Lesson 2: Social Change

Question 1

Bootlegger Definition

Answer 1

a person who smuggled liquor into the United States during Prohibition

Question 2

Equal Rights Amendment Definition

Answer 2

a 1923 proposed constitutional amendment intended to prohibit all discrimination based on sex; the amendment was never ratified

Question 3

League of Women Voters Definition

Answer 3

an organization established in 1920 to educate voters and promote rights for women

Question 4

Mass Culture Definition

Answer 4

a set of shared practices and beliefs that arise from widespread exposure to the same media

Question 5

Organized Crime Definition

Answer 5

criminal activity carried on by one or more organized groups as a business

Question 6

Prohibition Definition

Answer 6

the legal ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor anywhere in the United States from 1920 to 1933

Question 7

Repeal Definition

Answer 7

to cancel, remove from law

Question 8

Suburb Definition

Answer 8

a residential area on the outskirts of a city

Question 9

For nearly a century, which groups worked towards prohibition? Which amendment established prohibition in the United States and when? What was Prohibition often referred to? What is prohibition?

Answer 9

For nearly a century, reform groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union had worked to ban alcoholic beverages. They finally achieved this when the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919. One year later, Prohibition, often referred to as the “noble experiment,” went into effect. Prohibition was the legal ban of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol.

Question 10

In 1920, how severe was alcohol abuse, as today? What benefit did Prohibition have on the American people? What was its overall effect?

Answer 10

In 1920, as today, alcohol abuse was a serious problem. Many Americans hoped the ban on liquor would improve American life. In fact, the ban did have some positive effects. Alcoholism declined during Prohibition. However, in the end, the ban did not work.

Question 11

How did Americans getting around the law deem prohibition to be a failure? What were ways in which Americans got around the law? What were bootleggers?

Answer 11

One reason that Prohibition failed was that many Americans found ways to get around the law. Some people manufactured their own alcohol in homemade stills. Others smuggled in liquor from Canada and the Caribbean. Because these smugglers sometimes hid bottles of liquor in their boots, they became known as bootleggers.

Question 12

How did speakeasies help deem Prohibition as a failure? In which way did speakeasies increase the love for drinking? How did the Government try to limit the illegal practices of speakeasies, homemade stills, and smuggling? What were Prohibition agents, or “g-men”?

Answer 12

Illegal bars, called speakeasies, opened in nearly every city and town. In some ways, speakeasies made drinking liquor more popular than ever. To enforce the ban, the government sent out federal Prohibition agents. These “g-men” traveled across the United States, shutting down speakeasies, breaking up illegal stills, and stopping smugglers.

Question 13

How did Prohibition give a boost to organized crime? What was organized crime? What role did gangsters play in the supplying of speakeasies? What did they do to territories? How did crime become a big business? Was there any bribery?

Answer 13

Prohibition gave a huge boost to organized crime, or criminal activity organized as a business. Every speakeasy needed a steady supply of liquor. Professional criminals, or gangsters, took over the job of meeting this need. As bootleggers earned big profits, crime became a big business. Gangsters divided up cities and forced speakeasy owners in their “territories” to buy liquor from them. Sometimes, gangsters used some of their profits to bribe police officers, public officials, and judges.

Question 14

Gradually, why were many Americans viewing Prohibition as a mistake? What was the evidence for this reasoning? By the mid-1920s, what were the statistics for Prohibition-related crimes?

Answer 14

Gradually, more Americans began to think that Prohibition was a mistake. The ban reduced drinking but never stopped it. Even worse, argued critics, Prohibition was undermining respect for the law. Every day, millions of Americans were buying liquor in speakeasies. By the mid-1920s, almost half of all federal arrests were for Prohibition-related crimes.

Question 15

By the end of the 1920s, what were Americans asking for in relation to Prohibition? What amendment repealed prohibition? When was it passed?

Answer 15

By the end of the decade, many Americans were calling for the repeal, or ending, of Prohibition. In 1933, the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The noble experiment was over.

Question 16

When was the Nineteenth Amendment ratified?

Answer 16

1920

Question 17

In November 1920, what did women do for the first time? Who did they help elect? Did they vote in groups?

Answer 17

Women went to the polls nationwide for the first time in November 1920. Their votes helped elect Warren Harding President. Women did not vote as a group, however, as some people had predicted. Like men, some women voted for Republicans, and some for Democrats, and many did not vote at all.

Question 18

In 1920, what did Carrie Chapman Catt, leader of the National Women Suffrage Association, establish? What does this organization do and what does it work for?

Answer 18

In 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National Woman Suffrage Association, set up the League of Women Voters. The organization worked to educate voters, as it does today. It also worked to guarantee other rights, such as the right of women to serve on juries.

Question 19

In 1924, what advances had women made in terms of delegation? In the same year, who were the first two female governors?

