Essential Question: How Did the 1920S Change America?

The Roaring Twenties

US History Unit #7

Introduction: At the end of WWI the country had to make a dramatic transition from a war footing to a peacetime footing. During the war many Americans uprooted their families and moved to secure jobs in wartime industries. Women, African Americans, and new immigrants were three groups that saw their experience in society change as a result of war. As troops returned to familiar soil, the American economy contracted, which created new and increased competition for jobs. As troops took up their old jobs, new postwar tensions emerged. In addition to the economic crisis, the country witnessed new racialized violence in the North, anti immigrant legislation, labor unrest, and a “red scare” that would serve to define our country for the next 70 years. However, despite these new tensions, the 1920s are remembered as a time of prosperity and freedom for all. The 1920s played witness to women’s suffrage, the Harlem renaissance, jazz music and the birth of the consumer culture that we know so well today. While the 1920s is often glamorized, and rightly so in many respects, the prosperity and change that country witnessed left some groups of Americans in the dust (literally).