American Life in the Roaring Twenties- Big Picture Themes

1. Cite examples of actions taken in reaction to the perceived threat of radicals and communists during the red scare.
The passing of criminal syndicalism laws, which made unlawful the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change, as well as in the trial of Nicola Sacco, a shoe-factory worker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, both convicted of murder.

2. Compare and contrast the new and old Ku Klux Klansmen.
The new KKK more closely resembled the anti-foreign “nativist” movements of the 1850s than the anti-black nightriders of the 1860s, being not only anti-foreign and anti-black, but also anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, anti-evolutionist, anti-bootlegger, anti-gambling, anti-adultery, and anti–birth control.

3. Describe immigration laws passed in the 1920's.
The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 restricted European immigrants in any given year to a definite quota, which was set at 3 percent of the people of their nationality who had been living in the United States in 1910. The Immigration Act of 1924 cut quotas for foreigners from 3 percent to 2 percent, with the base shifted from the census of 1910 to that of 1890, when comparatively few southern Europeans had arrived. The Immigration Act of 1924 closed the door on Japanese immigrants.

4. How and why was the 18th amendment broken so frequently?
Profound disillusionment over the aftermath of the war raised serious questions as to the wisdom of further self-denial. Slaking thirst became a cherished personal liberty, and many ardent wets believed that the way to bring about repeal was to violate the law on a large enough scale. State and federal agencies were understaffed, and their snoopers, susceptible to bribery, were underpaid.

5. What was Gangsterism?

Gangsterism, spawned by prohibition, was the organized crime of bootlegging alcohol and bribing public officials to keep quiet; this also incorporated prostitution and gambling.

6. Describe the clash of cultures that took place during the 1920s.
John Dewey set forth the principles of “learning by doing” that formed the foundation of so-called progressive education. However, fundamentalists in the twenties charged that the teaching of Darwinian evolution was destroying faith in God and the Bible, while contributing to the moral breakdown of youth in the jazz age.

7. Give evidence to prove that America became a mass consumption economy in the 20's.
The perfection of the assembly line produced a finished automobile every 10 seconds, shifting focus from production to consumption. Advertising took off, using persuasion and ploy, seduction and sexual suggestion, to make Americans discontent with their possessions. Babe Ruth was far better known than most statesmen. The innovation of buying on credit went ever deeper into debt to own all kinds of newfangled marvels—refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and especially cars and radios—now.

8. What methods made it possible to mass-produce automobiles?
The stopwatch efficiency techniques of Frederick W. Taylor, a prominent inventor, engineer, and tennis player, who sought to eliminate wasted motion, highly standardized parts, and the techniques of assembly-line production—“Fordism"- made it possible to mass-produce automobiles.

9. What were the effects of the widespread adaptation of the automobile?
 The automobile industry employed directly or indirectly about 6 million people by 1930, America's standard of living increased greatly, hundreds of oil derricks shot up in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, as these states expanded into an industrial frontier, speedy marketing advanced, roads were built, women were further freed from clinging-vine dependence on men, isolation among the sections was broken down, the celebrated crime waves of the 1920s and 1930s were aided and abetted by the motorcar, for gangsters could now make quick getaways, and it worried older members of the community, being called by one judge "a house of prostitution on wheels".

10. What effects did the early airplane have on America?
 The airplane provided the restless American spirit with yet another dimension, gave birth to a giant new industry, and would later be used as a war machine.

11. How did America change as a result of the radio?
Sports were further stimulated, politicians had to adjust their speaking techniques to the new medium, citizens could be participants in world events, and the music of famous artists and symphony orchestras was spread farther than ever before.

12. What were some milestones in the history of motion pictures?
"The Birth of a Nation" was released in 1915 as the first full length motion picture. In 1903, the first story sequence reached the screen in the breathless melodrama, "The Great Train Robbery".

13. "Far-reaching changes in lifestyles and values paralleled the dramatic upsurge in the economy." Explain.
Most Americans lived in urban areas, women continued to find opportunities for employment in the cities, an organized birth-control movement championed the use of contraceptives, and Alice Paul’s National Woman’s party began in 1923 to campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, the “flapper” symbolized a yearned for and devil-may-care independence (some said wild abandon) in some American women, and a new racial pride also blossomed in the northern black communities that burgeoned during and after the war.
 14. How did the arts of the 1920's reflect the times?
The war had jolted many young writers out of their complacency about traditional values and literary standards, seen in Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise", used as a sort of Bible for the young, wild youth. "The Great Gatsby", 1925, was a brilliant evocation of the glamour and cruelty of an achievement-oriented society. Hemingway responded to pernicious propaganda and the overblown appeal to patriotism by devising his own lean, word-sparing but wordperfect style. Faulkner peeled back layers of time and consciousness from the constricted souls of his ingrown southern characters. Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, and Robert Frost pioneered poetry. After the war a black cultural renaissance also took root uptown in Harlem, led by such gifted writers as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, and by jazz artists like Louis Armstrong and Eubie Blake. Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright dismantled modern architecture from the slavishly imitated Greco-Roman Classical styles to dynamic, interactive works of art.

15. Was government economic policy successful in the 1920s?
The creation of the Bureau of Budget, designed in part to prevent haphazardly extravagant appropriations, was vaguely successful. However, the eliminating of excess-profits tax, abolishing the gift tax, and The Stock Market 751reducing excise taxes, the surtax, the income tax, and estate taxes demonized the middle class and further established the gab between the lavishly rich and despondently poor.