Depth Study- America 1920s Flashcards
How far did the US economy boom in the 1920s?
• The USAs Gross National Product (i.e. the total wealth of the country in terms of the production of US firms at home and abroad) rose from 73.3 billion dollars in 1920 to 104.4 billion by 1929 (in 1929 prices).
• The average growth rate per year was 2%.
• The highest rate of unemployment between 1920 and 1929 was 3.7%,
compared with at least 25% in 1932.
• The inflation rate was never higher than 1%.
• Real wages rose by 13% between 1922 (when the post-War depression ended)
and 1929.
• The average working week in industry shortened from 47.4 hours to 44.2 hours.
The statistics for car sales and ownership are impressive, but so are the figures for the number of people travelling by air, even though the aviation industry was in its infancy and air travel was expensive: by 1929, half a million people flew annually in the USA.
The Significance of WWI on the economic boom?
- The outbreak of WWI created a demand for American produce that lifted her out of an economic depression into a four and a quarter-year boom, not all the benefits of which were lost in the post-War depression. American industry developed during the War, particularly its arms industry. After the War, this sector of the industry, now much larger than before, adapted to peacetime demands.
- The USA’s share of international trade increased considerably during WWI; this was important because the trend continued in the 1920s, rising to 15% (more than Britain’s).
- Steel production in the USA rose by a quarter between 1913 and 1920; during the same period, it fell by a third in other major steel producing countries.
- WWI transformed America into a major creditor: before the War, Americans owed foreigners $3.7 billion; after it, foreigners owed Americans $12.6 billion: This increased American economic leverage over other countries dramatically.
- During World War I, Wall Street in New York replaced the London Stock Exchange as the world’s financial centre. This was important because it facilitated future investment and economic growth. By the War’s end, the dollar was well on the way to replacing the pound as the main currency for international transactions.
- WWI was also important for the 1920s boom because techniques of mass persuasion developed by Wilson’s CPI (Committee on Public Information) to build patriotic support for the war effort were adapted post-War by American companies and used to create increased demand for consumer products.
- The government scheme of selling Liberty Bonds to help pay for the war accustomed the US public to buying bonds that yielded dividends; this helped lead to mass participation in the stock market in the 1920s.
- The ‘boom’ was not solely industrial: there was also a short-lived boom in demand for US agricultural produce in the immediate post-War period before the war-ravaged rural economies of Western Europe recovered.
Long-term factors which help to explain the ‘boom’ include:
- The size of the USA itself, and also the size of its population (i.e. potential workforce), which had increased throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries as a result of mass immigration.
- Additionally, the US was rich in oil, coal, iron ore, lead, tin, copper and timber - the raw materials necessary to exploit to the full the ‘second industrial revolution’ that took place as mass production techniques pioneered by Henry Ford (hence the name ‘Fordism’) were adapted and applied to almost every other industry, even the film industry.
- The building of the trans-continental railroad in the 19th Century, and the construction of a road network in the early 20th Century meant that industrial expansion benefited from an effective internal transport infra-structure which greatly aided the flow of goods and services
Non-physical factors were also important:
In particular, the concept of the ‘American Dream’ (i.e. the belief that talent and hard work would be richly rewarded irrespective of social background) was a powerful incentive which helped drive the entrepreneurial spirit of men like Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light bulb, and also his friend Henry Ford.
• Poor people from Europe brought their frustrated talents and capacity for hard work to the USA in search of a better life. A few of them became captains of industry; most became effective foot-soldiers.
• Also, among those who had survived death in WWI, there was a rush to embrace life and its pleasures. This helps to explain the side of the ‘Roaring’ Twenties that is characterised by consumer spending, the growth of the cosmetics industry, the popularity of the film industry and the dance bands. Proverbial ‘Yankee thrift’ (i.e. the belief that Americans were superior because they were careful with their money) was abandoned in many quarters and replaced by the belief that America, having become a consumer society, had achieved its highest form.
