The Roaring Twenties
Reading
Comprehension
Web Quest
Directions: Use this document to answer the questions on your handout.
DID YOU KNOW? During the 1920s, cosmetic sales soared as women tried
to copy the look of Hollywood movie stars. The average American woman used about one
pound of face powder per year.
I.
Nativism Resurges
A. In the 1920s, racism and nativism increased.
1. Immigrants and demobilized military veterans competed for the same jobs
during a high time of unemployment and an increased cost of living.
B. Sacco and Vanzetti case
1. Two immigrant men were accused of murder and theft
2. They were thought to be anarchists
3. The two men were sentenced to death and in 1927, they were executed while
still proclaiming their innocence.
C. Nativists used the idea of eugenics to give support to their arguments against
immigration.
1. They emphasized that human inequalities were inherited and said that inferior
people should not be allowed to breed.
2. This, along with the anti-immigrant feeling of the time, further promoted the
idea of strict immigrant control.
D. The Ku Klux Klan led the movement to restrict immigration.
1. They not only targeted the freed African Americans, but also Catholics, Jews,
immigrants, and other groups believed to have “un-American” values.
2. By 1924, the KKK had over 4 million members stretched from the deep South
to Northern cities.
3. Scandals and poor leadership led to the decline of the KKK in the late 1920s.
Politicians supported by the Klan were voted out of office.
Sacco and Vanzetti!
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Ku Klux Klan members
I.
Controlling Immigration
A. In 1921 President Warren G. Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act
1. This limited immigration to 3 percent of the total number of people in any
ethnic group already living in the United States
2. The group most affected by this was southern and eastern Europeans
B. The National Origins Act of 1924 made immigrant restriction a permanent policy.
1. The act lowered the quota to 2 percent of each group living in the U.S. in
1890.
2. This further restricted immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, but
exempted immigrants from the Western Hemisphere from the quotas.
C. The immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 reduced the labor pool in the United
States.
1. Employers needed laborers for agriculture, mining, and railroad work.
2. Mexican immigrants began pouring into the U.S. between 1914 and the end
of the 1920s.
3. These immigrants fled their country in the aftermath of the Mexican
Revolution of 1910.
II.
The New Morality
A. A “new morality” challenged traditional ideas and glorified youth and personal
freedom.
1. These new ideas dealt with how marriage, work, and pleasure affected the
way people lived.
2. Women broke away from families as they entered the workforce, earned their
own living, and attended college.
3. The automobile gave American youth the opportunity to pursue interests
away from their parents.
III. The Fundamentalist Movement
A. Some Americans feared the new morality and worried about Americaʼs social
decline.
1. Many of these Americans joined a movement called Fundamentalism.
2. They rejected Darwinʼs theory of evolution, instead believing in creationism.
3. In 1925 Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach
anything that denied creationism and taught evolution instead.
B. The debate between evolutionists and creationists came to a head with the
Scopes Trial.
1. John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, volunteered to test the Butler Act by
teaching evolution in his class.
2. He was arrested and put on trial, where he was found guilty. However, the
case was overturned.
3. After the trial, many fundamentalists withdrew from public activism.
IV. Prohibition
A. Many people felt the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment would reduce
unemployment, domestic violence, and poverty.
1. The Volstead Act made the enforcement of Prohibition the responsibility of
the U. S. Treasury Department.
2. Until the 1900s, police powers - a governmentʼs power to control people and
property in the publicʼs best interest - had been the job of state governments.
B. Americans ignored the laws of Prohibition.
1. They went to secret bars called speakeasies, where alcohol could be illegally
purchased.
2. Crime became big business, and gangsters corrupted many local politicians
and governments.
C. In 1933 the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment ended Prohibition.
1. It was a defeat for supporters of traditional values and for those who favored
the use of federal police powers to achieve moral reform.
DID YOU KNOW? During the 1920s, families sat down together to
listen to radio programs, much like families today sit down to watch television
programs.
I.
Art and Literature
A. During the 1920s, American artists, writers, and intellectuals began challenging
traditional ideas as they searched for meaning in the modern world.
1. The Bohemian lifestyle of Manhattanʼs Greenwich Village and Chicagoʼs
South Side attracted artists and writers.
2. These areas were considered centers of creativity, enlightenment, and
freedom from conformity to old ideas.