Answer 19

Women served as delegates in the 1924 Republican and Democratic conventions. That year, the first two women governors were elected—Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas.

Question 20

In 1929, how did Puerto Rican women, under the United States, receive the right to vote? Who was Ana Roqué de Duprey?

Answer 20

Women in Puerto Rico asked if they now had the right to vote. They were told that they did not. Led by Ana Roqué de Duprey, an educator and writer, Puerto Rican women crusaded for the vote. In 1929, their crusade finally succeeded.

Question 21

What legal rights did women still lack after gaining suffrage? What constitutional amendment did Alice Paul propose in 1923? What was it called and what did it state?

Answer 21

Leaders in the suffrage movement began to work for new goals. Alice Paul, who had been a leading suffragist, pointed out that women still lacked many legal rights. For example, many professional schools still barred women, and many states gave husbands legal control over their wives’ earnings. Paul called for a new constitutional amendment in 1923. Paul’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Question 22

Why did many think that the Equal Rights Amendment, proposed by Alice Paul in 1923, went to far? What protections did people fear women would lose? How long did Alice Paul push for this amendment? Although being passed by Congress, why was the Amendment not ratified?

Answer 22

Many people feared that the ERA went too far. Some argued that women would lose legal safeguards, such as laws that protected them in factories. Paul worked hard for the ERA until her death in 1977. The amendment passed in Congress but was never ratified by the states.

Question 23

Remember: Women’s lives changed in other ways in the 1920s. During World War I, thousands of women had worked outside the home for the first time. They filled the jobs of men who had gone off to war. When the troops came home, many women were forced to give up their jobs. Still, some remained in the workforce.

Answer 23

Women’s lives changed in other ways in the 1920s. During World War I, thousands of women had worked outside the home for the first time. They filled the jobs of men who had gone off to war. When the troops came home, many women were forced to give up their jobs. Still, some remained in the workforce.

Question 24

For some women, why was working outside the home normal? Which women joined these women in the 1920s?

Answer 24

For some women, working outside the home was nothing new. Poor women and working-class women had been cooks, servants, and seamstresses for many years. In the 1920s, they were joined by middle-class women who worked as teachers, typists, secretaries, and store clerks. A few women even managed to become doctors and lawyers despite discrimination.

Question 25

How did life at home change for women, with the addition of new appliances that made work simple?

Answer 25

Life at home also changed for women. More of them bought ready-made clothes than sewed for the whole family as they had done in the past. Electric appliances such as refrigerators, washers, irons, and vacuum cleaners made housework easier. On the other hand, such conveniences also encouraged some women to spend even more time on housework. Women who worked outside the home found that they had to work a second shift when they came home. Most husbands expected their wives to cook, clean, and care for children even if they held full-time jobs.

Question 26

True or False: In the 1920s, Americans traveled to more places and moved more quickly than ever before—all because of the automobile.

Answer 26

True

Question 27

How did the auto industry affect the business boom in the 1920s? How did it spur the growth in related industries?

Answer 27

The auto industry played a central role in the business boom of the 1920s. Car sales grew rapidly during the decade. The auto boom spurred growth in related industries such as steel and rubber.

Question 28

How did lower prices spark the auto boom? By 1924, what had the cost of a Model T dropped to? How did factory efficiency allow prices to fall? How did the assembly line, created in 1913, increase efficiency? In 1927, which company passed Ford as the top automaker? How was this company different?

Answer 28

Lower prices sparked the auto boom. By 1924, the cost of a Model T had dropped from $850 to $290. As a result, an American did not have to be rich to buy a car. Car prices fell because factories became more efficient. As you have read, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in his automobile factory in 1913. Before the assembly line, it took 14 hours to put together a Model T. In Ford’s new factory, workers could assemble a Model T in 93 minutes. Other companies copied Ford’s methods. In 1927, General Motors passed Ford as the top automaker. Unlike Ford, General Motors sold cars in a variety of models and colors.

Question 29

How did Henry Ford respond to competition by General Motors? What was the Model A? How did this influence competition between other automakers?

Answer 29

Henry Ford had once boasted that people could have his cars in “any color so long as it’s black.” When General Motors introduced a low-priced car available in different colors, Ford lost many customers. Faced with the success of General Motors, he changed his mind. His next car, the Model A, came in different colors. Soon, car companies were offering new makes and models every year.

Question 30

By 1929, how many Americans owed their jobs to the automobile both directly or indirectly? What are examples of this?

Answer 30

Car sales spurred growth in other parts of the economy. By 1929, some four million Americans owed their jobs to the automobile, directly or indirectly. Tens of thousands of people worked in steel mills, producing metal used in cars. Others made tires, paint, and glass for cars. Some drilled for oil in the Southwest or worked in the oil refineries where crude petroleum was converted into usable gasoline.

