The 1920s
How the Triumph of Republican
Politics, Corporate Economics, and
Mass Cultural Values United and
Divided America, 1920-1929
Is your Cell Phone Turned On?
The “It” Girl,
1920s Film Star
Clara Bow
Says
Please,
Turn it
off!
Themes and Topics
•
Cultural Change
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Changing Sexual Mores in the 1920s
Beginnings of Mass Culture, Mass Entertainment, and Mass Leisure
Beginnings of Black Separatist and Black Nationalist Culture
Cultural Conflict between Science and Fundamentalist Religion
Private Enterprise
 Scope and Limits of Consumer Culture in the 1920s
•
Role of the State
 Pro-Business Policies of the Republican Administrations in the 1920s
 Prohibition as Anti-Immigrant Politics
•
Multiculturalism
 Movement to Close Off Immigration, except with the Western Hemisphere
 Emergence of Black Separatism and Black Nationalist Culture
•
Social and Cultural Outsiders
 Lost Generation Intellectuals: Criticism and Authenticity in the 1920s
 Harlem Renaissance: The New Negro as Oppositional Figure
Central Analytical Questions
• Why were conservatives successful in
politics, and economics, but not culture in
the 1920s?
• How deeply divided was the United States
in the 1920s?
• Why were American intellectuals so
alienated?
The New Era
• The “hegemony”* of capitalist values
 Political dominance of Republican party
through three presidential elections
 Collapse of the Democratic Party after WWI
 Return to normalcy meant re-embrace of
corporate business leadership of nation
 Trust born from WW One and 1920s leadership
 Disengagement of Intellectuals
 Collapse of the Union Movement
*Hegemony: leadership or dominance of one social group over others in a country.
New Era GOP Politicians
Warren G.
Harding
1921-1923
Calvin Coolidge
1923-1929
Herbert Hoover
1929-1933
1920 Election
1924 Election
1928 Election
Decline of the Socialist Party
• Eugene Debs was imprison in 1919 under the
Espionage Act
 While in prison he ran for president in 1920
 President Harding pardoned him in December 1921
 He continued to write, but did not run for president
again
 Debs died in 1926
• Social basis of the party shift
 Native born mid-western socialists and intellectuals left
the party
 Immigrant Russians took over party
Re-embrace of corporate business
leadership
• Republicans adopt pro-business policies
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Tariff Protection: Fortney-McCumber Act 1922
Suspension of Anti-Trust Prosecutions by FTC
Tax Cuts for the Rich
Anti-Labor Policies
Pro-Business Supreme Court Decisions
Liberal Monetary (Credit) Policies
Bottom Line: Continue business-government
cooperation, begun during WW One, centerpiece
Tax Cuts for the Rich
• Income tax rates had gone up
during WW One under the
Democrats
• With the GOP back in control,
Mellon got approval for a
massive reduction in income tax
rates
• Between 1921-1926, tax rates
declined from 65% to 20% on
the highest incomes
• Yet, even with decline in rates,
Republicans balanced the
budget every year from 19211929 and reduced the federal
Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon
deficit from $25B to 16.9B
Between Coolidge and Hoover
Politics of Productivity
• Business was celebrated because
it delivered on material
prosperity
Henry Ford and
his Model T
 Capitalism could satisfy everyone’s
needs in terms of material goods
 Political slogan, “Two cars in every
garage, a chicken in every pot”
 American productivity would
produce plenty through ingenuity,
and technology, thus resolving
concerns about justice and the
distribution of wealth
 Key Slogan: Don’t redistribute
wealth, increase the size of the pie!
Also called “Fordism”
Suspension of Anti-Trust
Prosecutions: Oligopoly the norm
• With Anti-Trust
enforcement ignored,
industry renewed its drive
toward consolidation
 Electrical and Public Utilities
Industries
 By 1930, 100 corporations
account for 50% of all business
activity in the U.S.
 200 corporations control 50% of
non-banking corporate wealth
 250 banks control 50% of
banking wealth
 By 1930, chain stores control
25% of all retail sales
 Trade Associations (from WW I)
set prices, markets
Attorney General
Harry M. Daugherty [L],
With Harding
Labor in the New Era
• Workers saw an 11% increase in wages 1922-29
• Union Membership Declined
 7 million in 1918
 5.1 million in 1920
 3.6 million in 1929
• Strikes declined
• Corporate welfare systems increased
 High wages, Insurance, pensions, stock options,
company unions
 American Plan
Supreme Court in 1920s
• Republicans appoint eight justices, 1921-30
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Strike down child labor law
Strike down minimum wage law for women
Continue injunctions against labor unions
Limit power of regulatory agencies
Economic Consequences
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Rapid Economic Growth (next time)
Dramatic Increase in Consumer Goods
Wealth polarization returns
Emphasis on wealth produced corruption
 Tea Pot Dome Affair
• Sec. Interior Albert B. Fall leased oil reserves to old
friends in return for $500K in personal “loans”
• Harding’s Character Flaws
Presidential Character Flaw
• While President, Mr.
Harding had an affair
with Nan Britton,
which produced an
illegitimate child
• Harding also wrote
love letters to another
man’s wife
• He died July 1923
Cultural Change
• 19th Century
Producer Culture
 Farmer/Artisan
production
 Savings and
frugality
 Clearly defined
gender and sex roles
 Symbols: Liberty,
Labor, Chastity
 Heroes: Jesus
Christ; Poor Richard
• 20th Century Consumer Culture
 Mass production/mass
consumption economy
 Spending, debt, speculation
 New Gender Roles
• The “New Woman” (Flapper)
 Symbols: Hollywood movies, jazz,
Charleston (dance)
 Heroes: Celebrities and Athletes
 The new attitudes produced
permanent changes in folkways:
Dating without supervision,
Necking on dates, pre-marital
intercourse, divorce
Urban Consumer Culture
• The new consumer
operated in an urban
world
 1920 census reports
50% of Americans live
in cities of 50K or
more
 The U.S. is becoming a
nation of cities.