New mass-production techniques were important: ‘Fordism’; the assembly line; mass production.
• Originating with Henry Ford in the automobile industry in Detroit, new techniques of mass production made it possible for unskilled and semi-skilled workers to work on assembly lines. In a process Ford refined over years, mainly by developing machinery, it became possible for a mechanised conveyor belt to bring car frames to where workers were situated, so that each worker could make his contribution to the building of the car, before the conveyor belt moved the car frame on to the next worker. Ford was able to reduce the time it took to build a car to ninety minutes; this helped to bring the price down. There were disadvantages to this method, especially for the workers, as the job was very repetitive and monotonous. Assembly line work could lead to the kind of mental problems identified by Charlie Chaplin in the film Modern Times.
• Assembly line methods also made it possible for companies to benefit hugely from economies of scale. Cars became affordable (especially after the development of credit and hire purchase facilities) for millions of people.
• Production expanded to the point where the car industry was paying 9% of industrial wages by 1929.
• Economically, there were highly significant spin-offs too, as the demand for cars caused a boom in the glass, rubber, steel and paint industries.
• It also caused the oil industry to expand.
• Government involvement also contributed to this boom, as with the Federal
Highways Act of 1921 the US government took responsibility for road-building.
Surfaced roads grew from 350,000 miles in 1919 to 662,000 in 1929.
• The domestic tourist industry boomed, as people travelled round the country in their new Ford Model Ts. This resulted in the construction of nationwide chains of motels and roadside diners, creating further construction and service industry
jobs.
• Mass car ownership also meant that people did not need to live so close to their
place of work. The suburbs in American cities sprang up, creating a boom in house-building.
The role of government in the ‘economic boom’
• It is often said that an economic policy of Laissez-faire (from the French, meaning ‘to leave alone’) was followed by three successive Republican presidents (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover), and that this resulted in minimum government interference in the economy, which is what Republicans believed in.
• It would be more accurate to say that the Republican administrations of the 1920s actively intervened to reduce government’s role in the economy to the point where they could then leave it alone. Where the government did intervene, it intervened on the side of business, carrying out policies of de-
regulation so that the market could regulate itself.
• What really stimulated investment in business in this period was a series of tax
cuts for the rich between 1921 and 1926. Andrew Mellon, the fourth richest man in America, served as Secretary to the Treasury from 1921 to 1932, providing continuity of policy throughout three Republican presidencies. Congress abolished excess profits tax, cut estate tax, exempted capital gains from income and capped the top tax rate. By 1928, the top 1% of the USA’s families earned 24% of all American income.
• Businesses also benefited from anti-union legislation and court decisions, which outlawed strikes and encouraged workers to sign ‘yellow dog’ contracts which prevented them from striking. This was possible because the Supreme Court was Republican-dominated during this period: to ensure that it was, Harding appointed William Howard Taft – a former Republican president – as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1921. Mellon’s policies and Taft’s decisions helped to keep wages down and profits high.
• Republican governments also passed legislation like the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922, to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.
• These Republican administrations were highly corrupt (particularly Harding’s and there were major scandals such as the ‘Teapot Dome’ scandal, in which the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, was found to have accepted bribes totalling $500,000 from businessmen to grant oil leases at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, at negligible rates and without competitive bidding that was standard practice. In the election of 1932, during the Great Depression, the electorate remembered scandals like this, and associated them with the Republican Party.
The development of credit and hire purchase
• Put simply, hire purchase (also called ‘instalment planning’ or, ironically, the ‘never-never’) means that consumers receive goods they cannot afford to pay for, on agreeing to make an initial down payment (40% became standard during the 1920s) with the balance to be paid later, in weekly or monthly instalments. Such schemes already existed in America but in the 1920s, they were
developed to the point where they became a dangerously integral feature of American economy and society. As mass consumerism became a phenomenon of 1920s life, credit facilities developed to help make that phenomenon possible and to help sustain consumer demand.
