1920’s PEDLIGS
Warren Harding- Republican; pardoned Eugene Debs;
Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act (1922)- increased the tariff
Bureau of the Budget- put procedures for all government expenditures in a single
budget for Congress to review and vote on
Teapot Dome- Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, accepted bribes for granting oil
leases near Teapot Dome, Wyoming
Calvin Coolidge- “Silent Cal”; believed in limited government involvement in
business affairs
Herbert Hoover- Republican; promised to continue “Coolidge Prosperity”
Alfred E. Smith- ran against Hoover as a Roman Catholic and an opponent of
prohibition
Business prosperity- due to increased productivity, increased use of oil and
electricity, and government policies that favored the growth of big businesses
Henry Ford- automobile company owner who used assembly lines
Assembly line- workers stayed in one spot all day and performed the same simple
operation over and over again at rapid speed.
Open shop- keeping jobs open to nonunion workers; lead to decrease in union
memberships
Welfare capitalism- companies voluntarily offering their employees improved
benefits and higher wages in order to remove the need for organizing unions.
Jazz age- music brought north by African American musicians which allowed the
youth to express their rebellion against their elders’ culture; became the symbol of
“new” and “modern” culture of the cities.
Consumerism: autos, radio, movies- electricity in the home allowed Americans to
purchase the new consumer appliances; automobiles became more affordable;
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
provided networks of radio stations from coast to coast; Hollywood became popular
and movie theater “palaces” were built
Charles Lindbergh- aviator who flew from Long Island to Paris
Sigmund Freud- Austrian psychiatrist who stressed the role of sexual repression in
mental illness
Margaret Sanger- advocate for birth control
Modernism- Protestants took a historical and critical view of certain passages of the
Bible which allowed them to define their faith in new ways; started to believe in
evolution
Fundamentalism- mostly in rural areas; condemned modernism; literal
interpretation of the Bible; believed in creationism
Billy Sunday- leading radio evangelist drew large crowds as he attacked gambling,
drinking and dancing
Aimee Mcpherson- evangelist who condemned the twin evils of communism and
jazz music
Gertrude Stein- novelist who coined the term “lost generation”
Lost Generation- term used to describe the writers of the 1920s who scorned
religion as hypocritical and condemned the sacrifices of wartime as a fraud
perpetrated by money interests
F. Scott Fitzgerald: author of the 1920s, wrote The Great Gatsby
Ernest Hemingway:author during the 20s who exiled himself to Europe
Sinclair Lewis: Another author of the 20s who was disillusioned by American morals
Ezra Pound: Poet in the 1920s
T.S. Eliot: Author during the 20s who moved to Europe out of distaste for America
Frank Lloyd Wright: An architect of the 20s who believed in the idea of
functionalism, or form follows function
Functionalism: The architectural belief that form follows function
Edward Hopper: Painter of the 20s who criticized the impact of technology and
urban life
Georgia O'Keeffe: Painter who portrayed life in the 20s through stark paintings
Harlem Renaissance: A revitalization of Black American culture which was
concentrated in Harlem where many talented actors, artists, musicians, and writers
gathered
Countee Cullen: A leading Harlem poet
Langston Hughes: A renowned poet in Harlem
James Weldon Johnson: Another famous poet who made a name for himself in
Harlem
Claude McKay: Authored numerous poems during the Harlem Renaissance
Duke Ellington: A famous Black Jazz musician
Louis Armstrong: An African American musician who gained popularity even with
Whites
Bessie Smith: a great blues singer of the 1920s
Paul Robeson: a multi-talented singer and actor of the 20s
Marcus Garvey: A charismatic immigrant from Jamaica who brought the United
Negro Improvement Association to Harlem as well as the idea of individual and
racial pride for Blacks. He developed political ideas for Black Nationalism
Scopes Trial: A trial in Tennessee between religious fundamentalists and modern
Darwinists. The debate was over the teaching of evolution according to Darwin in
public schools, which Tennessee had recently made illegal. John Scopes, a high
school biology teacher was persuaded by the American Civil Liberties Union to teach
evolution, after which he was arrested and sentenced to trial. Scopes was convicted
under the law, but was later freed.
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for John Scopes in his trial against the state of Tennessee
Prohibition; Volstead Act (1919): Prohibition, by the Eighteenth Amendment,
banned the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The
Volstead Act was a federal law passed to enforce the newly ratified amendment.
Organized Crime: Bootleggers, illegally smuggled liquor into speakeasies and other
underground bars for the public's consumption. These gangsters began organized
crime moving illegal liquor in and around the country.
Immigration quota laws (1921, 1924): Congress passed two laws that regulated
immigration based on quotas. The first one, passed in 1921, limited immigration to
3 percent of the number of foreign born persons from a specific nation. The second,
passed in 1924, set quotas of 2 percent of each foreign countries population based
on the 1890 Census.
Sacco and Vanzetti: Liberal Americans who were vocal in the dislike for racist and
nativist actions on the part of the U.S., were convicted in 1921 of robbery and
murder. Many claimed the two were on trial for their beliefs rather than their
actions. They were both executed in 1927.
Ku Klux Klan: A group that expressed the most extreme nativism showed their hate
for minorities such as Catholics, Blacks, Jews, immigrants, and Communists, through
violence and other terroristic acts.
Bailey Chapter 31: American Life in the “Roaring Twenties”
- Red Scare; crusade against left-wingers whose Americanism was questioned;
Palmer Raids
- -Klu Klux Klan: antiforeign ; uprising against the forced of diversity and
modernity
- Immigration Act of 1924 restricted income of “new immigrants”-
discriminated against Japanese
- Prohibition: 18th amendment and the Volstead Act lead to the growth of
“speakeasies” and “bootlegging” and many Americans attempted “home
brew”
- Gang wars broke out in Chicago over the booze business; “Scarface” Al
Capone avoided conviction for the St Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929
- Education improved and kids stayed in school longer; Science improved
quality of life and life expectancy of infants
- Fundamentalists argued against Darwinian evolution and said it went against
the Bible and contributed to the moral breakdown of youth in the jazz age
- Economy: rapid expansion of capital investment; new industries such as
automobile and electricity flourished
- Sports: George “Babe” Ruth (baseball); Jack Dempsey (boxing)
- Buying on credit became popular which lead to credit vulnerability and debt
- Industrial revolution: automobiles; Henry Ford and Ransom E. Olds
(Oldsmobile); assembly line production; gasoline engine adapted from
Europe
- Automobile industry lead to more jobs in supporting industries such as:
rubber, glass, fabric, highway construction, service stations, advertising;
railroad industry declined
- Aviation took off; Wright brothers, Orville, Wilbur, Charles Lindbergh
- Radio knitted the nation together; stimulated sports and politics and
entertainment
- Hollywood became the movie capital of the world; set up rigorous code of
censorship; first “talkie”: The Jazz Singer
- Women worked in low-paying jobs such as typists and retail clerks; Margaret
Sanger lead a birth-control movement; woman began to campaign for equal
rights in 1923
- Modernists took over fundamentalists
- Sexuality boomed; flappers symbolized independence; Freud provided
justification for the new sexual frankness
- Jazz developed in New Orleans along with new racial pride among African
Americans; Harlem Renaissance
- Wall Street’s big bull market: everyone bough stocks “on margin”; Bureau of
the Budget was created to prepare estimates of receipts and expenditures for
submission to Congress as the annual budget