DEPTH STUDY: How far did US society change in the 1920s?

Question 1

Entertainment Roaring 20s

Answer 1

Spare money and time was channelled into entertainment, creating huge leisure industry

Radio
- almost everyone listened to radio and most households had their own set. Choice gre quickly with only one radio station in 1921 and 508 in 1922. By 1929 NBC network was making 150 million a year

Jazz
- radio gave greater access to music, jazz became popular amongst young people. Blues was popular amongst african americans and white was popular amongst everyone
- 1920s became known as Jazz age, ringing new dances (charleston) and behaviours such as that of the flapper - a expensive daring young woman.
- older generation saw jazz and everything associated with it as a corrupting influence

Sport
- baseball became a huge money sport, with stars like babe ruth becoming national figures. Boxing was also huge. millions of americans listened to sports on the radio

Cinema
- hollywood developed, producing many films and movies. until 1927 all movies were silent. these also made way for national figures like charlie chaplin
- movies became a multi-illion dollar industry with a hundered million cinema tickets being sold per week, even working classes joined in. It only cost ten or twenty cents to see a movie

Question 2

Morals

Answer 2

Rapidly changing, critizised by older generations,
cinema quickly discovered the selling power of sex and sex symbols.
36 states threatened censorship, hollywood responded with poetic justice for the sinful characters engajing

contraceptive advice was openly available for the first time and sex outside marriage was more common.

Question 3

The Car

Answer 3

The car made all of the features of the roaring 20s possible, they helped cities grow by openng up the suberbs, carring owners too and from entretainment, carried boyfriends and girlfriends outside the moral gaze of their parents and took Americans to sporting events, holidays, shopping, picnics and to see family and friends

Question 4

women usa

Answer 4

before the war they led restrictive lives, with plenty behaviour and clothes expectations. No smoking or going out, chaperones, housewives, no jobs or secretarial work

In the 1920s
Impact of war: in 1917 women were taken into war industries giving them experience in factory work

Vote
they got the vote in all states in 1920

The car
shared the liberating effects

Housework
made easier by new consumer products, leaving more time for leisure

behaviour
roles were eased, clothing was daring, they smoked and drank with men, went out with men without a chaperone and kissed in public

Question 5

women employment

Answer 5

more women (especially middle class) took jobs in urban areas, typically jobs created by the new industries. 10 million women in jobs in 1929, 24% more than 1920. With money of there own they bevame a advertisement target, as even if they did not own money they often took financial decisions in the household.

Women’s role in choosing cars triggered ford to make them available in colours by 1925wo

Question 6

women choices1

Answer 6

they were exposed to a great variety of role models, and sex in film and magazines

Women were less likely to stay in unhappy marriages 1914 there were 100,000 divorces and by 1929 there were twice as many

Question 7

limitations women

Answer 7

they were still payed much less than men, this was one of the reasons why employment for women grew, because they were cheap labour.

in politics they didn’t have access to political power as candidates.

Question 8

women response

Answer 8

some copied films but there was an outrage as there was a strong conservative element in american society. Religion and old country values kept most women in a more restrictive role than what urban women enjoyed, for most raising a family and mantaining a home were the first prioritiesI

Question 9

Intolerance to Immigrants

Answer 9

majority of Americans were immigrants or descendent of immigrants, immigration was at an all time high 1900-10 with many Jews fleeing prosecution. Italian immigrants looked to make money that they could bring back with them to italy

Big cities with more established immigrant groups (irish Americans, french canadians and german americans) had best jobs and homes, leaving little behind for the recent European immigrants (especially African american and Mexicans who were at the bottom of the scale)

Question 10

red scare

Answer 10

increased fear of communism, feared eastern european and russian immigrants would bring their radical ideas with them, the reaction was called the red scare

1919 americans confirmed their fears with 400,000 american workers going on strike, including the police leaving looters and thieves roaming boston. There were race riots in 25 towns. They were likely caused by economic hardship but the americans saw the strikes as communist interference

The fears were not unjustified - immigrants did have radical beliefs. 1919 a bomb in a church of milwaukee killed 10 people. In june more bombs, one alsost succeeding to kill the atourney general Mitchell Palmer.

J. Edgar Hoover built up files on 60,000 suspects and in 1919-20 10,000 individuals were deported

Palmer tried to use the fear of revolution to build his political support, accusing miorities of being communists
He predicted a red revolutio in 1920 and when nothing happened Justice department undermined him
It was later found out that only 556 of the thousands of cases he brought forward had any basis in fact

Question 11

Sacco and Vanzetti

Answer 11

Victims of the Red Scare (italian american, self-conffesed anarchists)
1920- arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and murder
Their trial became more of a trial against their radical ideas with the prosecution heavily relying on racist slurs and stiring fears about their beliefs. The judge concluded that although they didn’t commit the crime they were nevertheless culpable for beng the enemy of the existing insitutions.

