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Changes in America in the 1920s
Social and cultural changes in the 1920s
Social and cultural changes in the 1920s
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Moral Code Revolution Around the times of the 1920’s people started to oppose the moral beliefs of others. The article “Only Yesterday,” discusses this 1920’s revolution and the effects it had on society. “The war had not long been over when cries of alarm from parents, teachers, and moral preceptors began to rend the air” (Only Yesterday, 1). The young females of this time were believed to act and dress a certain way. When they began to rebel against these standards, the revolution began. This revolution had offset the older citizens moral beliefs such as, the dresses the girls began to wear were very alarming for the more wise and elder individuals. The young females were believed to act a certain way and dress a certain way,
Moral regulation has been – and still is – a very heated topic for discussion. In chapters two and three of his book, Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation, author Alan Hunt speaks of various social organizations and their different attempts at moral regulation projects from the late 18th to early 20th century. Although the two chapters flow into each other, and time turns from one century to the next, various and complex societal changes, and in turn, approaches to moral regulation are noted. Said changes to society and regulatory approaches include evolving civil associations, the incorporation of character and females into the social sphere, and shifts away from the church. As society changes, so does the approach to, and implication of, moral regulation projects.
“Deborah Sampson, the daughter of a poor Massachusetts farmer, disguised herself as a man and in 1782, at age twenty-one, enlisted in the Continental army. Ultimately, her commanding officer discovered her secret but kept it to himself, and she was honorably discharged at the end of the war.” She was one of the few women who fought in the Revolution. This example pictured the figure of women fighting alongside men. This encouraged the expansion of wife’s opportunities. Deborah, after the Revolution along with other known female figures, reinforced the ideology of Republican Motherhood which saw the marriage as a “voluntary union held together by affection and mutual dependency rather than male authority.” (Foner, p. 190). This ideal of “companionate” marriage changed the structure of the whole family itself, the now called Modern Family in which workers, laborers and domestic servants are now not considered member of the family anymore. However even if women thought that after the war they would have been seen from the society in a different way it never happened. The revolution haven’t changed the perception of the woman and the emancipated ideal
When the war was over, the survivors went home and the world tried to return to normalcy. Unfortunately, settling down in peacetime proved more difficult than expected. During the war, the boys had fought against both the enemy and death in far away lands; the girls had bought into the patriotic fervor and aggressively entered the workforce. During the war, both the boys and the girls of this generation had broken out of society's structure; they found it very difficult to return.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood. The roles that men and women were expected to live up to would be called oppressive and offensive by today’s standards, but it was a very different world than the one we have become accustomed to in our time. Men and women were seen to live in separate social class from the men where women were considered not only physically weaker, but morally superior to men. This meant that women were the best suited for the domestic role of keeping the house. Women were not allowed in the public circle and forbidden to be involved with politics and economic affairs as the men made all the
Often historical events leading up to the twentieth century are dominated by men and the role of women is seemingly non-existent outside of reproduction. When one thinks of notable and memorable names and events of the Revolution, men are the first to be mentioned. The American Revolution was mainly dominated by men including George Washington, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. There is no denying that men were vitally important to the American Revolution, but what were the women doing? Often overlooked, the women of the Revolution played a key role in the outcome of the nation. The women of the American Revolution, although not always recognized, were an influential society that assumed risky jobs like soldiers, as well as involvement
While educational and health standard rose sharply, due to the revolution, dress codes, marriage, divorce, child custody, and the right to work were rigidly enforced. The chador became apart of the uniform for women for participation in public life. This shows what the government did to keep women's voices silenced. There was no change or emancipation of women; they were told by Majlis that women should tend to housework, home economics and child rearing.
Moral philosophy in America began with the Puritans. This religious group was hesitant to accept the idea of morally autonomous ethics into their teachings: they went so far as to call “Ethicks” a “Vile Peece of Paganism.” Jonathan Edwards, a key thinker of the colonial era and devout Puritan, described all personal aspects of self-morality in ways which were congruent to Puritanism. Edwards and other religious moralists rejected Thomas Hobbes; they believed that all humans had a type of moral compass that allowed them to make decisions based off of their beliefs. These dogmas were the basis for American moral philosophy.