• Major companies within the automobile industry were directly responsible for the development of credit facilities, to allow consumers could buy their cars.
Henry Ford did not believe in such schemes, preferring to pay his workers conditionally higher wages so they could buy his Model Ts, but General Motors developed and offered credit facilities to potential customers and eclipsed Ford in sales by 1927.
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• The development of credit and hire purchase were therefore important in the economic ‘boom’ of the 1920s because they increased demand for consumer goods, which therefore sold in their millions. Most cars, radios, telephones, washing machines, pianos and furniture were bought on hire purchase. To a great extent, any assessment of the importance of credit and hire purchase in the economic boom of the 1920s has to reflect the fact that the car industry was itself responsible for much of this development.
The importance of advertising
Advertising may come up as a question carrying a tariff of four marks (e.g. “Describe the development of advertising during the 1920s?”) or six marks “Why was advertising important in the economic boom of the 1920s?”) or it may appear as the named factor in a ten-mark essay question on the relative importance of different factors in causing the ‘boom’ (e.g. “Advertising contributed to the economic ‘boom’ more than any other factor,” How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.” or “Mass marketing was the main reason for the economic ‘boom’ of the 1920s.” How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.”) The notes below will enable you to answer all of these questions.
• The increase in sophistication of techniques of advertising and marketing contributed significantly to the creation of increased demand for consumer goods during the 1920s.
• During US involvement in WWI, techniques of mass persuasion had been developed by Woodrow Wilson’s CPI (Committee on Public Information) to build patriotic support for the war effort. From 1918 onwards, these techniques were adapted by American companies and used to create increased demand for consumer products.
• Glossier, slicker adverts attracted buyers.
• In addition to its growing sophistication, advertising also grew in terms of its
reach. This was a direct result of technology and the demand for new products like the mass-produced radio: more people, especially in rural areas, could hear and see adverts than previously.
Focus point: Why did some industries prosper while others did not? Specified content: the fortunes of older industries
Questions on this sub-topic may be for four marks (e.g. “What problems faced many traditional industries in America in the 1920s?”) or six marks (e.g. “Why did some industries not prosper from the economic boom in the 1920s?”)
• The car industry prospered, as did related industries like glass, rubber, steel and paint, but as technology improved, the industries which served the older
• Because the credit industry was still in its infancy, there were no credit ratings, as there are today. This would have been dangerous enough had there been an economic downturn; after the Wall St Crash, there was an unprecedented
economic depression. Millions of Americans could not complete their payments, which meant they had to return the goods but which also meant that the companies lost money and either laid off workers or did not hire more or even went bust
The importance of advertising
• The increase in sophistication of techniques of advertising and marketing contributed significantly to the creation of increased demand for consumer goods during the 1920s.
• During US involvement in WWI, techniques of mass persuasion had been developed by Woodrow Wilson’s CPI (Committee on Public Information) to build patriotic support for the war effort. From 1918 onwards, these techniques were adapted by American companies and used to create increased demand for consumer products.
• Glossier, slicker adverts attracted buyers.
• In addition to its growing sophistication, advertising also grew in terms of its
reach. This was a direct result of technology and the demand for new products like the mass-produced radio: more people, especially in rural areas, could hear and see adverts than previously.
Focus point: Why did some industries prosper while others did not? Specified content: the fortunes of older industries
• The car industry prospered, as did related industries like glass, rubber, steel and paint, but as technology improved, the industries which served the older
• Because the credit industry was still in its infancy, there were no credit ratings, as there are today. This would have been dangerous enough had there been an economic downturn; after the Wall St Crash, there was an unprecedented
economic depression. Millions of Americans could not complete their payments, which meant they had to return the goods but which also meant that the companies lost money and either laid off workers or did not hire more or even went bust.
