The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture”; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. However, for a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed.
Post War Struggles
In 1945, the United States was a far different country than it subsequently became. A third of the country's homes had no running water, two-fifths lacked flushing toilets, and three-fifths lacked central heating. More than half of the nation's farm dwellings had no electricity. Most African Americans still lived in the South, where racial segregation in schools and public accommodations were still the law. The number of immigrants was small as a result of immigration quotas enacted during the 1920s. Shopping malls had not yet been introduced. Nativism is a return to or emphasis on traditional or local customs, in opposition to outside influences. An isolationism is a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries. Throughout the 1920s a culture developed within America which both feared and despised communism while the decade of the 1920s is remembered as "roaring" with the rise of big business, Jazz, and urban culture, it did not start off that way. The decade opened to prelude of fear, anxiety, and suspicion. The red scare in the 1920's refers to the fear of communism in the USA. There were 150,000 anarchists or communists in the USA in the 1920s alone. In 1901, an anarchist had shot the American president, McKinley, dead. The fear communism increased when a series of strikes occurred in the 1919s. The police of Boston went on strike and 100,000 of steel and coal workers did likewise. The communist usually always got the blame. A series of bombs explosions in 1919 also. On New Years Day, 1920, over 6,000 African Americans were arrested and put in prison. Many had to be released a few weeks later. The Ku Klux Klan around 1915, coupled with the choke hold Jim Crow laws had on African-Americans in the South, raised tensions between blacks and whites in the United States. A wave of violent racial confrontations began to emerge in the 1920s, beginning one of the most socially turbulent times in America's history. Though the Ku Klux Klan had been dismantled in the 1870s, in 1915 the organization was revived by those who revered the "Old South." During the 1920s, the Klan reached its height in popularity. By 1924, it reportedly had 4 million members in 4,000 chapters across the United States. This Emergency Quota Act of 1921 was to limit the numbers of immigrants to the United States by imposing quotas based on country of birth. Annual allowable quotas for each country of origin were calculated at 3 percent of the total number of foreign-born persons from that country recorded in the 1910 United States Census.
Business Boom
Fueled by easy money the 1920s were boom times like never before. The post-war recession was forgotten as everyone went on a spending spree. Credit, and not savings, enabled consumers to boost corporate profits to new levels. The 1920's saw new discoveries and inventions in nearly every field of endeavor that became the foundation of thriving businesses. Department store and service station chains used massive buying power and operating efficiencies to lower prices while increasing service and choice, helping wages to go further. President Coolidge, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, cleaned up what Harding left when he died and provided a model of stability and respectability for the American people. He was a pro-business conservative who favored tax cuts and limited government spending. Yet some of his laissez-faire policies also contributed to the economic problems that erupted into the Great Depression. Although no invention affected American everyday life in the 20th century more than the automobile. Henry Ford innovated mass-production techniques that became standard, with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler emerging as the “Big Three” auto companies by the 1920s. The automobile was to have its greatest social and economic impact in the United States, it was initially perfected in Germany and France toward the end of the nineteenth century by such men as Nicolaus Otto, Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz, and Emile Levassor. In 1927, the last Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line. On December 2, some 1 million New Yorkers mobbed show rooms to view the new Model A. One striking difference between the two models was that customers could order the Model A in such colors as “Arabian Sand” and “Niagara Blue”; the old Model T had come only in black. A Ford spokesman explained some additional advantages of the new automobile. The automobile became the backbone of the American economy in the 1920s (and remained such until the 1970s). It profoundly altered the American landscape and American society, but it was only one of several factors in the country’s business boom in the 1920s. The automobile changed American landscape. It also allowed workers to live miles away from their jobs, which made the urban sprawl as cites spread in all directions. It wasn't just the automobiles that changed American it was also the Airplane industry. The airplane industry began as a mail carrying service for the U.S. Post Office. Although the first flight in 1918 was a disaster, a number of successful flights soon established the airplane as a peacetime means of transportation. Lockheed Company produced a single-engine plane, the Vega. It was one of the most popular transport airplanes of the late 1920s. Founded in 1927, Pan American Airways inaugurated the first transatlantic passenger flights.
President Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge was president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Coolidge was known for his quiet demeanor, which earned him the nickname "Silent Cal." Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. Coolidge rose through the ranks of Massachusetts government as a Progressive Republican. Elected U.S. vice president in 1920, he became president following the death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Coolidge, also known as "Silent Cal," chose not to seek a second term. During Coolidge's presidency, the United States experienced the period of rapid economic growth that characterized the "Roaring Twenties." He died in Northampton, Massachusetts, on January 5, 1933.
President Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding was elected the 29th U.S. president on his birthday, and served from 1921 to 1923. His term followed World War I and a campaign promising a "return to normalcy." He was born on November 2, 1865, in Corsica. As president, Harding often seemed overwhelmed by the burdens of the office. He frequently confided to friends that he wasn't prepared for the presidency. He worked hard and tried to keep his campaign promise of "naming the best man for the job." Most historians consider Warren G. Harding to be one of America's worst presidents. He is believed to have seen the role of president as mainly ceremonial, leaving government work to subordinates. Revisionists have re-examined his role as an important transition between the Progressive Era and the years of prosperity in the 1920s. Harding is also credited for his broad-minded views on race and civil rights. Historians agree that his negative legacy is not so much attributed to his corrupt friends, but his own lack of vision and poor sense of where he wanted to take the country.
Changing way of life
The 18th Amendment of the United States Constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring illegal the production, transport and sale of alcoholic. This went into effect on January 16, 1920. The United States was officially dry from coast to coast. Prohibition was the law of the land. For the next 14 years much time, money and manpower would be devoted to enforcement. Americas who liked to drink did not agree with this, So, many of them created alcohol illegally. For example, of this illegal booze was called moonshine. The people who made this was called bootleggers. They couldn't just go out on the streets and sell the moonshine to just anybody. So, they made speakeasies. Which they are an illegal liquor store or an illegal nightclub. If you ever wanted to go into one of those speakeasies you would have to give a special knock, handshake, or password. The Monkey Trial begins with Clarence Darrow in 1859 but it was bought back by John Thomas Scopes, a high school teacher, with the name "Monkey Trial". When Darrow announced his theory that humans had descended from aps, he sent shock waves through the Western world. In 1925, in Tennessee, they passed a law called Butter Law which it brought back to teach the students Darwin's theory of evolution in any public school or university, Other Southern states followed suit.
1920s Women
Flappers were Northern, urban, single, young, middle class women. By night, flappers engaged in the active city nightlife. They frequented jazz clubs and vaudeville shows. Speakeasies were a common destination. More young women consumed alcohol in the decade it was illegal then ever before. Smoking, another activity previously for men, became popular among flappers. It all started in the 1915 with the debut of the Castle Bob, named after the celebrated ballroom dancer Irene Castle. The Castle Bob would be the first indication of things to come. For example, the rage of short hair. There haircuts during the 1920s was called "the bob." The bob haircut was simply a blunt cut. There fashion was usually dresses. In the spring or summer the dresses were sleeveless or cap sleeved scoop neck lightweight dresses with a lowered waist or no waistline at all. Day wear evolved into simple layered suit-styled jackets or cardigans, jersey blouses, and pleated skirts. The wrap-over coat in tweed was favorite winter coat. In the evening they would wear a woven fabric, mainly silk, was cut at a 45 degree angle to its major seam lines, allowing the fabric to hang and drape in sinuous folds and stretch over the contours of a woman’s figure. The beauty of the bias cut, was that the dress could be pulled on and off with ease. Another popular cut for evening frocks was a straight tabard-style with side inserts, and featured low cut backs and thin shoulder straps. Women began getting more involved in the workforce throughout the 1920s. The concept of "pink collar" jobs was introduced into society during this time as well. Society was accepting women into average jobs. The pink collar status w as still relevant in post-college level careers as well. At this point in history women had already been accepted as educated and college educated. Many women through the 1920s managed to work and mange the home, however the majority of women remained in the house as housewives or mothers. This time in society also believed that women should raise children according to how psychiatrists and doctors advise them rather than previous parenting methods. The women in the house would have to stay in and clean, watch there children, do everything a mother should be doing when she staying home.
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong was a trumpeter, bandleader, singer, soloist, film star and comedian. Considered one of the most influential artists in jazz history, he is known for songs like "Star Dust," "La Via En Rose" and "What a Wonderful World." On New Year's Eve in 1912, Armstrong fired his stepfather's gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration and was arrested on the spot. He was sent to a Home for Boys and there he received musical instruction on the cornet and fell in love with music. In 1914, the home released him, and he immediately began dreaming of a life making music. One of the greatest cornet players in town, Joe "King" Oliver, began acting as a mentor to the young Armstrong, showing him pointers on the horn and occasionally using him as a sub. Armstrong died at his home in Queens, New York, on July 6, 1971.
Bessie Smith
Jazz and blues vocalist Bessie Smith's powerful, soulful voice won her countless fans and earned her the title "Empress of the Blues." In 1912, Smith began performing as a dancer in the Moses Stokes minstrel show. In 1923 she was discovered by a representative from Columbia Records, with whom she signed a contract and made her first song recordings. Among them was a track titled "Downhearted Blues," which was wildly popular and sold an estimated 800,000 copies, propelling Smith into the blues spotlight. Bessie Smith’s career began to flounder, due in part to the financial ravages of the Great Depression and a change in cultural mores. Her comeback and life were cut short from an automobile accident outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi, with Smith dying from her injuries on September 26, 1937.