3. Writing styles and subject matter varied. Chicago poet Carl Sandburg used
common speech to glorify the Midwest and the expansive nature of American
life. Playwright Eugene OʼNeillʼs work focused on the search for meaning in
modern society.
II.
Popular Culture
A. The economic prosperity of the 1920s allowed Americans leisure time.
1. This time was spent doing things like sports, movies, theater, and other forms
of entertainment.
2. Radio, motion pictures, and newspapers gave rise to a new interest in sports.
Sports figures, such as Babe Ruth and heavyweight boxing champion Jack
Dempsey, were famous for their sports abilities but became national
celebrities as well.
3. Motion pictures became increasingly popular. The first “talkie”, or talking film,
The Jazz Singer, was made in 1927. The golden age of Hollywood began.
4. Mass media - radio, movies, newspapers, and magazines - helped break
down the focus on local interests. Mass media helped unify the nation and
spread new ideas and attitudes.
Babe Ruth
Charlie Chaplin
DID YOU KNOW? Activists like Marcus Garvey, Booker T.
Washington and W.E.B. Dubois laid a political foundation for the Harlem
Renaissance. These men and others courageously spoke against racism and
oppression in America and worldwide.
I.
The Harlem Renaissance
A. The Great Migration occurred when thousands of African Americans headed to
the North with the hope of a better life with more opportunities.
1. In large northern cities, African Americans created environments that
stimulated artistic development, racial pride, a sense of community, and
political organization.
2. This led to a massive creative outpouring of African American arts, known as
the Harlem Renaissance.
3. Writer Claude McKay became the first important writer of the Harlem
Renaissance. His work expressed defiance and contempt of racism.
4. Langston Hughes became the leading voice of the African American
experience in the United States.
5. Louis Armstrong introduced jazz, a style of music influenced by Dixieland
music and ragtime.
6. A famous Harlem nightspot, the Cotton Club, was where some famous
African American musicians got their start.
7. Bessie Smith sang about unrequited love, poverty, and oppression, which
were classic themes in blues style music. This soulful style of music evolved
from African American spirituals.
II.
African American Politics
A. After World War I, many African Americans wanted a new role in life and politics.
1. The Great Migration led to African Americans becoming powerful voting blocs,
which influenced election outcomes in the North
2. Oscar DePriest was elected as the first African American representative in
Congress from a Northern state.
3. The NAACP battled segregation and discrimination. Their efforts led to the
passage of anti-lynching legislation in the House of Representatives, but the
Senate defeated the bill.
4. Jamaican black leader Marcus Garveyʼs idea of “Negro Nationalism”
glorified black culture and tradition. He founded the Universal Negro
Improvement Association, which promoted black pride and unity. While he
called for economic and political power, he also voiced the need for
separation and independence from whites.
5. Garvey planned to create a settlement in Africa for African Americans caused
middle class African Americans to distance themselves from Garvey.
Fun Facts
Babe Ruth
• He played for the first 6 years of his career with the Boston Red Sox, where he helped
them win a World Series in 1918. He was traded to the Yankees in 1920, and the
“Curse of the Bambino” was born. Supposedly because of this curse, the Red Sox
didnʼt win a World Series again until 2004.
Sacco and Vanzetti
• Many people spoke out against the guilty verdict handed down by what some
newspapers called an “anti-Italian, anti-immigrant” jury. Today, the guilt or innocence is
still disputed.
Ku Klux Klan
• The head of the KKK is known as the “Grand Wizard of the Empire.” In 1989, David
Duke held this title in the United States. He also was voted into the Louisiana House
of Representatives.
Flappers
• Traditional Flapper accessories include long pearl necklaces, a small sequined purse,
a cigarette holder and a feather boa. Wearing fishnet stockings also completes the
ensemble. The ideal dress length for Flappers was right below or above the knee. The Scopes Trial
• In 1925, the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Act which made it a
misdemeanor to teach the evolution of only one species—mankind—in the
public schools. The evolution of 99.9999% of all other plant and animal life,
and the evolution of the earth or the solar system, could all be taught without
violating the Butler Act.
Marcus Garvey
• On June 10, 1940, Garvey died after suffering two strokes while reading a mistaken
and negative obituary of himself in the a Chicago newspaper. The paper stated that he
had died "broke, alone and unpopular".
Jack Dempsey
• Once shared an apartment with Charlie Chaplin.
Charlie Chaplin
• Was listed 10th on the list of the 50 Greatest Screen Legends in American Cinema.