The Twenties As a Decade of Cultural Conflict

THE TWENTIES AS A DECADE OF CULTURAL CONFLICT

I. Threats to the Old Order

A. Changing standards of morality.

1. Behavior: new codes for dancing and dress-Charleston, thinner clothes, juvenile look, sleeveless dresses.

2. Double standard: A change in attitudes occurred toward expectations for behavior in regard to sexual standards for men and women. Now women began to assert publicly their right to imitate male standards. Only affection was necessary for sex.

B. Reasons for changing standards.

1. First World War: The maxim "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die" often appears after wars. WWI had the highest ration of those killed and injured to participants of any war. Small matters of morality seemed less important after this carnage.

2. Women: greater independence, less parental supervision, 19th amendment. They joined the labor force in large numbers, and more lived alone.

3. Impersonality of urban areas.

4. Automobile: sudden capability to escape supervision.

5. Freudian psychology filtered down to the popular level in the 1920s. The message that came down said repressed desires lead to mental illness.

II. Manifestations of Cultural Conflict

A. Ku Klux Klan: five million members strong over twenty states, especially Indiana and Oregon. More of a small-town, fraternal, patriotic defense of the old order than an anti-black organization, they hated Jews, Catholics, blacks, immigrants, and unions. Oregon required all children to attend public schools, not parochial schools.

B. 1924 Democratic Party Convention in Madison Square Garden: 103 ballots were required to nominate a presidential candidate, John W. Davis, and William Jennings Bryan's brother as vice-president. A huge fight over platform statement denouncing the Klan passed by fewer than five votes.

C. Fundamentalism: The Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. concerned the teaching of the theory of evolution. Bryan aided the prosecution; Clarence Darrow, the defense. Bryan testified that the world was created in 4004 B.C. and the flood occurred in 2348 B.C.

D. Nativism: laws of 1921 and 1924 (Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and Immigration Act of 1924), fear of radicals, competition among workers, unions for the laws, feeling those here insufficiently Americanized, patriotism of WWI, new influx after the war, scientific racism (Social Darwinism, Eugenics), Army I.Q. tests (tested knowledge and education not intelligence quotient {ability} used as proof of the inferiority of other races and ethnicities). First 1910, then 1890 used as a base for determining the quota system. Changed because Southern and Eastern Europeans dominated immigration in 1910 so moved back to 1890 last census where Western Europeans majority of immigrants.

E. Al Smith campaign: NYC, Tammany Hall, a wet, Catholic, son of immigrants, accent, strong rural and Southern vote against him.

F. Prohibition: Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Anti-Saloon League, 18th Amendment, Volstead Act, job safety, attacks on the urban saloon. Immigrant drinking was seen as a cause of poverty. Anti-union because saloons seen as union meeting places. (Also anti political machine for the same reason). Anti-German war spirit, speakeasies, bootleg liquor. Al Capone in one year make 110 million dollars and was responsible for 110 deaths.

G. Hero worship: Lindbergh, small town boy, beat the corporations as the "Lone Eagle." Individualism was not dead. Babe Ruth was an orphan, a man who didn't follow the organization rules, yet he was successful and an individual.

H. Fear of radicals: Red Scare, Palmer raids, President Coolidge wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post, "Are the Reds Stalking Our College Women?"

I. Marcus Garvey and United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Popularity was a response by urbanized Southern blacks to the harshness of Northern life; Chicago race riot, 1919.

III. Age of Social Insecurity

A. Technology caused drastic changes

1. Car: In 1919, one of every sixteen people owned a car; in 1929, one of five; Model T.

2. Films: weekly average

3. Radio: WWJ, Detroit, and KDKA, Pittsburgh; in 1930, 612 stations. In 1920, $10 million in radios and parts; by 1920, $400 million.

B. Nicknames for the Twenties: The roaring 20s, The Jazz Age, The Flapper Age, The Golden Age, Normalcy; summarized as "We never had it so good."

C. The verdict of literature was more harsh. "The Lost Generation" was disillusioned with the war and materialism.

1. T.S. Elliot, The Waste Land

2. Sinclair Lewis, Babbit, Main Street. In 1930 Lewis gave a scathing Nobel Prize acceptance speech attacking the literary establishment.

3. H.L. Mencken, editor of the magazineThe American Mercury.

4. Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. The dream of success slips away.

D. Popular literature not harsh

1. "Confession" magazines have their beginning.

2. Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows, popular view of Christ as a super businessman.

Lecture courtesy of Crum, John W.Arco AP American History, Prentice Hall, New York, NY, 1994