Test Review:
The Roaring Twenties
Events
1915 Birth of a Nation
- First Hollywood blockbuster film
- Set box-office sales record that lasted 22 years
- Film glorified the Ku Klux Klan, leading to KKK revival in 1920s
1919 Red Scare
- Post-World War I crackdown against radicals
- Fueled by fear of Communist revolution
- Increased powers of Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Crushed American radical and labor groups
1919 18th Amendment
- Enacted Prohibition
- Banned sale or manufacture of alcohol in United States
- Repealed in 1933
1920 19th Amendment
- Achieved woman's suffrage
- Granted women the right to vote
1920 Presidential Election
- Republican Warren G. Harding elected president
- Democrat James Cox crushed
- Harding promised "return to normalcy"
1923 Death of President Harding
- Harding died of heart attack in San Francisco, 1923
- Death ended scandal-plagued administration
- Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president
1924 Presidential Election
- Popular Republican President Coolidge elected to his own full term
- Democrat John W. Davis crushed
1924 National Origins Act
- Restricted immigration
- Expanded upon earlier immigration restrictions passed in 1921
- Created immigration quotas based on nation of origin
- Discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe
1925 Scopes Monkey Trial
- Tested Tennessee law banning teaching of evolution
- Celebrity attorneys (Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan) represented both sides
- Teacher John Scopes convicted
- Trial was a publicity stunt
1928 Presidential Election
- Republican Herbert Hoover elected president
- Hoover promised "triumph over poverty"
- Hoover won more electoral votes than any previous presidential candidate
- Democrat Al Smith became the first Catholic to run for president, but was crushed in election
1929 Stock Market Crash
- Financial panic struck Wall Street, causing collapse in prices of stocks
- Stock market lost nearly 90% of its value between 1929 and 1932
- Signaled onset of Great Depression
Places
Dayton, Tennessee
- Small rural town hosted famous "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925, testing the legality of the teaching of evolution in public schools
- Entire trial deliberately organized as a publicity stunt to gain attention for the economically struggling town
Harlem, New York
- African American neighborhood at northern end of Manhattan in New York City
- Site of vibrant black cultural movement known as "Harlem Renaissance" during 1920s
- Home of Marcus Garvey's black nationalist movement
People
Warren G. Harding
- Conservative Republican president, elected 1920
- Likable personality but plagued by corruption scandals
- Died in office, 1923
Calvin Coolidge
- Conservative Republican president
- Elected vice president, 1920
- Became president at Harding's death, 1923
- "The business of America is business"
- Reelected, 1924
- Popular; oversaw "Coolidge prosperity"
Herbert Hoover
- Progressive Republican president
- Self-made millionaire in mining industry
- Successful Secretary of Commerce, 1921-28
- "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land," 1928
- Elected president in landslide, 1928
- Presidency ruined by Great Depression, 1929
Al Smith
- Four-term Governor of New York
- Wanted to end Prohibition
- Democratic Party candidate for president, 1928
- First Roman Catholic nominee for president
- Crushed by Hoover in 1928 election
Eugene Debs
- Labor leader and head of Socialist Party
- Arrested under Espionage Act for criticizing President Wilson's conduct of World War I, 1918
- Ran for president from federal prison in 1920
- Won nearly 1 million votes in 1920 election
Margaret Sanger
- Leading birth-control advocate
- Founded American Birth Control League (now known as Planned Parenthood)
Andrew Mellon
- Wealthy Wall Street investor
- Secretary of the Treasury under Harding and Coolidge
- Pro-business policies led to economic boom of Roaring Twenties, but also to bust of 1929 Great Crash
Henry Ford
- Famous automaker
- Developer of Model T, first popular car
- Pioneered assembly-line process of mass production in industry
- Wanted Americanization of foreign-born workers; had anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs
Charles Lindbergh
- Famous pilot
- First person to fly an airplane solo across the Atlantic
- Became one of America's first hugely popular celebrities
Marcus Garvey
- Black nationalist leader
- Advocated black pride and resettlement of American blacks back to Africa
- "Africa for Africans, at home and abroad"
- Founded Black Star Line steamship company
- Convicted of mail fraud under dubious circumstances and deported to Jamaica
Al Capone
- Infamous Chicago gangster
- Made millions selling illegal liquor during Prohibition
- Convicted of income tax evasion and jailed at Alcatraz, 1931
D.W. Griffith
- Hollywood filmmaker
- Directed Birth of a Nation, the first real box-office blockbuster, 1915
- Birth of a Nation glorified the Ku Klux Klan
Groups
Ku Klux Klan
- Reached height of popularity in 1920s
- Revival followed positive portrayal of Klan in 1915 film Birth of a Nation
- Anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-sex, anti-alcohol
- Controlled several state governments in 1920s
"New Immigrants"
- Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe
- 25 million immigrants entered United States, 1880-1920
- Different national and ethnic background of "new immigrants" alarmed many native-born citizens
- "New immigration" cut off by restrictive 1924 National Origins Act
Harlem Renaissance
- Literary and cultural movement of African Americans concentrated in New York's Harlem neighborhood
- Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay important figures in Harlem Renaissance
Lost Generation
- American writers living in Europe (especially Paris) after World War I
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein important figures in Lost Generation
American Birth Control League
- Founded by Margaret Sanger to advocate for legalization of birth control
- Now known as Planned Parenthood
Concepts
Americanization
- Process by which immigrants were made into Americans
- Pushed heavily by Henry Ford and others who wanted to strip immigrants of ethnic identity
"New" Immigrants
- Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Russians, Poles, Jews, Italians
- Arrived in large numbers between 1880 and 1920
- Initially considered by many Americans to be inferior to "old" immigrants from Nothern and Western Europe
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