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methods of transport (i.e. the horse) were devastated. Demand for blacksmiths and farriers plummeted as people abandoned horses for cars, leading to unemployment, depression, alcoholism and (as in the case of golfer Ben Hogan’s father), suicide.
• The coal industry, previously so crucial to the US economy, began to suffer from competition from oil and electricity. Bad industrial relations worsened matters, with some disputes over wages and/or the right to organise a union ending in large-scale gunfights between armed strikers (most of whom were ex- servicemen) and gunmen hired by the mine owners. In some cases, as in the famous Matewan dispute in West Virginia, the state police was called in to restore order. Sometimes, the state police was not enough and the army was deployed.
Focus Point: Why did agriculture not share in the prosperity? Specified content: the decline of agriculture
• Farmers had benefited from high prices during WW1, but by 1920, European agriculture had recovered: foreign demand for US crops fell: this exacerbated a domestic crisis of over-production and under-consumption, partly caused by mechanisation of farming. Tractors, combine harvesters and other new machines increased production: prices fell further.
• American tariffs (e.g. the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922) were counter- productive, as other countries retaliated by imposing tariffs on US farm produce.
• Region-specific factors worsened the crisis: in the South, for example, the boll weevil devastated the cotton crop, forcing many farmers out of business. In the South and Midwest, farmers could not pay their mortgages to the banks and fell
victim to foreclosure.
• Another reason farmers did not share in the prosperity of the 1920s was that
attempts to pass laws to help them were vetoed by the Republican president, Calvin Coolidge (Harding’s successor), who believed in ‘rugged individualism’. The McNary-Haugen Bill, which would have prevented farm incomes from falling because the government would have bought surplus produce, was vetoed in 1925 and 1927.
• Many large-scale ‘agribusiness’ farmers (and in particular the fruit-growers of California) did well, partly because they kept their costs to an absolute minimum by using cheap Hispanic-American, Chinese and Filipino labour.
The Canadian dimension When it came to the decline of agriculture
- The recovery of European agriculture was not the only reason US farmers began to struggle. They also faced competition from Canadian farmers seeking to export their produce.
- Canadian farming, especially in the wheat fields of Ontario and Saskatchewan (the latter is the equivalent of the US Mid-West), boomed as a result of WWI, leading to the cultivation of more land to meet the increased demand for wheat from European and US armies. This demand continued into the post-War period, for the same reasons it did in the US: the farming sector in both countries enjoyed a boom, because the demand for primary products from the war-ravaged economies of Europe was so great that farmers in both Canada and the US could profit.
- But by 1925, Canadian farmers were experiencing exactly the same problems of over-production and under-consumption as their US counterparts. For the next seven years, there was a steadily worsening depression in the Canadian agricultural sector.
- By 1925, as much as 65% of Canadian exports in this period was going to the US (not just in wheat, but also in pulp, paper and minerals). The remaining 35% went to countries in the British Empire. A figure as high as 65% amounted to what economists call ‘over-dependence’: if US demand fell, Canadian export revenue would collapse. Between 1925 and 1932, this is what happened.
Summing up the Canadian dimension of Agriculture
Competition from Canadian farmers was not a serious problem for US farmers in the immediate post-War period, because European demand was so high that both US and Canadian farmers could profit from supplying it.
• By 1922, the European farming sectors were starting to recover. This led to a fall in US and Canadian exports to Europe, but both farming economies suffered and the US farmers did not suffer in this respect because of competition from Canadian farmers..
• US farmers were potentially vulnerable to being undercut at home by lower- priced Canadian wheat exports, but in 1922, the US government passed the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, which led to much higher prices on imported wheat and other goods, ensuring that US farmers would be protected from cheaper foreign imports. There is plenty of evidence that this tariff bill impacted on Canada more than on other countries. Several Canadian companies (e.g.
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the Robert Simpson Company of Toronto) closed their American offices because they were no longer doing enough business in the US to justify keeping those offices open.