African American Migration
Between 1910 and 1930, more than 938,000 African Americans
Left the south for the mid-west and Northeast
New Consumer Goods
• Home electrical products
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Refrigerators
Ranges
Washing Machines
Vacuum Machines
Fans
Mixers
Razors
• Automobile
 8 million in 1920
 30 million in 1930
Role of Advertising
• Corporations embrace advertising
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spend $1.8 billion by 1929
Employ 600,000 in industry
Use Radio (a new form of mass media)
Key strategies of advertisers
• Celebrity endorsements
• Promise of social success
• Threat of social embarrassment
 Impact
• Redefine popular aspirations in terms of “a fantasy world of
elegance, grace, and boundless pleasure” based on what you
buy
Limits of Consumer Culture
• Distribution of Wealth Increasingly Skewed
 1% households earn >$10K per year
 66% households earn <1,999 per year
(approximately 90% rural families and 40% of
urban working class families)
 <50% own cars or radios
 <33% own a washing machine or vacuum
cleaner
 Hence, consumer culture is available to some,
not all
Cultural Outsiders Invented Modern
Culture
• Jews and Blacks invented an
Ezemiel Mayer
emerging Modern Culture
aka
 Jewish Hollywood
Louie B. Mayer
• Film industry moved to
Southern California for
weather, non-union
environment
• Production Companies such
as MGM
• Theatres spread across nation
 Black Jazz and Blues
• Comes from New Orleans,
Chicago, and St. Louis
• Exotic, sensual, uninhibited,
sexual, especially when sung
by women like Bessie Smith
Louie Armstrong
The Stars Come Out
Greta • Celebrities provided
Garbo
models for new styles
of womanhood and
manhood
Rudolph
Valentino
And
Nita Naldi
 Note that Garbo is
drinking alcohol
 And that Valentino has
the look of love (or
lust) in his eyes
Urban Culture versus Rural Culture
• Population movement
continued the trend toward
increasing urbanization
 Note the strong growth in
the southern California
region
 But many city dwellers
continue to have rural values
 Hence, as more rural minded
Americans entered the cities,
social tensions grew around
an urban versus rural culture
 Southern whites bring
traditional racial ideology
into urban areas, hence KKK
appears in . . . Long Beach!
Rural Tensions as Fundamentalism
• Inhabitants of rural areas, small towns, and
small cities had a negative view of urban
America
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Sinful
Materialistic
Unhealthy
Foreign
They resent change
They sought to suppress
Modern society through
Fundamentalism, immigration
restriction, growth of the
KKK, prohibitionist law, and
general intolerance
What is Fundamentalism
• Five basic beliefs derived from
the Bible
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Inerrant Bible
Virgin Birth
Vicarious Atonement
Resurrection
Second Coming of Christ
• Led by Southern Baptists and
Methodists
Alabama State Bible
 Target Evolution
 Several Southern States outlaw
teaching of evolution
 Scopes Trial 1925 upheld
Tennessee Law
Immigration Restrictions
• Target Eastern and Southern Europeans and
Asians
 Reflects Nativist anxieties over changing
demographics
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1917 Immigration Act
1921 Immigration Act
1924 Immigration Act
1927 Immigration Act
1929 Immigration Act
Klu Klux Klan Komeback
• Began revival in 1915
under leadership of
William J. Simmons
 Admits WASPs only (100%
Americanism!)
 Grew to anywhere from 3 to
8 million
 Centered in Midwest cities,
small towns, and villages
 Targets foreigners, Jews,
Immigrants, Blacks,
gamblers, prostitutes, and
evolutionists
 Fell apart at the end of the Simmons was said to be inspired
1920s
By the film, Birth of a Nation
Prohibitionism
• 18th constitutional
amendment prohibiting
the production of alcohol
 An act of moral
righteousness and social
conformity
 Reduced consumption by
70%
 Fostered criminality and
disrespect for law
 Wickersham Commission,
1931, reported the
breakdown of the
enforcement system
Why is Al Capone
laughing?
Critical Thinking Question
• Though conservative
politics reigned, and
corporate capitalism
enjoyed unprecedented
authority, in culture
urban Americans were
becoming increasing
free from tradition
• Why?
An American flapper
Critical Thinking Question on Continuity and Change:
How did the 1920s differ from the late 19th Century?
19th Century political
economy
1920s political economy
Continuity or Change?
Laissez faire state
Corporate state
A retreat, but not a full retreat.
Pre-progressive era practices
of pro-business government.
Post-Progressive era of probusiness government
Continuity and change
Pre-Income Tax era
The rich received tax cuts
Not a full retreat.
allowing the wealthy to extend
their separation from the poor.
Monopoly illegal
Oligopoly the norm because
government refused to enforce
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Trade Associations set prices.
Decline of unions, government
injunctions and arrest for
strikes, no recognized right to
collective bargaining.
Unorganized labor the norm,
no recognized right to
collective bargaining
Corporate state protects
oligopoly.
Near restoration, reverses
unionization gains from
progressive era.
Conclusions
• Political Conservatism
• Economic Dynamism
• Cultural Conflict