It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of production, it was the age of destruction, it was the epoch of nativism, it was the epoch of racism, it was the season of skepticism, it was the season of anti-communism, it was the spring of gain, it was the winter of loss – in short, it was the 1920's. Indeed, the decade of the 1920s was a truly “roaring” and prosperous time, but at the same time, it was a period of chaos and conflict. The events that happened during this decade influenced the world as we know it today. More importantly, the thought that the 1920’s was an era of major change in the United States, both positive and negative, is indeed fascinating and it deserves thorough examination. The 1920’s is regarded …show more content…
as an age of dramatic change. The economic growth doubled the nation’s total wealth and generated a consumer society. However, the 1920’s didn’t start as prosperous as it was thought. Instead, it began with a serious economic recession caused by the decrease in the productivity, employment, and consumption that followed WWI. Fortunately, this changed when the government implemented pro-business policies that reduced taxes on corporations and raised tariffs on imported goods. By 1922, the economy started to grow robustly, and as wages increased, Americans were able afford mass production goods, such as refrigerators, radios, washing machines, etc. Nevertheless, the most important consumer product was the automobile. Henry Ford’s assembly line transformed his company in the world’s foremost automobile manufacturer of the decade. The assembly line reduced the time and cost of automobiles, and employees had to perform only simple tasks that minimized effort and time. Consequently, the price of Ford’s Model T dropped from $950 to $290, and became the most popular automobile of the decade. By 1925, half of the cars in America were Model T. The rapid pace of technological and economic growth provoked a considerable backlash among some Americans. Although, there were better living standards for most Americans, investors benefited the most. The stock market started its ascent, and since very few people owned stocks, it benefitted only the wealthy, making the rich richer. As a result, the share of America’s wealth controlled by the richest of the rich increased dramatically. However, the vast concentration of wealth among the powerful few at the expense of laborers and their unions resonated with many Americans, and resentment against the rich started to grow. In consequence, a string of terrorist attacks by anarchists, such as anarchists’ bombings and assassination attempts of multi-millionaires, broke out. Specifically, the infamous anarchist attack to Wall Street that caused more than 2 million in damage and killed 39 people. Although some freedoms were expanded during the decade of the 1920’s, others were curtailed. In the 1920’s the 18th Amendment was ratified and banned the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. One year after, the Congress enacted the Volstead Act defining intoxicating beverages as anything with more than 0.5 percent alcohol making it illegal to sell any intoxicating beverages,. The purpose of Prohibition was to reduce crime and poverty, and improve the quality of life by making it impossible for people to get alcohol. However, it was a great failure because people drank more than ever and there were more deaths related to alcohol. An underground trade of liquor also took place in speakeasies controlled by bootleggers and other organized-crime figures. Speakeasies replaced neighborhood saloons, and by 1925 there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. Prohibition was not the only source of social tension during the 1920s.