• In fact, Canadian farmers experienced the same rise and fall in their fortunes as US ones in the 1920s, and for exactly the same reasons. In both cases, over-production was the most significant problem – not in isolation, but in the context of the recovery of European agriculture and also the changing eating pattern of European (and US consumers): during the 1920s, they began to demand a more varied diet, featuring fruit and vegetables as well as cereal- based products.
• The truth is that both US and Canadian farmers failed to adjust to these changing conditions. So the problem was not simply over-production, but over- production of the wrong kinds of crops.
Did all Americans benefit from the boom?
race and area
African-Americans, particularly in the South (a poorer region of the USA even for any race living there), did not experience a change in economic or social status. The vast majority remained ‘sharecroppers’ (i.e. working for a share of the crops they grew, rather than actual money). • Segregation and limited educational opportunities made it very difficult for African-Americans from the South to escape their circumstances unless they migrated north. • Even in the Northern cities like Chicago and New York, to which 850,000 African-Americans migrated during the 1920s, they tended to be concentrated in the lowest-paid jobs in industry and manufacturing. They were still treated as second class citizens.
Did all Americans benefit from the Boom? (class and politics )
• Workers did not benefit as much as they might have done from the 1920s boom because of the weakening of trade unions and the corresponding decline in membership and power.
• The ‘Red Scare’ of 1919 and the Palmer Raids (see below) discouraged many workers from joining unions for fear of persecution and possible deportation.
• Big business was anti-union and employers like Henry Ford had the resources to spend on propaganda (even on animated films) and also to hire strike- breaking thugs. Where its position was strong enough, it forced people
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desperate for work to sign ‘yellow dog’ contracts (i.e. contracts in which the
workers agreed not to go on strike).
• During the 1920s, workers could see for themselves that successive
Republican governments and also the judiciary were anti-union, and prepared to intervene directly to break strikes (for example the 1922 railroad strike was declared illegal by a judge). A series of Supreme Court judgements between 1922 and 1925 made it harder to strike and also prevented the introduction of a minimum wage.
• Finally, it is not all the fault of big business. Trade Unions concentrated their membership drives on skilled workers, instead of also trying to mobilise the potential power of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The net result of this was that the poor worker’s position in relation to his employer remained weak or grew even weaker.
What were the ‘Roaring Twenties’?
All these senses are contained in the term ‘Roaring Twenties’, which refers to the decade after WWI which ended in late 1929 with the Wall St Crash and the onset of the Great Depression. Other terms for the 1920s include the ‘Age of Excess’ and the ‘Jazz Age’:
• Much of the roaring noise was supplied by factories using mass production methods in a booming post-war economy: it seemed like Henry Ford’s ‘Model T’ roared down every street.
• There were roars on the floor of the Stock Exchange, as the pattern of share ownership became more democratic, and people traded wildly, believing the rising profits would never end.
• Both sexes roared their defiance of Prohibition, as drinking continued in the USA.
• Many women roared their defiance of traditional female stereotypes, experimenting with the ‘flapper lifestyle’, made possible by the jobs that gave them economic independence to dress and behave differently.
• Musicians and pleasure-seeking night-clubbers roared their defiance of traditional music, experimenting with free-flowing forms like Jazz (note: Jazz also meant sex, as ‘rock ‘n’ roll was later to do).
• The sports crowds roared their approval as baseball heroes like ‘Babe’ Ruth set a new record for home runs or the heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey set a
new record for the amount of money taken at the gates for a single fight: one million dollars.
How widespread was intolerance in US society? Political intolerance (against communism)
The USA experienced a ‘Red Scare’ at the end of WW1. It was especially intense in 1919 (the so-called ‘Red Summer) because:
• 1919 was still close to the Russian Revolution in 1917, and to the attempted Communist uprisings in Italy and Germany at the end of WW1. People feared an attempted revolution in the USA, in imitation of what had happened in Europe.
