Modern times: The 1920s Flashcards
1
Q
President Warren G. Harding
A
- He promised deceleration, return to normalcy. He is a republican and succeeds Wilson.
- Harding promises not heroism but normalcy.
- He is all about political conservatism, they don’t need reform, they are fine as they are
- He wasn’t particularly hard working, more about having a good time and was quite shallow.
2
Q
President Calvin Coolidge
A
- Succeeds Harding
- He is not particularly awe inspiring, slept 14 hours a day and had a lack of charisma
- Man of few words, called silent cal
- Not sensible all about fun but the people like him and he gets re-elected in the 1924
- Americans really like him, perhaps of his boring but stable attitude and life
- Stands for stability and restraint
- He is interested in a form of capitalism, the economy is best left alone and there should be tax cuts and low interest rates is what he wanted.
- Political programme, low interest rates and the economy was best left alone
3
Q
Coolidge and big business
A
- Friendly with big business
- Believes in small government, cuts government spending from 6.4 billion to 2.9 billion
- Doesn’t raise protectionist measures, he is interested in protecting American businesses from abroad, the competition against foreign businesses.
- 1923-29 annual growth rate of 7% - Business rates are expanding
- Industrial output is doubling
- Washing machines, radio, Milky way bars etc new age of American consumerism.
- The mass production of cars is the biggest consumerism at the time.
- New age of consumerism such as the Ford Model T, mass production of cars, 50 millions of these cars are produced in the 1920s. Luxury good but also psychological transformation, the users attach to the automobil. You get ordinary Americans able to purchase a car with the cheap Ford Model T and causes almost social equality.
- Buying a car allowed people to escape Jim Crow
4
Q
The rise of automobile
A
- Age of advertising, new advert experts and companies
- Connected to WWI where there was mass propaganda and feeds into the consumerism culture of the post-war years
- Upward mobility and sexuality is a part of this new advert culture, about social and culture as well as economic that plays a part in advertising.
5
Q
Urban America
A
- First time that Americans live in urban areas than the countryside, the 1920s is the tipping point
- US stops being a predominantly rural country and becomes an urban nation
- 6 million people migrate from farming to the city, big demographic shift
- American city change, new towns emerging etc
- Millions of ordinary Americans who benefit, unemployment is way down in the 1920s
- Unemployment numbers have halved in 1927, 4.2 mill in 1921
- Dropping of unemployment is very big for ordinary people, as the average class were constantly losing their job due to the big booms etc
- Higher wages of ordinary workers reach the highest level in American history as well as working hours being reduced. Improving health care and nutrition -> improved standard of living
6
Q
However
A
- Productivity increases but the major part of that increase is creamed off. The poorest 10% of the population take home 2% of the national income and the richest 10% command almost 40%
- Wages don’t increase as much as productivity
- Still have poverty in America, 1929 US government says that families of 4 need 2,500 to sustain a living. Of 27 million families that file a tax return, 12 million tax returnees still earn 1200 or less, a lot of people just about managing.
- Out of 27 million, 18 million are in poverty
- Time of union repression, anti-union policies of Coolidge time.
- Anti-union policies, work place accidents and people become disabled from these and don’t receive much compensation for it
- Dramatic decline in prices, farmers are not getting as much for their produce, the end of the First World war has something to do with it, European agriculture recovers after WWI. Overproduction is the main issue for the farmers in 1920s, not making as much profit.
- Society is deeply unequal, overall it looks positive but if you look at the individuals its not the same story.
7
Q
Flappers
A
- Stereotypical image of a woman Is a flapper, a liberated wealthy woman who smokes and drinks
- Louise Brookes, combines traditional femininity beauty with a look that converts gender norms with short hair etc
- Radical change in fashion, such as wearing trousers, masculine clothes
- Sexy dances such as the Charleston, at the time this is scandalizing, to religious people this is quite offensive.
- Flappers are elite white women, most woman cannot afford to live this lifestyle.