The end of the war was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism that influenced attitudes and behavior of Americans. A mass paranoia and repression, along with the fear of communism, and labor unrest produced the Red Scare. In consequence, A. Mitchell Palmer, President Wilson's attorney, led raids on leftist organizations, such as the Communist Party, and created the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which collected the names of thousands of suspected communists. From then on, cases of repression against communists began to emerge all around the nation. Palmer’s raids reached its highest point when government agents made raids in 33 cities. As a result, more than 4,000 alleged communists were arrested and jailed without bond, and 556 aliens were deported. Under those circumstances, these police actions decimated America's radical groups and made the decade safe for free-market …show more content…
capitalism. Likewise the anti-Communist Red Scare, immigration patterns encouraged a nativist and anti-immigrant hysteria. The development of large communities of immigrants generated a considerable backlash among native-born Americans. Although the vast majority of the population was native-born citizens, the concentration of immigrants created the feeling of foreign takeover. Americans feared that they were losing their cities, and more importantly, that wages would decline if unskilled immigrant workers flooded the labor market. Immigrants generated a renewed nativism in hostile reaction to their arrival because they, many speaking little or no English, settled together with their compatriots and established ethnic facilities. This nativist sentiment resulted on aggressive Americanization campaigns that tried to convert immigrants into good Americans through work, education, and social reform. However, most nativists opted for blocking immigration altogether leading to the passage of restrictive immigration laws, such as the National Origins Act, which set immigration quotas excluding people from Eastern Europe and Asians, and favoring those from Northern Europe. The great hostility that started to emerge during the 1920’s was a result from the dramatic shifts in the racial and cultural composition of the cities. At the same time, trials in which the nation’s intense hostility toward immigrants played a significant role sparked the public interest. Specifically, the infamous case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian workmen who were accused of robbery and murder of a payroll guard, caused great shock. The trial sparked a nationwide debate about patriotism, civil rights, and anti-immigrant hysteria. Neither of the two men had criminal record, but since they were members of anarchist organizations, they couldn’t avoid prejudiced assumptions. Despite the ambiguous evidence, defense ineptitude, and evident prejudice, the two men were sentenced to dead. This decision divided the nation and caused uproar in Europe due to the fact that these men were sentenced guilty to their immigrant status, poverty, and unpopular political beliefs. Some of the most vicious racial violence in American history took place during the 1920’s.
Black workers who had been confined to the South began to move to cities in the north to escape segregation, sharecropping, and racial violence. Access to jobs, housing, and public facilities became a major source of friction between blacks and whites. African Americans settled in all-black neighborhoods, and the largest was Harlem. Although it was a violent decade for African Americans, a powerful sense of racial pride gave birth to the Harlem Renaissance, the first self-conscious literary and artistic movement in African American history. However, the great migration of African Americans and the increasing visibility of black culture discomfited some white Americans. In consequence, a new version of the Ku Klux Klan emerged mainly due to post-war depression in agriculture, migration, religious intolerance, and nativism. Klan members considered themselves defenders of Prohibition, traditional morality, and true Americanism, and they were not only anti-black, but also anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-immigrant, anti-alcohol, and anti-science. By 1924, the Klan reached its peak in members and influence controlling 24 state legislatures. However, in 1925, after David C. Stephenson, one of the leaders, was accused of a serious crime, followed by the prosecution of many Klan-supported politicians on corruption charges, the majority of its members left the organization.
Nonetheless, the popularity that the KKK gained in the 1920's revealed the traditionalist resistance to the dizzying social and cultural changes of the Roaring Twenties.
The 1920s was a decade of rapid expansion, wealth, envy, and greed. This is a time during which life felt as if it was moving in fast forward. Its basis was money and the extravagances that money could buy. America went under a radical change and social reform. America is becoming more industrialized, more Americans lived in cities than in the countryside. The development of technologies like radios, mo...
The twenties were a time of economic boom, but this boom would end in a crash. It was a good time to be an American, but it only lasted so long. The stock market crash was a blow to the American economy that would not easily be healed.
The American anticommunist attitude began in 1919, with the Red Scare. In 1917, Russia experienced the culmination of multiple social revolutions as the Bolsheviks seized control of the government. Discarding the old Russia, the Bolsheviks ushered in an era of communism under Marxist philosophy. The world responded with suspicion and a healthy dose of hostility. Little over a year later, the United States experienced a crisis as mail-bombs detonated in eight separate cities. Even though they were less than 70,000 professed communists in the Untied States, they attracted the full weight of public ire. Mitchell Palmer, the leader of this anticommunist crusade, believed that communism was eating its way into the homes of the American workman stating: “tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the alters of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society,” (The Palmer Raids). The Palmer Raids peaked in December 1919, when Palmer arrested 249 resident communist aliens and deported them to the Soviet Union. Essentially, the Red Scare nurtured American fear of communism and created initial hostility between Communist Russia and the United States.