• In March 1919, The Third Communist International was founded. This was an organisation run from Moscow which attempted to support communist revolutionaries throughout the world. It was feared that funds and money were pouring into the USA, to fund revolution there.
• The USA was and is a capitalist country, believing in free enterprise, private
property and private profits. Communist ideology opposed that, so many propertied American citizens and businessmen were scared that they would lose everything in a revolution.
• Also, the USA in the 1920s was a very religious country, as it still is today in many states. Communism is an atheist political philosophy, so many Americans were afraid of it (and thus intolerant towards it) on religious grounds.
• Another factor which fuelled fear of communism was the wave of strikes across the USA in 1919, including a General Strike in Seattle. Even the Police in Boston went on strike, which led to a wave of looting and lawlessness. The public, fearing for its property and savings, blamed these strikes on communist ‘agitators’.
• Finally, communism and the immigrants who supported it were seen as un- American in a country whose patriotism (always high) had been intensified by WWI.
Political intolerance towards anarchists
- Anarchism is a political ideology which believes in having no organized central government. Anarchists had a reputation for political violence (the smoking anarchist bomb was proverbial).
- In 1919, American anarchists launched a bombing campaign, mailing bombs to leading politicians, and to very rich businessmen like J.D. Rockefeller. Because anarchists were viewed as pretty much the same as communists, this bombing campaign helped to fuel the so-called ‘Red Scare’ of 1919-20.
What forms did political intolerance take?
The US Justice Department set up an ‘anti-radical division’ of the Bureau of Intelligence, under J. Edgar Hoover, later head of the FBI. Hoover’s first task was to carry out the so-called Palmer Raids (below)
• The ‘Palmer Raids’. In 1919, the US Attorney-General, A. Mitchell Palmer, was the victim of a bomb attack. He lived, but when a communist newspaper was found on the bomber, Palmer decided to crush the ‘Reds’ (this was the second attempt to kill him that year). In late 1919 and early 1920, he ordered a series of raids (they became known as the ‘Palmer Raids’) on the homes of suspects. 6,000 people in total were arrested and imprisoned. Almost all of them were released within a few weeks for lack of evidence. Only three pistols were ever found, in a country which has a high rate of gun ownership. The legality of what Palmer did was doubtful. He did not have warrants for the arrests. He justified his actions with reference to the Sedition Act of 1918, but the War had ended over a year before the raids took place. Over 500 communist and anarchist suspects were deported (i.e. they were expelled from the USA).
• The ‘Radical Division’ also spied on suspected radicals, hoping to amass enough evidence to deport them. The black activist Marcus Garvey was one of those targeted.
• At the height of the Red Scare in 1919-20, several states passed ‘criminal syndicalism’ laws, which restricted free speech and authorised the police to make evidence-gathering raids which led to deportation of real or suspected radicals.
Why did the ‘Red Scare’ end?
A significant section of public opinion reacted against the unconstitutional nature of much of what Palmer had done. Twelve very influential lawyers were brave enough to publish a report detailing and criticizing the Judicial Department’s conduct.
• The press began to worry about the implications of anti-sedition legislation for censorship of the press
• Big business began to realize that mass deportation of immigrant labour would actually cause labour shortages, which would be bad for business
• Leading legal figures (e.g. Supreme Court Justice and Civil War veteran, Oliver Wendell Holmes) made influential criticisms of the anti-sedition bills
• People became less willing to accept uncritical use of the umbrella term ‘Red’ (i.e. many people refused to accept that it related to Socialists as well as Communists)
• No nation can remain on an emotional knife-edge indefinitely. Eventually, paranoia and fears subsided. In time, the restricted immigration laws helped to calm the mood. But partly, people were just exhausted and they needed to move on.
• Palmer lost credibility when he predicted an attempted communist revolution in the USA on May Day 1920 and it failed to happen.
