HOW FAR DID US SOCIETY CHANGE IN THE 1920S?

WHAT WERE THE ROARING TWENTIES

Why the ‘Roaring Twenties’?

The 1920s in America is famously known as the Roaring Twenties, due
to the decade being a period of economic prosperity and the country
experiencing many cultural changes.

The era saw the rise of social, artistic and cultural dynamism, as well as:

- a booming economy,

-new technology,

-and entertainment forms,

-and new rights for women.

Everything seemed to be progressing in marvellous ways after the traumatic First

World War :

– automobiles and appliances were readily available,

-people had more time and money to watch movies,

-and women celebrated a new look and voting rights.

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POLA NEGRI

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 RUDOLPH VALENTINO

-READ 262-263

THE INTOLERANCE IN THE USA

Read 263-264

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THE RED SCARE 1919-21

-THE FEAR OF COMMUNISM,STRIKES

-RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

-IMMIGRATION POLICY: THE IMMIGRATION QUOTA 1921—LIMIT FOR IMMIGRANTS TO 357000 A

YEAR

-NATIONAL ORIGINS ACT—1924---THE TOTAL LIMIT OF IMMIGRANTS WAS LIMITED TO 150000

-IMMIGRANTS FROM ASIA: CHINA , JAPAN WERE COMPLETELY BARRED

READ SOURCE 3, SOURCE 4

THE KU KLUX KLAN

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1924 MEETING

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Ku Klux Klan,

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either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror
in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda.
One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and
lasted until the 1870s.
The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present.

The original Ku Klux Klan

The 19th-century Klan was originally organized as a social club
by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866.

They apparently derived the name from the Greek word kyklos, from
which comes the English “circle”; “Klan” was added for the sake
of alliteration and Ku Klux Klan emerged.

The organization quickly became a vehicle for Southern white

underground resistance to Radical Reconstruction.

Klan members sought the restoration of white

supremacy through intimidation and violence aimed at the newly
enfranchised Black freedmen.

A similar organization, the Knights of the White Camelia, began

in Louisiana in 1867.

Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

The 20th-century Klan had its roots more directly in the American nativist
tradition.

It was organized in 1915 near Atlanta, Georgia, by Col. William J.

Simmons, a preacher and promoter of fraternal orders who had been
inspired by Thomas Dixon’s book The Clansman (1905) and D.W. Griffith’s
film The Birth of a Nation (1915).

The new organization remained small until Edward Y. Clarke and Elizabeth
Tyler brought to it their talents as publicity agents and fund raisers.

The revived Klan was fueled partly by patriotism and partly by

a romantic nostalgia for the old South, but, more importantly, it expressed
the defensive reaction of white Protestants in small-town America who felt
threatened by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and by the large-scale
immigration of the previous decades that had changed the ethnic
character of American society.

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This second Klan peaked in the 1920s, when its membership
exceeded 4,000,000 nationally, and profits rolled in from the sale
of its memberships, regalia, costumes, publications, and rituals.
A burning cross became the symbol of the new organization, and
white-robed Klansmen participated in marches, parades, and
nighttime cross burnings all over the country.
To the old Klan’s hostility toward Blacks the new Klan—
which was strong in the Midwest as well as in the South—
added bias against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners,
and organized labour.
The Klan enjoyed a last spurt of growth in 1928, when Alfred E.
Smith, a Catholic, received the Democratic presidential
nomination.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s the Klan’s membership
dropped drastically, and the last remnants of the organization
temporarily disbanded in 1944.
For the next 20 years the Klan was quiescent, but it had a
resurgence in some Southern states during the 1960s as civil-
rights workers attempted to force Southern
communities’ compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
There were numerous instances of bombings, whippings, and
shootings in Southern communities, carried out in secret but
apparently the work of Klansmen. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson publicly
denounced the organization in a nationwide television address
announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the
slaying of a civil-rights worker, a white woman, in Alabama.

WHY WAS PROHIBITION INTRODUCED AND THEN LATER REPEALED?