Question 31

What other effects did the car boom have? How did it effect the paving of roads and new highways? What was built in New York in 1925, in response to this boom? What establishments opened along the newly made roads?

Answer 31

The car boom had other effects. States and cities paved more roads and built new highways. In 1925, the Bronx River Parkway in New York was the first of many highways in parklike settings. Gas stations, car dealers, motels, and roadside restaurants sprang up across the country to serve the millions who traveled by car.

Question 32

True or False: In 1920, there were only about 1,500 filling stations in the entire United States. By 1929, there were more than 120,000. Mechanic shops, or places to repair automobiles, also became a necessity.

Answer 32

True

Question 33

How did the automobile influence the migration to suburbs, along with their establishment?

Answer 33

Cars shaped life in the city and in the country. Many city dwellers wanted to escape crowded conditions. They moved to nearby towns in the country, which soon grew into suburbs. A suburb is a community located outside a city. With cars, suburban families could drive to the city even though it was many miles away. They could also drive to stores, schools, or work. No longer did people have to live where they could walk or take a trolley to work.

Question 34

How did automobiles influence women?

Answer 34

Another major shift came when suburban housewives refused to be confined to the passenger seat. Instead, they took their place behind the wheels of their own automobiles. As they did, they broke down still another barrier that separated the worlds of men and women.

Question 35

How did the automobile influence life in the country?

Answer 35

In the country, cars brought people closer to towns, shops, and the movies. Such trips had taken several hours by horse and buggy. One farm woman bought a car before she got indoor plumbing. “You can’t go to town in a bathtub,” she explained.

Question 36

How did the automobile help create a new national culture, that spread across state lines?

Answer 36

By making travel easier, cars helped Americans from different parts of the country learn more about one another. They played a role in creating a new national culture that crossed state lines.

Question 37

How did new forms of entertainment contribute to the rise of mass culture? What is mass culture? What factors enabled families to have more leisure time?

Answer 37

New forms of entertainment also contributed to the rise of a mass culture. Mass culture is the set of values and practices that arise from watching the same movies, listening to the same music, and hearing the same news reports as others around the nation. In the 1920s, rising wages and labor-saving appliances gave families more money to spend and more leisure time in which to spend it.

Question 38

As radio became popular in the 1920s, what was the country’s first commercial radio station? When and where did it start broadcasting? By 1929, how many American families had a radio? How did this lead to a new lifestyle emerging?

Answer 38

Radio became very popular in the 1920s. The country’s first commercial radio station, KDKA, started broadcasting in Pittsburgh in 1920. By 1929, more than 10 million American families owned radios. A new lifestyle emerged. Each night after dinner, families gathered around the radio to tune in to shows such as “Roxy and His Gang” or “Jack Frost’s Melody Moments.” Radio listeners enjoyed comedies and westerns, classical music and jazz, news reports and play-by-play sports broadcasts.

Question 39

As the movie industry came of age in the 1920s, what made Hollywood an ideal spot?

Answer 39

In the 1920s, the movie industry came of age. Southern California’s warm, sunny climate allowed filming all year round. Soon, Hollywood became the movie capital of the world.

Question 40

How did movies contribute to the new mass culture? How often did Americans go to the movies? What was the difference between theaters in the city and in small towns?

Answer 40

Movies contributed to the new mass culture. Millions of Americans went to the movies at least once a week. They were thrilled to watch westerns, romances, adventures, and comedies. In small towns, theaters were bare rooms with hard chairs. In cities, they were huge palaces with red velvet seats.

Question 41

Remember: The first movies had no sound. Audiences followed the plot by reading “title cards” that appeared on the screen. A pianist played music that went with the action.

Answer 41

The first movies had no sound. Audiences followed the plot by reading “title cards” that appeared on the screen. A pianist played music that went with the action.

Question 42

Who were the actors Tom Mix, Clara Bow, and, most famous of all of them, Charlie Chaplin? What were they known for?

Answer 42

Fans adored Hollywood movie stars. Cowboy stars like Tom Mix thrilled audiences with their heroic adventures. Clara Bow won fame playing restless, fun-seeking young women. The most popular star of all was comedian Charlie Chaplin, nicknamed “The Little Tramp.” In his tiny derby hat and baggy pants, Chaplin presented a comical figure. His attempts to triumph over the problems of everyday life moved audiences to both laughter and tears.

Question 43

Remember: In 1927, Hollywood caused a sensation when it produced The Jazz Singer. The film 1920s and beyond. Chaplin continued to make popular silent films years after the shift to “talking was a “talkie”—a movie with a soundtrack. Soon, all new movies were talkies.

Answer 43

In 1927, Hollywood caused a sensation when it produced The Jazz Singer. The film 1920s and beyond. Chaplin continued to make popular silent films years after the shift to “talking was a “talkie”—a movie with a soundtrack. Soon, all new movies were talkies.