The Sacco and Vanzetti case
known as the ‘Sacco and Vanzetti case’, after the two working class Italian immigrant anarchists involved. Arrested for theft and murder in 1920, they were tried in 1921 and finally executed by electric chair in 1927:
• The case became notorious in left-wing and liberal circles because the politics of the two men prevented them from getting a fair trial. Sacco and Vanzetti were never likely to receive a fair trial in that political climate because they were immigrants, anarchists, atheists, draft-dodgers and dirt-poor (one was a shoemaker, the other a fish peddler).
• They were tried in an atmosphere of strong anti-communist and anti-anarchist feeling (caused by a combination of immigration, industrial unrest, and anarchists bombings and shootings).
• The judge, Webster Thayer, whose job it was to give them a fair trial, was
himself anti-communist and anti-anarchist (he referred to the defendants as ‘anarchist bastards’, which would be unthinkable today). Judge Thayer convicted Sacco and Vanzetti, but a series of appeals, supported by pleas from all over the world, delayed their execution until 1927.
• Modern ballistics analysis suggests that Sacco was guilty and Vanzetti innocent, but the real significance of the Sacco and Vanzetti case, particularly in the context of intolerance in 1920s America, is that – innocent or guilty – the temper of the times was such that it prevented justice from being done.
• Ultimately – in addition to the circumstantial evidence against them - Sacco and Vanzetti were executed because, as Italian immigrants whose anarchism justified the use of violence to achieve their political aims, they personified an alien racial and political threat to what native-born Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin saw as the authentically American way of life. There was also a religious dimension to the injustice: as Anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti may have been lapsed Catholics, but in the eyes of Protestant, native-born Americans, they were still Catholics.
Why did membership of the Ku Klux Klan increase in the 1920s?
- The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist organisation originally formed after the American Civil War. In 1915, the Klan was revived in Georgia by William J Simmons, an ex-Methodist preacher: Its revival was further proof that WASP society was intolerant of perceived threats to its dominance in the 1920s.
- Its revival was possible partly because D.W. Griffiths’ 1915 film Birth of a Nation depicted the Klan as heroic in its defence of traditional (i.e. WASP) America. Griffith’s film was based partly on the 1905 novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon, also a successful play, which argued that only segregation could save the South from Blacks. Griffith’s film let Dixon’s ideas reach a larger audience, because the film, though controversial, was very successful (it was the first to be screened inside the White House, by Woodrow Wilson). The new Klan took much of its ideology from Dixon’s novel, and also some of its symbols (e.g. the fiery cross).
- The old Klan had felt threatened by Blacks. The new ‘nativist’ Klan added Jews (note, more on racial than on religious grounds), Catholics, Communists, atheists and (after Prohibition) bootleggers, feminists and also divorcees, as they were felt to be threatening traditional family life and the “Pure American Values” for which the Klan claimed to stand.
Deeper reasons the Klu Klux Klan increased in membership
- World War I had fuelled patriotism and also intensified WASP America’s sense of what was ‘alien’ to it (i.e. non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe after the Russian Revolution in 1917: communists are atheists).
- WWI also scared White Southerners with the thought of what Black ex- servicemen with military training might do when they returned from France after the War.
- Another reason the Klan rose rapidly was that techniques of advertising developed during WWI in the sale of Liberty Bonds were applied to ‘selling’ the Klan by its Imperial Wizard, Edgar Young Clark, and Elizabeth Tyler. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who felt threatened by Blacks, Catholics, Atheists, Jews and Bootleggers could (for a $10 joining fee) dress up in white robes and participate in dramatic secret ceremonies. Klan members had the added incentive of receiving part of the joining fee of every new member they signed up.
- By 1924, the Klan had an estimated 4 million members (it claimed 5 million) , and was especially strong in the South and the Mid-West, and above all in Indiana. But even a northern state like Pennsylvania had 200,000 members. Klan membership in northern industrial areas had much to do with white workers’ fear that Black and immigrant strike-breakers would take their jobs
In what ways did the Klan show intolerance in the 1920s?
