtues such as hard work, plain living, and frugal money management were challenged by what
mass culture: Americans now not only saw and heard the same advertisements and shopped at the same companies' stores, but they also read the same magazines, listened to the same radio programs, and watched the same movies media -> can follow the lives and careers of the nation's first celebrities and superstars
mass advertising and marketing campaigns increasingly led to what
This Side of Paradise and other magazine articles
middle-class Americans learned about the hidden world of "flaming youth" (the title of another popular novel): wild parties, free love, speakeasies, skinny-dipping, "petting" in automobiles on lovers' lanes
revived Ku Klux Klan
most violent of the reactionary movements during the twenties was THIS: the infamous post-Civil War group of anti-black racists that had re-created itself in 1915 - old one died out in 1870s once white Democrats regained control of former Confederate states after Reconstruction -> now no longer simply a southern group intent on terrorizing African Americans + nationwide organization devoted to "100 percent Americanism": only "natives" - white Protestants born in the US - could be members - promoted strict personal morality, opposed bootleg liquor, preached hatred against not only African Americans but Roman Catholics, Jews, immigrants, Communists, atheists - included a women's auxiliary group called Kemellia, and whole families attended Klan gatherings, "klasping" hands while listening to inflammatory speeches, watching fireworks, burning crosses - headquartered in Atlanta and calling itself the "Invisible Empire," grew rapidly in cities and small towns across the nation. It was no longer simply a southern organization - Recruiters, called Kleagles, played "upon whatever prejudices were most acute in a particular area." - benefited from the war on alcohol + declare war on bootleggers and moonshiners - members = small farmers, sharecroppers, wage workers + doctors, lawyers, accountants, business leaders, teachers, and even politicians - influence crumbled after Grand Dragon of Indiana (con man named David C. Stephenson) sentenced to life in prison in 1925 for kidnapping and raping a 28 yr woman who then committed suicide
Prohibition
national ban on the manufacture and sale of alcohol; though the law was widely violated and prove too difficult to enforce efficiently movement to prohibit beer, wine, and liquor forged an unusual alliance between rural and small-town Protestants and urban political progressives - between believers in "old-time religion" (who considered drinking sinful) and social reformers (mostly women; who were convinced that THIS would reduce divorces, prostitution, spousal abuse, and other alcohol-related violence) the ethnic and social prejudices that many members shared connected the two groups (Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union) to each other and to nativists movements (goal for anti-alcohol crusaders: policing the behavior of the foreign-born, the working class, the poor, and blacks) cause of this transformed into a virtual test of American patriotism during the Great War: wartime need to use grain for food rather than for making booze, combined with a grassroots backlash against beer brewers because of their German background powerful ppl in gov didn't even follow temperance + "prohibition is better than no liquor at all"
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
organization founded in 1910 by black activists and white progressives that promoted education as a means of combating social problems and focusing on legal action to secure the civil rights supposedly guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments = progressives interracial activism on racial issues (racial equality) broad-based national organization: embraced the progressive idea that the solution to social problems begins with education, by informing ppl about the harsh realities of social problems WEB e Bois became the organization's director of publicity and research and the editor of its journal, Crisis 1919: launched a national campaign against lunching (common form of vigilante racist violence): mob murder
Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
outlawed alcoholic beverages ("Prohibition") -> set off an epidemic of lawbreaking as thirsty Americans defied the law thru the twenties
Volstead Act (1919)
outlined the rules and regulations needed to enforce the 18th Amendment but had so many loopholes tht it virtually guaranteed failure (+ Congress never supplies adequate funding to support it)
Amelia earhart
pioneering aviator who tragically disappeared in her 1937 attempt to fly around the world: first woman to fly solo across teh Atlantic
installment buying
promised instant gratification for consumers (buy now, pay later) -> consumer debt
changed the patterns of everyday life: after dinner, families gather around radio to listen to music, speeches, new broadcasts, weather forecasts, comedy shows radio "is your theater, your college, your newspaper, your library"
radio craze
nativism
reactionary conservative movement characterized by heightened nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and laws setting stricter regulations on immigration tried to stir up hatred of immigrants already in te US and of their "un-American" religions and ideas (in addition to hating those Europeans coming in)
Aframerican
term coined by James Weldon Johnson to designate Americans with African ancestry, whom he called "conscious collaborators" in the creation of American society and culture A people capable of producing such great art and literature, Johnson declared, should never again be "looked upon as inferior."