They were convicted on flimsy evidence full of prejudice. They had been carried away by fear of reds and after 6 years of legal appeals they were executed in 1927, protested by radicals and moderates who all saw how unjust the trial had been. 50 years later they were pardoned

Question 12

immigration quotas

Answer 12

1924 the gov introduced a quota system to ensure the largest proportion of immigrants came form northern-west europe.

1900-10 more than a million a year

1929 - 150,000 per year, no asians allowed in at all

Question 13

Ku Klux Klan

Answer 13

white supremacy movement that used violence to intimidate african americans. The klan revived after the film of “a birth of a nation” that glorified the klan as defenders of american values. It was even supported by president wilson, and thus became a powerful political force in the 1920s

Question 14

Jim Crow

Answer 14

the discriminatory set of laws and practices. African americans were prevented from voting by literacy tests, intimidation and violence, they were discriminated in their employment and education, and streets were rebuilt to remind them they were second class citizens
In the 1920s thousands of monuments were erected to white confederate civil war soldiers and comanders to remind the african americans of who was in charge

Question 15

Stange fruit

Answer 15

a poem inspired by the lynching of two african american man out of three who were caused of murder and rape in 1930. A mob arrived in jail and lynched (hanged without trial) both of the african americans, sparing the white male

Faced by intimidation many african americans moved from rural south to north cities. 1920s african american population of chicago and new york doubled (NY 150,000 to 300,000 and CH 110,000 to 230,000)

Question 16

Improvements

Answer 16

in north, african americans had better chances t getting good jobs and education. (howard university was exclusively african american institution)

In chicago and ny there was a successfull “black capitalist” movement encouraging african americans to set up buisnesses

Chcago boycott where they did not go to chain stores until they employed african-americans by 1930s almost all shops in south side belt had african american employees

There were internationally famous african americans, such as paul robeson. Jazz made many african-american musicians into hgh profile media figures. Harlem in BY became centre for creativity
countee cullen - poet who takled racis and poverty

Question 17

civil rights movement

Answer 17

NAACP- national association for the advancement of coloured people - 1919 with 300 branches and 90,000 members. it campaigned against racial segregation and to get laws passed against lynching

Marcus Garvey - founded the UNIA (universal negro improvement association) urging negros to be proud of race and colour and helped them set up their own buisnesses. he also had a scheme of helping african-americans emigrate to africa away from racism but it eventually collapsed

Question 18

inequality continued

Answer 18

although important these movements didnt change the usa dramatically

1900-30 life expectancey for african americams rose from 45 to 49 and for whites 54 to 59. many lived in great poverty, in harlem they lived in poorer houses yet payed higher rents. They ahd lower education and health services, with black women worling as low-paid domestic servants. FActories employing carse had few blacks or white- only policy

In chicago african americans attempting to use parks, playgrounds and beaches were set upon by gangs of whites called the “athletic clubs”. Withing the african-american communities prejudice was also evident. Middle-class african americans in the ghettos tended to blame newly arrived migrants from south for intenisfying white racism

In harlem 50,000 west indians caused inter-racial tension with many of them being better educated and prouder of their colour then the newly arrived african Americans from the south.

Question 19

vanishing americans

Answer 19

the native americans were almost dissapeared as an ethnic group during the nineteenth century - declining from 1.5 million to 150,000 in 1920. Those who survived were forced into reservations in the midwest

IN the 1920s the gov became concerned with native americans. 12,000 had served in ww1 which helped change attitudes towards them. In 1920s a survey dicovered they lived in extreme poverty with very low life expectancy, with horrible health, education and jobs and suffered extreme discrimination.

They were loosing their land and culture, with their children sent to special boarding schools to assimilate them into white amierican culture, where they tried to destroy native american beliefs and traditions. They were referd to as the vanishing americans

In 1924 they were granted citizenship and were aloud to vote. In 1928 Merriam Report proposed widespread imporvemnet in the laws and the reforms were introduced in 1934 in the new deal

Question 20

monkey Trial

Answer 20

Monkey trial is the foucus of ill-feeling between rural and urban USA

most urban people in 1920s would have believed charles darwings theory of evolution, rural americans would have disagreed as they were highly religious
Fundamentalists in rural areas believed god vreated the world in 6 days

At school most children were taught evolution, but fundementalists didn’t like this as they were abandoning traditional values so they managed to pass laws in 6 states banning the teachings of evolution

A teacher called John Scopes deliberately broke the law to bring his case against the fundamentalists in court in 1925

The trial captured the public and was major in the press. Scopes was convicted of breaking the law, but during the trial anti-evoluntionists were submited to great mockery and after the trial anti-evolution was weakened