The intimidation could be physical (i.e. death threats) or it could be political (i.e. threats not to vote for a candidate for office who was opposed to the Klan). During the 1920s, the Klan succeeded in impeaching a Governor in Oklahoma and in preventing a Catholic candidate, Al Smith, from winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924. When he finally did win it in 1928, the Klan lit ‘fiery crosses’ and refused to vote for him, even though he was a Democrat. This helped the Republican candidate, Herbert Hoover, to be elected.
• Klan members rose to political office in states in the South and were able to abuse their power as sheriffs and judges to target Blacks, Jews and Catholics. The Klan leadership liked to refer to this power as the ‘invisible empire’, but often there was no attempt to hide it.
• Where they did gain high office, as in Indiana and Oregon, they used their power to pass laws promoting white protestant supremacy. In Oregon, for example, where they succeeded in having private schools banned, the Klan motive was to close Catholic and Jewish schools in which non-Protestants controlled education and to prevent others from opening.
• Violence took the form of lynching (i.e. hanging or killing a Black man, without a trial), but also castration (if the Black man was accused of relations with a white woman), or rape of Black women.
• In addition, Black churches were burned down.
Why did the ‘second era’ Ku Klux Klan decline as rapidly as it rose?
- Young and Tyler were caught in bed together in Atlanta (Young was married to someone else), and were found to be in possession of whisky, which showed their opposition to bootlegging to be hypocritical.
- They were also pocketing 80% of the Klan joining fee (Tyler had built a neo- classical mansion in Georgia with the proceeds).
- In 1925, the Indiana ‘Grand Dragon’, David Stephenson, was convicted of the abduction, rape and second degree murder of a 28 year old secretary.
- In Pennsylvania, the Klan was further damaged by corruption and intimidation scandals. Stephenson’s conviction was only the most high profile of a series of convictions for corruption. The American public could see that the Klan’s claims to stand for traditional values were hollow.
- Another important reason for the decline of the Klan was that many WASPs no longer felt as threatened by immigrants, as a result of the restrictions on immigration imposed by Congress in 1919, 1924 and 1929.
Intolerance against Blacks: Race Riots
Intolerance against Blacks manifested itself in many ways. One of these was the phenomenon of the race riot. There were several race riots in the USA after World War I, especially during the so-called ‘Red Summer’ of 1919. The Chicago race riot started when a Black boy swimming in Lake Michigan drifted across an imaginary boundary line in the water between ‘Black’ and ‘White’ bathing areas. 23 Blacks and 15 Whites were killed in the appalling violence which followed. The 1921 riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma was the worst race riot. It is also representative of the others in several key respects.
What were the common elements in race riots in the 1920s?
- The riots almost always involved a majority of Whites in the community attacking a minority of Blacks.
- The riots always took place in the context of economic hardship and competition for jobs.
- Another factor was White fear of the possible consequences of the return of Black troops at the end of World War I. In the North, the fear tended to be employment-based; in the South, it was employment based but also concerned with Blacks wanting full civil rights because they felt their military service entitled them to these.
- Another common element was (an unfounded) rumour circulating about the actions of a Black man or men against a white woman.
- In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there was also a large element of economic envy, because the neighbourhood of Greenwood was so prosperous.
- The neighbourhood had an artificially high concentration of Black businessmen and was known as the ‘Negro Wall Street’.
- This made it a target in times of economic hardship for Whites, who called the Black residential area of the city ‘Little Africa’.
How and why did the ‘riot’ start?
The pretext for the riot was a false accusation of a sexual assault by a young Black man on a White girl in an elevator. This was sensationalised in the newspapers. The Black man was arrested and to ensure he was not lynched by a White mob (as was likely) a group of armed Blacks rushed to the Courthouse. There was a stand-off between the two armed groups, followed by an exchange of shots. The Blacks, outnumbered, retreated towards Greenwood and the White mob followed them.
