The Twenties
Continuity and Change
DR. PATRICIA BRAKE RUTENBERG
NOVEMBER 19, 2015
Rise of Modern America
Late 19th century/ Early 20th Century
—  Importance of Reviewing/recapping
—  Continuity and change
—  Industrialization
—  Urbanization
—  New Immigration
—  Labor Unions
—  New South
Dawn of 20th Century
—  Progressive Reform Movements
—  Progressive Presidents
—  Progressive Amendments
1.  16th
2.  17th
3.  18th
4.  19th
World War I
1914-1918
—  Modern War
—  New Technologies
—  League of Nations
Response of U.S. in Post-War
—  U.S. Rejection of League of Nations
—  Isolationism versus Internationalism
—  Election of Warren Harding
—  Attempt to “Return to Normalcy”
Post World War I
—  United States
¡ 
¡ 
World’s largest economy
Most powerful state
—  United States
¡ 
¡ 
¡ 
Rewards
Challenges
Place as a world leader
—  Gave birth to modern U.S.
¡ 
¡ 
Institutions
Politics
Frederick Lewis Allen
—  Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the
Nineteen Twenties
—  Emphasized sharp break between:
¡  Prosperous but culturally turbulent 1920s
¡  Decade of economic struggle and political reform of 1930s
Later Historians
View 1920s
—  Setting the stage for what was to follow
—  Not anomalous period between two eras of reform
—  But decade that helped lay groundwork for expansion of
state authority in New Deal
—  Relationship between state and citizen
¡ 
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Wartime agencies
Prohibition of 1920s
New Deal
World War II
—  Distinctly American warfare/welfare state emerged
Historians
—  Ellis Hawley:
¡  Central managerial planning in World War I continued in
giant corporations and state agencies of 1920s
—  Hawley and others:
¡  Managerial elites pursued
progressive goals of social efficiency
¡  More ordered economy
¡  Voluntary arrangements¡  not public authority
Historians point to Herbert Hoover
—  Associationalism
—  Business-government cooperation
—  Linked scientific expertise, efficiency, and planning
to bring order to capitalism
—  Belied laissez faire rhetoric of 1920s
1920s-Old vs. New
Continuity or Change?
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Red Scare
Prohibition
Immigration Restrictions
KKK
Scopes Trial
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Jazz Age
New Woman
Assembly Line
Harlem Renaissance
Lindbergh-1927
Babe Ruth
Radio
Red Scare 1919-1920
—  Led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
—  1,000s of suspects
—  250 deported to Russia on Buford
—  September 1920:
—  Wall Street bombing
¡  38 dead; 100s injured
KKK
—  Anti:
¡  Black, Catholic, Jewish
¡  Pacifist
¡  Communist
¡  Internationalist
¡  Bootleggers
¡  Birth control
—  Pro:
¡  WASP
¡  Ultra Conservatives
—  Peaked in mid 1920s: 5 million
—  Midwest and South
Marcus Garvey
Universal Negro Improvement Association
—  Racial Separateness
—  Resettlement of African Americans in Africa
—  Black Star line
—  4 million members
—  “New Negro”
¡  Militant
¡  Strong
Immigration Restriction
National Origins System
—  Emergency Quota Act 1921
¡ 
3% of 1910
—  Immigration Act of 1924
¡ 
2% of 1890
—  Why the change?
—  1924: End of an Era
—  Political Cartoon Analysis
Cosmopolitanism
—  Randolph Bourne
¡  U.S. should be “not a nationality but a trans-nationality”
¡  Cosmopolitan
¡  U.S. at vanguard of multicultural age
—  Others:
¡  Jane Addams
¡  John Dewey
¡  Louis Brandeis
Prohibition Experiment
—  1919: 18th Amendment
—  Popular in South and West
—  Opposition in Eastern cities
—  Wets v. Dry's
—  “Noble Experiment
Increase in Crime
—  Speakeasies
—  Gangsters/gang wars
—  Bribery of police
—  Chicago
¡  1920s: 500 mobsters murdered
¡  Al Capone-made millions
¡  $12 to $18 billion in revenue by 1930
Education
New v. Old
—  John Dewey
¡  Learning by doing
¡  Education for life
¡  Permissiveness
Scopes Trial
Old v. New
—  Dayton, Tennessee
—  Teacher: John T. Scopes
¡  Indicted for teaching evolution
—  Clarence Darrow: ACLU
—  William Jennings Bryan
—  Outcome:
¡  Scopes fined $100
¡  Bryan dies
¡  Law formally repealed 1967
—  PBS: teachers’ guide
—  UTK Special Collections
—  Photo analysis
Mass Consumption
—  Recession 1920-1921
—  Government policies of 1920s
¡  Favor expansion of capitalism
¡  Favor investment
—  Mass production
—  Mass consumption
¡  Automobiles
¡  Radios
¡  Appliances
—  Credit
—  ? Compare to current consumerism
Fordism
—  Standardization
¡  Components
¡  Manufacturing processes
—  Moving assembly line
—  Unskilled labor
—  Mass consumption
—  Mass production
—  Higher wages
—  Atlantic Crossings
Soft Spots in the Economy
—  Overproduction of American Farmers
Soft Spots in the Economy
—  Too much inventory
Soft Spots in the Economy
—  Decrease of European trading partners in Post-
World War I period
Soft Spots in the Economy
—  Unregulated speculation in the stock market
New York Stock Exchange 1929
Crash of 1929
The Twenties: Continuity or Change?