Education and Youth (654­655) ● In the 1920’s more people were going to school especially after WWI ● This contributed to the idea of ​
adolescence ​
as a real part of a person's life ● Freudian​
psychology also contributed to this feeling. ● Schools started focused on specialized training ● Schools served as place children could learn and pursue hobbies The Decline of the “Self­Made Man”(655) ● As education's role rose the idea of the​
self­made man​
faded ● The growing amount of rule and norms created by bureaucracies made made feel unmasculine. Men by responded by ○ Joining Fraternities ○ Joining the Army ○ Playing Sports ● Three heroes of the New Era ○ Thomas Edison inventor ○ Henry Ford creator of assembly line and founders of US automobile industry ○ Charles Lindbergh aviator ● They represented the best that had come of modern technology and industrial America ● They were admired as self made men because they had no formal education The Disenchanted (655­656) ● Artists and intellectuals found the new 1920’s society disturbing ● They did not try to reform America and instead isolated themselves from it ● The new generation was referred to as the ​
“Lost Generation” ● After WWI
○ The rejection of idealism ○ Emphasis on materialism and consumerism ● Led people to believe nothing had been gained from the war ● A Farewell to Arms​
1929 by Ernest Hemingway illustrated this feeling ● Intellectuals also hated peacetime America and its lack of idealism ● Many writes critiqued society like ○ H.L Mencken wrote ​
Smart Set​
and​
American Mercury​
which mocked the middle class and it’s culture claiming there could not be civility in democracy be everyone had power ○ Sinclair Lewis wrote ​
Main Street​
in 1920 and ​
Babbitt ​
in 1922 and ​
Arrowsmith in 1925 which also hated on the middle class ● Intellectuals hated the success ethic ● The book ​
The Great Gatsby​
written in 1925 by F Scott Fitzgerald talks about a young man who works to join the upper class but realizes it is actually awful ● Some of the Artists and intellectuals moved to France to escape the US and adopted party centric lifestyles ● Many turned to art to express themselves which made many of the US’s greatests writers ● Some Intellectuals did actually advocate reform ○
John Dewey advocated​
pragmatism​
and practical experimentation in social policy ○ Charles and Mary Beard worked for economic change The Harlem Renaissance (656­666) ● Harlem and New York City borough which had gone from White to African American after WWI became the center of US ● Harlem had many jazz clubs the featured artists like ○ Duke Ellington ○ Jelly Roll Morton ○ Fletcher Henderson ● There were also many theaters ● Harlem art had a very large African influence ● There was lots African American pride ● Alain Locke helped established careers for many African American writers with the compilation book ​
The New Negro​
in 1925 ● Aaron Douglas became a famous painter ● The renaissance advance African American art and culture as well as spreading awareness of it Prohibition (657) ● Prohibition went into effect January 1920 supported by the middle class and progressives ● Prohibition was problematic because while it did lower drinking it led to a lot of crime around the sale and smuggling of alcohol ● The US government hired some federal agents to crack down on the trade but the police gave little help and it was ineffective ● Infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone rose to power as gang boss that smuggled alcohol and was involved in many deaths from 1920 to 1927 ● Many members of the middle class turned on Prohibition but Protestants defend it throughout associating drinking with Catholic immigrants who they felt were displacing them ● Wets​
were knows as fighters of Prohibition and in 1933 during the great depression the 18th amendment​
was repealed Nativism and the Klan (657­660) ● Nativist​
feeling continued to spread throughout the US leading up WWI ● The feeling was supported largely by the middle class ● During WWI Americans started associating immigration and radicalism ● In 1921 Congress passed an​
Emergency Immigration Act​
which established a quota that stated annual immigration could not be more than 3% for each nationality of the amount there were in 1910 ● Nativists kept pushing and in 1924 the ​
Origins Act of 1924​
banned all immigration from east Asia As well as limiting the quota for European from 3% to 2% and based the number on the 1890 census when there had been very few southern and eastern Europeans ○ This angered Japan which the act had been aimed at ○ This favored Teutonic European immigration more ● Five years later immigration was restricted to 150,000 a year ● The​
KKK​
