The 1920s – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

 

 

A Sign of the Times: Charles Lindberg – 1927

 

 

The 1920s –

 

·        Decade of contractions

·        End of Progressive Reform Movement – Status quo

 

Good:

 

Economic Prosperity

·        Technology

·        American Economy – Durable Goods

·        Extension of Credit

 

Example:  Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company

·        Ripple Effect – Suburbia

 

Political:  Return to Normalcy

 

·        Three Republican Presidents: Warren G. Harding (1920 – 1923); Calvin Coolidge (1923 – 1928); Herbert Hoover (1928 – 1932)

 

Example:  Women’s Movement

 

·        19th amendment

·        Women suffragists – League of Women’s Voters

·        Feminists:  Alice Paul – ERA

 

Example: Cultural Movements: Modernism, Harlem Renaissance, “Lost Generation”

 

·        Modernism – Style

·        Harlem Renaissance: African Roots, American Experience

·        Lost Generation: Writers who were critical of war (Hemingway) and American Society (Sherwood Anderson – Winesburg, Ohio; Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922).

 

Foreign Policy

·        Isolationist

·        Loans to Germany

·        Kellogg-Briand pact: outlawed war

 

Bad - Nativism

 

·        Nativism defined

 

Examples

 

·        Henry Ford and Employees

 

·        Scopes Trial

 

·        Immigration Reform (Restriction)

 

o   1921 & 1924 – Quota System

o   1927 – Banned immigration from Asia and capped number of immigrants from Europe to 150,000

 

Ugly

 

·        KKK – In and outside southern states

·        House of Termites

·        Foreign Policy – Rise of fascism in Europe

·        Sacco & Vanzetti - 1927