Negro nationalism
the celebration of African American culture found expression in what came to be called THIS, which promoted black separatism from mainstream American life leading spokesman = Marcus Garvey (Garveyism)
homemakers: college curricula began to just teach aby being a good wife and mother + fewer college-educated women persuaded careers outside the home (or worked in unskilled, low-wage jobs) "a woman must choose between a home and her work, when a man may have both. There must be a way out, and it is the problem of our generation to find the way" new vocations created by growing consumer culture + advent of electricity and electrical appliances made housework quicker and easier (African American and Mexican women had it worst)
the conservative political mood of the twenties helped steer may women back into their traditional roles as what
Harlem Renaissance
the nation's first self-conscious black literary and artistic movement (resulting from new opportunities: spirit of protest); centered in New York City's Harlem district, which had a largely black population in the wake of the Great Migration from the South (African Americans found new freedom of speech and action in northern settings + gained leverage as voters by settling in states with many electoral votes) great number of African Americans generated a sense of common identity, growing power, and distinctive self-expression that soon made Harlem the cultural capital of African American life: "nightclub capital of the world" writers of this time celebrated African American culture, especially jazz and blues
- marketing and advertising campaigns to increase consumer demand - new ways for buyers to finance purchases over time ("layaway") rather than having to pay cash up front
to keep people buying, executives focused their resources on what two critical innovations
cultural and social rebellion: daring new fads and fashions, new music, new attitudes, new ways of having fun
what did many young ppl focus their energies on during the 1920s
tension between rural and urban ways of life (more americans in cities than in rural areas after Great War): urban economies prospered -> farmers suffered from the end of the wartime boom in food exports to Europe (inc diversity)
what did much of the cultural conflict during the 1920s grow out of
involved an explosion of new consumer goods made available through a national marketplace (large-scale industrial production of nineteenth century continued) late 19th century: economy driven by commercial agriculture and large-scale industrial production: building of railroads and bridges, manufacturing of steel, construction of housing and business in cities
what did the dominant aspect of the economy involve during the twenties
- assembly line - new machines (electric motors, steam turbines, dump trucks, tractors, bulldozers, steam shovels) - more efficient ways of operating farms, factories, plants, mines, mills
what generated dramatic increases in productivity
Red Scare of 1919 and postwar surge of immigration In the early 1920s, more than half of the white men and a third of the white women working in mines, mills, and factories were European immigrants, some of whom had brought with them to America a passion for socialism or anarchism -> foreign connections of so many political radicals triggered efforts by "nativists" to close the door to immigrants
what helped generate a new wave of anti-immigration hysteria
dance halls + dance craze, including new dances like the Charleston and the Black Bottom whose sexually provocative movements shocked traditionalists
what resulted from swelling for jazz music as culture of jazz quickly spread from its origins in New Orleans, Kansas City, Memphis, and St. Louis to teh African American neighborhoods of Harlem in NYC and Chicago's South Side
most dynamic in American history: - rapid urbanization: automotive industry created immediate need for roads, highways, service stations, motels that stimulated other industries (steel, concrete, furniture) - technological innovation (transformational) -> economic boom (fasted economic growth): improved the standard of living for most americans -> highest + enable mass production through the assembly-line process - widespread prosperity - social rebelliousness - cultural upheaval - political conservatism - building boom (construction) - major social and political changes signaled what many people called a "New Era" in American life - growing public awareness of scientific discoveries that undermined many traditional assumption about God, the universe, and human behavior while profoundly affecting social and cultural life -> "nervous generation" trying to find certainty twenties: period of political and social sag dominated politically by a Republican party devoted to the interests of big business
what was the decade between the end of the Great War and the onset of the Great Depression at the end of 1929 a period of?
- Woodrow Wilson lose fight w Republican-led Senate over treaty of Versailles - his administration's savage crackdown on dissenters and socialists during and after war - Wilson had put his enemies in office and friends in jail - by 1920: many disheartened progressives had withdrawn from public life
what weakened progressive movement
Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: describe what a turbulent period that was "the greatest era of transition the human race has ever known. Old institutions are crumbling, old ideals are being battered into dust; the shock of the most cataclysmic war in history has left the world more disorganized than ever"
what were this period's two most popular labels and what did they describe
