Revolutionary Movements in the United States

Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been a number of great revolutionary movements going on in the United States, contributing to a huge spectrum of changes, ranged from American people’s everyday lives, to a more comprehensive view about the world and themselves, even to the national economic system. Those movements had reached a climax in the 1920’s, known as the “The Roaring Twenties”. Accompanied with the changes were conflicts and tensions rising rapidly between the adaptation to new attitudes and the preservation of traditional values. The emergence of the “New Morality”, the development of Science and Technology, and the changes in economy were the three most significant winds of changes leading to the enormous tension in the 1920’s, manifesting in their own distinct ways.
The New Morality in the 1920’s was represented by a shift in cultural values. On one hand the minorities and social vulnerable groups gained more equality and social recognition, and on the other hand people holding the traditional values fearing of this sudden change formed their own groups to resist it, among which the most notable one was the Ku Klux Klan. When the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920, American women finally gained their suffrages, the legal rights to vote. With this achievement accomplished, in the following decade, American women moved forward and gained even greater roles in society. The feminist ideal known as the New Woman was popular in the 1920’s. Symbolized by an image of women dressed practically, living independently and freely, it manifested sexual liberation and the coeducational system. Flappers, young women with free thinking, casual manners, new fashions a...

... middle of paper ...

...riculture to industry, worldwide overproduction of crops after the war made this condition even worse. As there were excessive supply and little demand, the agricultural price levels dropped significantly and the farmers were facing the problem of low income. Together with the faulty credit system, the economy couldn’t maintain the sham-growing trend for a long time. The market system eventually collapsed in the end of 1929, leading to the Great Depression in the 1930’s.
In the 1920’s, all these tremendous social, cultural and economic changes caused great tensions between the traditionalists and modernists, and “The Roaring Twenties” manifested all these radical changes and conflicts in a variety of ways correspondingly. Some of these were just limited characteristics of the times, while others would last for a relatively long period of time in the American society.