The years of 1865 to 1920 showed no growth, intellectual, political, or personal growth in US society. Individuals sought after themselves, with no thought for the next man. They brutalized “fringe” elements of society, and chastised anyone who did not
The nineteenth century brought with it tremendous economic prosperity, prompting vast urban expansion, widespread acceptance of capitalist ideals, and redefinitions of family and sex. The industrial economic boom brought waves of immigrants with new and strange customs, disease and moral disparity. The rapidly growing middle-class fought to enhance its own respectability and distinguish itself from the filth and disease of the lower-class, as well as from the decadence of the upper-class. Middle-class citizens set themselves apart morally, and reinforced their hope for the next generation by imposing strict behavioral limits privately and publicly. Moral reform and social purity movements of this century were extensions of these efforts, and attempted to regulate what was perceived as the source of social degeneration: prostitution, venereal disease and the sexual double standard. The relationship between early nineteenth century socio-sexual moral reform, medical sexual reform and late century social purity movements can be superficially viewed as antagonistic. However, each of them responded to the phenomenon of urbanization and modernization, and the agendas of moral reform and social purity were conclusively in opposition to pestilential classic moralism which assumed that the sexual double standard was an embodiment of natural law based on immutable differences between the sexes. Thus, social purity activists and moral reformists were fighting against common enemies, and that which privileged the white, middle-class heterosexual male in both social and sexual practice.
One of the things that the women went through was alienation by other women, who were deemed as “true” women or respectable women. The alienation was not because of money or race, not even religion, but because the women of the factory wore slacks. A working class woman was seen as less of a woman because a woman during those times was expected to stay at home and play house because of society’s view on gender roles. Plus, the women who worked at factories wore slacks, which was a big taboo during those times also. Women who wore skirts
The founders of America believed that a popular government and its laws necessarily rested upon an underlying moral order that preceded both the state and man-made law. They referred to this transcendent moral order in the Declaration of Independence as "self evident truths" and "the laws of nature and of nature's god" (Barr pg. 211). For a republic to work, the founders thought, the people had to internally guided by commonly shared moral values. The founders viewed themselves as launching a great experiment: Could a free people retain a moral culture that would promote the self-discipline and virtues needed to restrain corruption? "We are still, in many ways, 'the shining city on the hill' for the rest of the world. What has sustained us over these two centuries has been our commitment to our great moral heritage" (Barr pg. 212). Today though, this "great experiment" appears threatened. According to a recent poll, 73 percent of Americans worry that the nation is experiencing a moral decline (Baker). They have the right to be concerned. For the last thirty years, a moral crisis has been brewing. It is undeniable that since the 60's, there has been a steady assault on traditional values. "Crime, broken homes, racial hatred, and problems related to sexual activity are on the rise" (Schuller). America's morals and culture are declining.
The Roaring Twenties were known as a time of economic boom, pop culture and social developments. This was a time when women began to break norms, they acted rebelliously such as wearing releveling clothing, smoking, and drinking. These women were known as “flappers” who wanted to change their roles in the 1920’s. Birth control activist, Margaret Sanger sought to change the world where women had access to a low cost, effective contraception pill. In “The Morality of Birth Control” Sanger battled opponents who claimed that contraception would cause women to become immoral. The author uses rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and fallacies to back up her claim while touching on issues in the church, advancements of women, and the source of disease in the world.
The ethos of 1920s America was characterized by the so-called “American Dream” - individuals that worked hard would bear the fruits of their hard work, regardless of one’s social status. This was a period sparked by mass production of products and technologies, hence making these coveted goods cheap to purchase. Consequently, this resulted in the emergence of a materialist society. The prolonged economic prosperity during the 1920s amalgamated with the advent of hedonism successfully laid out the foundations of a society crippled with a moral deficit; the prominence of illicit activities such as bootlegging as well as the excessive debauchery that was a result of the extreme wealth present during this time illustrates the sustained moral deficit
Public declarations by dress reforms that women should ‘throw off all customs that tend[ed] to cramp them in any direction, and ... to retain only such [garments] as liberate[d] and enlarge[d] their powers’ alarmed mainstream critics of reform dress (Summers, 2003).
The decline in morality all began in the 1960's with a severe cultural revolution which "exalted existential...