-18TH AMENDMENT INTRODUCED PROHIBITION

-FROM 1920 IT WAS ILLEGAL TO MANUFACTURE, TRANSPORT OR SELL
ALCOHOLIC DRINKS
--LASTED UNTIL 1933

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-THE REASONS OF PROHIBITION???
READ 266

BUT PROHIBITION FAILED—WHY?

-MOST PEOPLE WERE AGAINST THAT
-ILLEGAL DRINKING BARS EXISTED
-ILLEGAL MANUFACTURING AND SELLING AND PRODUCTION…
-CRIMINAL GANGS GROW BECAUSE OF THIS
-AL CAPONE..

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Alphonse Gabriel Capone
January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947),
sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface",
- was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as
the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit.
- His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.
Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrants.
He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager and became a bouncer in organized crime premises
such as brothels.
In his early twenties, he moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard and trusted factotum
for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the
Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana.
A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall.
Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone.
Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually
profitable relationships with mayor William Hale Thompson and the city's police meant he seemed
safe from law enforcement.
Capone apparently reveled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at
ball games.
He made donations to various charities and was viewed by many as a "modern-day Robin Hood".

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However, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven gang rivals were murdered in broad
daylight, damaged the public image of Chicago and Capone, leading influential citizens to demand
government action and newspapers to dub Capone "Public Enemy No.1".
The federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and charged him with 22 counts of tax
evasion.

He was convicted of five counts in 1931.

During a highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capone's admissions of his income
and unpaid taxes, made during prior (and ultimately abortive) negotiations to pay the government
taxes he owed.
He was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
After conviction, he replaced his defense team with experts in tax law, and his grounds for appeal
were strengthened by a Supreme Court ruling, but his appeal ultimately failed.
Capone showed signs of neurosyphilis early in his sentence and became increasingly debilitated
before being released after almost eight years of incarceration.
On January 25, 1947, he died of cardiac arrest after a stroke.

-LOTS OF OFFICIALS BERE ‘BOUGHT’ ‘BRIBED’ BY GANGS

-SOURCE 5, SOURCE 6.--267

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HOW FAR DID THE ROLE OF WOMEN CGHANGE DURING THE 1920S?
-WOMEN-START TO PERFORM MEN’S WORK
-FLAPPERS

READ 268

-THESE CHANGES DID NOT AFFECT MAJORITY OF WOMEN

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Women’s Independence

Multiple factors—political, cultural and technological—led to

the rise of the flappers.

During World War I, women entered the workforce in large

numbers, receiving higher wages that many working women
were not inclined to give up during peacetime.

In August 1920, women’s independence took another step

forward with the passage of the 19th Amendment, giving
women the right to vote.

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And in the early 1920s, Margaret Sanger made strides in
providing contraception to women, sparking a wave of
women’s rights to birth control.

The 1920s also brought about Prohibition, the result of

the 18th Amendment ending legal alcohol sales.

Combined with an explosion of popularity for jazz music and

jazz clubs, the stage was set for speakeasies, which offered
illegally produced and distributed alcohol.

Henry Ford’s mass production of cars brought down

automobiles prices, allowing the younger generation far
more mobility than in earlier eras.

Many people, a number of them young women, drove these

cars into cities, which experienced a population boom.

With all these pieces in place, an unprecedented social

explosion for young women was all but inevitable.

What Is a Flapper?

No one knows how the word flapper entered American slang,

but its usage first appeared just following World War I.

The classic image of a flapper is that of a stylish young party

girl.

Flappers smoked in public, drank alcohol, danced at

jazz clubs and practiced sexual freedom that shocked
the Victorian morality of their parents.

Flapper Dress

Flappers were famous—or infamous, depending on your

viewpoint—for their rakish attire.

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They donned fashionable flapper dresses of shorter, calf-
revealing lengths and lower necklines, though not typically
form-fitting: Straight and slim was the preferred silhouette.

FLAPPER-MODERN WOMAN OF 11920S, BEHAVING IN

UNTYPICAL WAYS-DANCING, WORKINK, INDEPENDENT,
DRINKING ALCOHOL, SMOKING CIGARETTES…

Flappers wore high heel shoes and threw away their corsets
in favor of bras and lingerie.

They gleefully applied rouge, lipstick, mascara and other

cosmetics, and favored shorter hairstyles like the bob.

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