Essential Questions: What were the achievements and limitations of �peoples capitalism?� Why are the 1920�s sometimes described as the age of celebrity?
I. Prosperity
A. A consumer society
1. The American economy had been strengthened from WW I
a. Manufactures and bankers had exported goods and extended
loans
2. 1920s economic growth rested on consumer goods
a. Cars, telephones, washing machines, refrigerators, and radios
3. In 1920s, some Americans also discovered benefits of owning stocks
B. A people�s capitalism
1. Virtually everyone could participate in the American dream
a. In reality, millions of Americans still earned too little to partake
2. To encourage consumption, consumer credit was introduced
a. Still, many poor Americans benefited little from the consumer
revolution
C. The rise of advertising and mass marketing
1. Introduction of annual automobile changes helped increased demand
2. High level of consumption required aggressive advertising by producers
a. Advertisers played upon the emotions and vulnerabilities of their
target audiences
D. Changing attitudes toward marriage and sexuality
1. Husbands and wives were encouraged to pursue sexual satisfaction
2. Also push for them to share other leisure time activities as well
3. Public pursuit of pleasure also noticeable among young women
a. Flappers aimed to create new female personality (self-
reliance, outspokenness, and an appreciation for life�s pleasures
E. An age of celebrity
1. Pursuit of pleasure became individual and group endeavor
a. Baseball and boxing (Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey)
b. Movie going also popular pastime during 1920s (Charlie
Chaplin, Rudy Valentino)
c. After flight across Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh became perhaps
most famous and adored man in America
2. Aggressive journalists and radio commentators, promoters and others
understood how fame could make a profit
F. Industrial workers
1. Many industrial workers benefited from nation�s prosperity
a. Skilled craftsmen in older industries (construction) and large mass production industries
(automobile) fared especially well
-Relatively high wages, paid sick leave, life insurance
b. Semiskilled and unskilled industrial workers had to contend with labor surplus throughout the decade
-This hurt working class families
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Chapter 24: The 1920�s (sec 2)
Essential Questions: What were the differences and similarities in the politics of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover? Who were the traditionalists?
II. The Politics of Business
A. Harding and the business of personal gain
1. Republican Warren Harding elected president in 1920
a. Chosen by party bosses because he could be controlled
b. Appointed many qualified individuals to cabinet, but also made
some disastrous choices
c. Harding�s �Ohio Gang� grew rich selling gov�t appointments,
judicial pardons, and police protection to bootleggers
B. Coolidge and laissez-faire politics
1. Calvin Coolidge succeeded Harding as president
a. Believed that best gov�t was gov�t that governed least
b. Took pride in measures that reduced gov�t control over economy
C. Herbert Hoover and the politics of associationalism
1. Secretary of commerce conceived of gov�t as a dynamic force
2. Tried to encourage associationalism among different sectors of
economy
3. Saw public-private cooperation as alternative to coercive gov�t
regulation
a. Hoover was at odds with Coolidge�s reductionist views
III. Farmers, Small-town Protestants, and Moral Traditionalists
A. Cultural dislocation
1. Farmers during 1920s facing economic problems as well as sense of
cultural isolation
2. 1920 census proved that for first time more Americans lived in cities
3. Urban-industrial America spreading its consumer culture to countryside
4. Rural Americans showed ambivalence toward cultural invasion
a. Most eager to participate in consumer marketplace
b. Worried that doing so would expose countryside to atheism,
immorality, and radicalism
B. Prohibition
1. Initially, Prohibition supported by large and varied constituency
2. Soon became apparent that Prohibition was encouraging law-breaking
a. This caused many early advocates of Prohibition, especially in
the cities, to withdraw their support
b. Rural, white Protestants remained committed to prohibition
C. Ku Klux Klan
1. New Klan created in 1915
2. By 1920s, expanded focus from loathing of blacks to general hatred of
Jews and Catholics as well
3. Sought to restore �Anglo-Saxon� racial purity, Protestant supremacy,
and traditional morality to national life
4. Drew members from north and south, cities as well as rural areas
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Chapter 24: The Roaring 20�s (sec 3)
Essential Question: How were the experiences of ethnic and racial communities in 1920� America similar to each other, and how were they different?
IV. Ethnic and Racial Communities
A. European American Ethnics
1. Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe concentrated in cities of
Northeast and Midwest
a. Suffered economic insecurity and cultural discrimination
-Catholics and Jews were targets of the Klan
b. Endured extensive Americanization campaigns
-Schools instructed immigrant children on citizenship
c. Responded by strengthening their institutions and customs
-Catholic churches, Jewish synagogues, youth groups
d. Ethnics also worked to develop sufficient muscle to defeat
forces of nativism (i.e. government policy)
B. African Americans
1. African Americans continued to leave their homes for industrial
centers of north and south
a. Created black metropolises consisting of workers, businessmen, professionals, intellectuals,
artists, and entertainers
b. Most blacks could find work only the lowest paying jobs.
2. Pessimism about achieving equality permeated black communities
3. In terms of black culture, though, 1920s vigorous and productive
a. Jazz music emerged as a modern and American art form
C. The Harlem Renaissance
1. Paralleling emergence of jazz was black literary and artistic awakening
a. Created works rooted in own culture
b. Symbolized by �New Negro�
-Independent through talent and determination
D. Mexican Americans
1. After 1924, Mexican Americans were U.S. chief source of immigrant labor
a. Most worked as migrant laborers, following the crops
b. Mexican Americans in general experienced low wages, high rates of
infant mortality, racial discrimination, and other hardships
c. Unlike European immigrants, Mexicans showed little interest in
becoming American citizens
V. The �Lost Generation� and Disillusioned Intellectuals
A. American intellectuals deeply shaken by war�s effect on society
1. Wartime push for consensus generated intolerance
2. Intellectuals also bothered by Prohibition, rebirth of Ku Klux Klan,
and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
3. Writers converted their disillusionment into rich literary sensibility
B. Democracy on the defensive
1. Disdain for masses led many intellectuals to question democracy itself
2. If ordinary people were as stupid, prejudiced, and easily manipulated, how
could they be entrusted with fate of nation?
3. Critics of society enjoyed especially strong influence and prestige among
university students