- Distorted representation of reality, most would not dare to go out like this. Did not represent American women.
8
Q
Female Suffrage
A
- Suffrage, goes back to the 19th C for decades have tried to get an amendment to the constitution that gets them a vote. This finally happens with the 19th amendment.
- Once suffrage, the women’s movement actually fragments, over things such as the flapper, sex, morality.
- Not a great decade for the woman’s movement
- Lot of woman feel more comfortable voting for conservatives, they are not necessarily progressive
- Woman’s employment rising by ¼
- Very little advancement in birth control etc
- A lot of women just don’t vote, and if they do they are well educated and wealthy
- Women’s employment does increase, new opportunities in the 20s, 1920-30, number of women in employment rising by 1/4. But the proportion in the workforce actually declines.
- Not all of these jobs are career jobs, domestic service so. Professions like the law are not open to women, and number of female doctors falls in the 20s.
9
Q
Birth Control
A
- 1920s is when this is vigorously debated
- Margaret Sanya opens the first birth control clinic in America, which was a controversial move and she suffers the legal consequences
- She was to prevent unsafe abortions, she is attentive to race where one of the clinics is run entirely by African American staff
- The idea that women should control their fertility
- Marriage laws are reformed, becomes easier to have a divorce, so the divorce rates go through the roof in the 1920s, history of liberation but it is quite complicated.
- However, there are backward steps in terms of sex discrimination
10
Q
African Americans
A
- Era of Jim Crow, and the 20s is no exception
- Race works differently in other contexts, African soldiers fighting for France and are not being treated like AA in America. There is a move away from the south, AA in huge numbers migrate to the north as a way to go against Jim Crow
- Agriculture disasters and floods, encourages the migration
- There are a lot of lynching’s, especially after WWI as whites are worried that AA are beginning to believe they have more rights and need to be put down
- Deep discrimination, quite a lot fight in Europe. Lots of people see race
11
Q
NAACP & anti-lynching campaign
A
- Starts small and based in NY
- Small AA class
- Legal strategy, try to make lynching a federal crime, goes on into the 30s.
- They would put out a flag and announce every time someone was lynched.
- New way of organising opposition to racial oppression.
- Held on economic boom
- Way to oppose white supremacy
- Based on a small American middle-class sector who I guess lynch people
- Racial oppression, civil rights movement, significant progress for African Americans
12
Q
Nativism and immigration restriction
A
- Doesn’t mean discrimination ends, north is not a racial utopia. Racism is still alive in the north but there are more opportunities.
- More opportunities, Detroit and Chicago enquires a big African American community
- Housing codes to stop AA from settling in areas that are not open to them,
- Problems of overcrowding
- But despite this discrimination there is a new power base and new sense of community
13
Q
Backlash
A
- Nativism, alleges that immigrants are racially degenerate and cause crime, disease, squalor etc The accusation that immigrants refuse to integrate and don’t want to adopt the American way of life. This is seen as a threat to American values and beliefs.
- 1880-1920, the period of mass migration, nativism that immigrants are racially degenerate that they bring disease
- 1924 national origins act, lowers this cap further and the absolute limit of immigrations that can come into the country
- Accusation that immigrants refuse to integrate and become American, -> threat to American values
- Immigration comes a stop when the depression occurs in the 1930s
14
Q
KKK rebirth
A
- The original Klan was founded In the wake of the American Civil War
- Film The Birth of a Nation, romanticised the Klan
- Movie that shows that African Americans are a danger to the people and white women hood, and this movie takes a significant turn on many people and creates the dream of the return of the KKK
15
Q
William J. Simmons and the Klan
A
- This is the man who drove the KKK, was a sales man and preacher
- He organises the Klan at a ceremony in Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1915.
- The Klan becomes a big mass membership in the community in the 1920
- Not just in the south, this membership is a mass membership organisation.
- The Klan claims to be a defender of 100% Americanism, they attack anyone who doesn’t fit 100% Americanism, such as Africans, Jews, Catholics etc
