A. SIGNS OF PROSPERITY
1.During the 1920s, the standard of living rose, and more and more people moved to urban centers.
2. All of the following provided evidence of economic prosperity during the 1920s:
• Larger numbers of women and men working in office jobs
• Increased emphasis on the marketing of consumer goods
• Growing investment in the stock market
3. The assembly-line production of Henry Ford's Model T enabled average American families to purchase automobiles.
4. Beginning in 1920, the number of children aged ten to fifteen who were in the industrial workforce began to decline.
B. SIGNS OF TROUBLE
1. The least-prosperous group in the 1920s consisted of farmers in the Midwest and South.
2. For American farmers, the years 1921 to 1929 were a period of falling prices for agricultural products.
A. REPUBLICAN PROSPERITY
1. Republican presidents of the 1920s favored tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
2. During the presidencies of Harding and Coolidge, the federal agencies created during the Progressive Era aided business.
B. FOREIGN POLICY
1. Despite its isolationist position in the 1920s, the U.S. government actively participated in decisions regarding international finance and the payment of war reparations.
2. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was an international agreement in which 62 nations pledged to foreswear war as an instrument of policy.
3. The Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922 was called to restrain the naval arms race among the United States, Britain, Japan, Italy, and France. The signatory nations agreed to specific limitations on the number of battleships each nation could build.
4. The United States responded to the economic crisis in Germany during the 1920s by adopting the Dawes Plan. The plan rescheduled German reparation payments and opened the way for American private loans to Germany.
A. THE ARTS
1. The "Lost Generation of the 1920s"
• Key writers included Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• They were called the Lost Generation because they were disillusioned with American society during the 1920s.
• Writers criticized middle-class materialism and conformity. For example, Sinclair Lewis criticized middle- class life in novels such as Babbitt and Main Street.
TEST TIP
Recall that according to the APUSH rubric (see Chapter 1), 40 percent of the multiple-choice questions cover social change and cultural and intellectual developments. Given this requirement, the "Lost Generation" of writers is a favorite topic for APUSH test writers. The key point to remember is that writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis criticized middle-class materialism and conformity.
2. Jazz
• Black musicians such as Joseph ("Joe") King Oliver, W. C. Handy, and "Jelly Roll" Morton helped create jazz.
• Jazz was especially popular among the youth because it symbolized a desire to break with tradition.
B. MASS ENTERTAINMENT
1. Movies were the most popular form of mass entertainment.
2. Led by baseball, sports became a big business.
3. During the 1920s, technological innovations made longdistance radio broadcasting possible. National radio networks reached millions of Americans.
A. RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
1. Fundamentalism was an anti-liberal and anti-secular movement that gained strength throughout the 1920s.
2. The Scopes Trial was an important test case.
• John T. Scopes was a high school biology teacher in Tennessee who was indicted for teaching evolution.
• The Scopes Trial illustrates the cultural conflict in the 1920s between fundamentalism and modernism.
B. NATIVISM
1. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
• The 1920s witnessed a dramatic expansion of the KKK.
• D. 1 N. Griffith's full-length film The Birth of a Nation glorified the KKK.
• During the 1920s, the KKK favored White supremacy and restrictions on immigration.
• The KKK was hostile toward immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and African Americans.
TEST TIP
Although the KKK is a particularly distasteful topic, don't skip it. The resurgence of the Klan during the 1920s provides a good example of the nativist reaction to modernism. Also be sure you can identify D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation.
2. The National Origins Act of 1924
• The primary purpose of the National Origins Act was to use quotas to restrict the flow of newcomers from Southern and Eastern Europe.
• The quotas established by the National Origins Act discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. These quotas were the primary reason for the decrease in the numbers of Europeans immigrating to the United States in the 1920s.
• The number of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans migrating to the United States increased because neither group was affected by the restrictive immigration acts of 1921 and 1924.
3. The Sacco and Vanzetti Case
• The Sacco and Vanzetti case was significant because it illustrated a fear of radicals and recent immigrants.
A. AFRICAN AMERICANS
1. The Harlem Renaissance
• The Harlem Renaissance thrived during the 1920s.
• The Harlem Renaissance was an outpouring of Black artistic and literary creativity.
• Harlem Renaissance writers and artists expressed pride in their African American culture. They supported full social and political equality for African Americans.
• Key figures in the Harlem Renaissance included James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Josephine Baker.
2. The Great Migration
• The migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West continued during the 1920s.
• The demand for industrial workers was the primary pull; the primary push came from the restrictions of Jim Crow segregation.
3. Marcus Garvey
• Marcus Garvey was the charismatic leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
• Garveyism was identified with the following:
Black pride
Black economic development
Black nationalism
Pan-Africanism
• Garvey was committed to the idea that Black Americans should return to Africa.
B. WOMEN
1. Flappers
• Flappers symbolized the new freedom by challenging traditional American attitudes about women.
• Flappers favored short bobbed hair, smoked cigarettes, and even wore the new one-piece bathing suits.
2. Women and the Workforce
• Although new jobs became available in offices and stores, the percentage of single women in the labor force actually declined between 1920 and 1930.
• Women did not receive equal pay and continued to face discrimination in the professions.
• Most married women did not seek employment outside the home.
3. Margaret Sanger
• Margaret Sanger was an outspoken reformer who openly championed birth control for women.
4. Factors causing the decline of the feminist movement during the 1920s:
• Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote
• The inability of women's groups to agree on goals
• The decline of the Progressive reform movement