which had died in the 1870’s made a comeback when a group of white settlers made a modern version on Stone Mountain ● Leo Frank a Jewish factory manager in Atlanta was convicted on not well supported accusations of murdering a female employee ○ The KKK broke into the prison and lynched him ● The Birth of a Nation glorified the Klan ● The Klan started small and southern based focus on intimidating African Americans based on William J Simmons beliefs they were becoming insubordinate ● After WWI focus switched to Catholics, Jews, and Foreigners ● The Klan expanded fast with its goal of purging American life of impure alien influences ● The Klan expanded to cities, the West, and the North ● Some Klan leaders came from rich backgrounds ● Some units operated like a fraternity and claimed to be patriots and protector of morality ● Some children's and women's units were established ● The Klan more oftenly acted as a very brutal organization threatening and boycotting Jewish, Catholic, African American, and immigrants businesses ● The Klan also felt the had to defend traditional values and went after those who they felt were guilty of ○ Irreligion ○ Sexual Promiscuity ○ Drunkenness ● The Klan also ○ Helped enforce Prohibition ○ Advocated for Bible use in school ○ Punished divorce ● The Klan appealed to many because it gave power and a sense of community to those without it ● Women used the Klan for activism and involvement ● The KKK quickly declined after 1925 after internal power issues and scandals like ○ David Stephenson head of the Indiana Klan raped, kidnapped, and then let a secretary died after she swallowed poison Religious Fundamentalism (660­661) ● The placement of religion in contemporary society became controversial ● Protestant were split between​
Modernists​
, urban middle class people who wanted religion to adapt to scientific discoveries and modern society and the who believed in traditional faith known as​
Fundamentalists ● Fundamentalists were mad at the abandonment of traditional beliefs because of new scientific discoveries ○ They strongly opposed Charles Darwin and his teachings ●
Fundamentalism was very evangelical and focused on spreading their doctrine to new groups ○ Billy Sunday went all over the South and West drawing huge crowds for his preaching ● Fundamentalists started to gain power especially in its campaign to stop the teaching of evolution in schools ○ In March of 1925 Tennessee made it illegal for evolutionary theory to be taught ● The actions of Tennessee were noticed by the ​
American Civil Liberties Union​
which had been founded in 1920 by ○ Jane Addams ○ Norman Thomas ○ Hellen Keller ● The ACLU fought this by offering free counsel to any Tennessee teacher who would defy the law and defend it in a test case ● John T Scopes was arrested and Clarence Darrow defended him while William Jennings Bryan worked with the prosecution ● The prosecution won the case but in an examination of Bryan, Darrow weakened the Fundamentalist cause and took away a lot of its power ● Fundamentalists continued to practice The Democrats’ Ordeal (661) ● The Democratic party suffered in the 1920s due to problems between urban and rural groups ● The group's diversity caused some problems as it included Klansman and Prohibitionists as well as Catholics, urban workers, and immigrants ● At the ​
Democratic National Convention​
held in New York in 1924 when the urban wing attempted to win approval by calling for the removal of Prohibition as well as the denunciation of the clan which failed miserably ● Urban Democrats supported Alfred E Smith while Rural democrats supported William McAdoo ● The party finally compromised on John W Davis ● In 1928 when Smith secured the party's nomination he could not unite them because of Anti Catholic sentiment and lost the election to the more modern thinking Hoover Harding and Coolidge (662­663) ● Warren G harding was elected president in 1920 ● Harding put capable men to the important cabinet offices and Foreign Policy ● Harding did not seem to be or feel to be very fit for his position and had issues with gambling, drinking, and attractive women ● Harding put members from the Republican party in positions of large power but they were corrupt ○ Albert B Fall one of member put in power by Harding was involved in a scandal where he leased oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills California for half a million. ■ Fall was convicted of bribery and put in prison ○
Howard Daugherty another member put in power by Harding barely avoided something similar for his role in scandal ● Harding left for a speaking tour in the west in the summer of 1923 but suffered two heart attacks and died ● He was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge who was very silent and puritanical ● Coolidge believed the government should not interfere in people's life and did not do much ● He was elected again in 1924 again comfortably but did not run again in 1928 Government and Business (663­664) ● New Era president were passive but the federal government was pretty active in the 1920s adapting public policy by helping businesses and industries work with max efficiency and productivity ● The private sector and the federal government continued to have a close relationship after the WWI ● Andrew Mellon a steel and aluminium tycoon devoted himself to lowering taxes on corporations and was successful ● He also worked with Coolidge after 1924 to lower the federal budget which helped get rid of the majority of the US WWI debt ● Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, a progressive, encouraged Voluntary cooperation in the private sector to increase stability ● This would require public institutions ● Hoover became leader of the business concept associationalism that advocate the creation of nations organizations of businessmen for industries which would in turn stabilize them ● Hoover won the 1928 election over democrat Al Smith easily and promised to work hard the solve economic issues but shortly after his inauguration the US went into an economical crisis