As a nation coming out of a devastating war, America faced many changes in the 1920s. It was a decade of growth and improvements. It was also a decade of great economic and political confidence. However, with all the changes comes opposition. Social and cultural fears still caused dichotomous rifts in American society.
After World War One and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, fear of communism was escalating in America. Everybody seemed to fear the so-called “Red Menace”, a term introduced by Edgar J. Hoover. Partnering with Hoover was a man named A. Mitchell Palmer, head of the Justice Department. Palmer became a leader in the fight against communism. He most likely was prompted by being a target of one of the infamous 1919 bombings (Dumenil 220). Palmer wanted to be known as the embodiment of Americanism, fighting all that threatened our society. He also had future hopes of running for the Presidency. With anti-communistic attitudes building throughout the country, Palmer rounded up 500 federal agents on the night of January 2nd, 1920 to sweep through various towns in America capturing “reds”. These were called the Palmer Raids. Thousands of immigrants were arrested and held without due process. They were given no rights when arrested and their homes were raided without warrants. Eventually 240 immigrants were deported to Russia as a result of these raids.
The Ku Klux Klan was the most prominent organization and was established in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee. The original intent, a social club for former confederate soldiers, soon altered and changed to a terrorist organization. After the Klan was transformed into a terrorist organization, they were responsible for thousands of deaths and remarkably weakened the political power in the south of blacks and republicans. WGBH 1) Although many Americans associate Klan activity with the South, particularly Georgia and Alabama, the largest, most powerful states of the organizations were those of the Midwest, and especially Indiana in the early 1920’s where the Klan gained its greatest influence and highest level of membership for any state (Moore 2 ).
The 1920s were known as carefree and relaxed. The decade after the war was one of improvement for many Americans. Industries were still standing in America; they were actually richer and more powerful than before World War I. So what was so different in the 1930’s? The Great Depression replaced those carefree years into ones of turmoil and despair.
Governmental structures, local and federal, set up various un- American activites committees. These committees were set up solely to find and prosecute communists, or suspected communists. They drew the attention of the American public in every city that they were, furthering the panic of the "red scare."
The 1920s was a time of conservatism and it was a time of great social change. From the world of fashion to the world of politics, forces clashed to produce the most explosive decade of the century. It was the age of prohibition, it was the age of prosperity, and it was the age of downfall.
Wukovits, John F., ed. America's Decades: The 1920's. San Diego: Greehaven Press Inc., 2000. Print.
Out of some of the most turbulent times in history have come the greatest ages of success and prosperity. The 1920’s and 1950’s are two eras that exemplify the spirit of triumph and wealth. In both decades, a nation thrilled by the victorious conclusion of war and the return of their loved ones from war entered into an age of capitalism and materialism, bolstering the economy and with it national pride. Some of features most common to the 20’s and 50’s were consumerism and the accompanying optimistic mindset, the extent to which new ideas entered society, and discrimination in terms of both sexism and racism.
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon once said, “Communism is never sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” From 1919 – 1921, a hysteria over the perceived threat of communism spread like wildfire across the nation. Known as the First Red Scare, the widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism quickly invaded the infrastructure of the U.S. government and radically influenced the American people. American citizens, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and found crimes that evidence showed otherwise only because they supported anarchism. The US government arrested and deported radicals only because of their political standing.
The 1920's was a time of change in the United States. “The Roaring Twenties” had an outstanding impact on the economy, social standards and everyday life. It was a time for positive results in the consumer goods industry and American families, because of higher wages, shorter working hours, and manufacturing was up 60% in consumer goods. But it was also a time of adversity and opposition for others, such as immigrants and farmers. Immigrants had lots of competition when they were looking for work and they weren't treated fairly by Americans, depending on where they came from and what they believed.
...ced back to the changes in society, economy, and politics during the two decades of 1900 and 1920.
Danzer, Gerald A. "Chapter 21 The Roaring Life of the 1920s." The Americans. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. 640-45. Print.