The Role Of Urban Life In The 1920s

The 1920’s were a time of economic progress for most Americans.  During this era, many companies grew larger, wages, for the most part. were increased, companies grew larger, and people had money to spend on new things. The prosperity of the 1920’s brought about a large and growing middle class, however the rural American did not feel the benefits of the booming prosperity. This feeling of inequality and isolation led to frustration and conflict during this time period.
New York in the 1920s had grown rapidly to nearly 6 million residents. The city was the center of manufacturing, commerce, and culture. Life was exciting, people had money, dance music was blaring from from clubs and strange things were happening all over the city.

“The craze for historical pageantry swelled rapidly in rural New York during the early 1920s. While what was then called “the new pageantry” had been gaining in popularity over the previous decade throughout America, its orientation had been toward the city and town. Now, the phenomenon brought excitement to rural areas, inspiring amateur thespians, would-be playwrights, and snappy song writers from the farm. New York took the lead over other regions in presenting small plays and pageants that were aimed at farm people and centered on agricultural and rural issues.” (1) Modern inventions were popping up all over, and New York was a large contributor to the nation’s manufacturing. Immigrants entering through the port and migrants arriving by road and rail also added to the population and the city’s thriving economy. Fueled by easy money, the 1920’s were times like never seen before. With the post-war recession all but forgotten, everyone went on a spending spree. Credit enabled consumers to boost corporate profits to new levels, and less emphasis placed on the importance of savings. Just in New York alone, the population had leaped up over 1 million since the beginning of the century. The growth in urban America was thriving. “The 1920 census showed that a majority of Americans live in “urban” areas of 2,500 or more inhabitants; for the first time the United States had become an urban nation. The population shift from rural areas to towns and cities received considerable attention and appeared to mark a watershed in nation’s development.” (2)
While urban America was growing dramatically, tremendous resentment existed in rural America against this growing urban mindset that was increasingly infiltrating America.

Many of America’s rural citizens felt that the values associated with urban life needed to be fought against. From this mindset came many of the cultural battles that were the center of American life during the 1920’s. Rural America continued to represent the traditional spirit and values of hard work, religion, independence and self-reliance. The shift in urban values represented a threat to those traditional values. This fear led to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which grew dramatically in the 1920’s. Many of the Klan’s members were people from rural America who saw their status declining. “The KKK enjoyed a tremendous resurgence during the early 1920s as an organization of “respectable” Americans that embraced violence as a necessary and proper tool for defending traditional values against immoral urban elites, immigrants, and the working class. The Klan thrived in predominantly homogenous regions comprised of small towns populated by native-born, white Protestants, and its members were most often middle-class professionals, small businessmen, and skilled workers who felt threatened by the rise of large-scale corporate capitalism. Kansas neatly fit this demographic profile, and White was blind to the fact that his own rhetoric of native-born, white Protestant cultural superiority

paralleled that of the Klan. White was confident that Kansans would reject the KKK, and he attacked the group as un-American, antidemocratic, and un-neighborly after its organizers arrived in Emporia in 1921.” (3)
Despite the tremendous urban growth, nearly half of America’s population still resided in rural America and were still dependent upon agriculture production to survive. Although urban life was prosperous during this era, the 1920’s proved to be unkind to America’s farming citizens. Farming prices fell at a catastrophic rate during the early 1920’s. During World War I, the disruption of agricultural production in European countries created enormous demand in America. When the war ended and European production resumed causing a huge supply and less demand for agricultural products thus causing the prices to fall tremendously. This led to farm foreclosures and rural bank failures at an alarming rate. This created economic resentments due to the growing divide between urban and rural areas. This resentment, in part, fuels a powerful traditionalist backlash against the growing modern community, most troublesome of all was the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan. “This is where we must find the cure for our social and political distemper. We lack the spiritual and moral force to support the weight of our material civilization. We have created a Frankenstein which threatens to destroy us. Science has given us overmastering authority in the realm of nature; and man is proudly conscious of his power over material forces and is bound to use that power for material ends. But we can revive and strengthen the spiritual authority of human nature so that it will again become master over the things of the flesh. Unless this is done, civilization is doomed. Education in the hands of bad men is worse than ignorance. Economic prosperity unless controlled by moral sense is simply an enlarged instrument of evil.” (4) This growth and boom was inadvertently causing a feeling of isolation and resentment by farmers and rural Americans. They had gone from being the staple of American living to the prospect of bankruptcy.
The McNary-Haugen Farm Relief Act was introduced to help with the increasing burden on farmers.

The Act suggested subsidizing American agriculture by raising the domestic prices of farm products. Essentially the government would by the product and then export it at a loss. Despite efforts, this Act was never passed as law. A considerable numbers of bills were introduced to Congress relating to agriculture during the 1924 session of Congress. “The Norbeck-Burtness Bill to authorize a $50,000,000 appropriation by Congress to be used as a revolving fund for making loans to certain farmers in the what areas with which to purchase live stock to promote a permanent system of self-supporting agriculture. This bill was defeated in the Senate on March 13 by a vote of 32 to 41.” (5) Although these were not passed, there were some relief efforts passed in part by the president and the House appropriating funds for agriculture. Despite their meager attempts, it was not enough to support the agricultural industry and nearly 600,000 farmers went bankrupt during the

1920’s.
The 1920’s were an age of social and political change for all of America. The total wealth of the nation more than doubled, people were spending money and many Americans were swept into this new affluent society. However, the 1920’s brought about more conflict than celebration. Despite the growth of urban America, the rural Americans and farmer were struggling more than ever. A struggle that, by the end of the 1920’s, would lead America into one of the worst economic downturns in American history, the Great Depression.