January 18-22

Monday- continued on the 20's

Tuesday- presentations

Wednesday- notes

Thursday- notes

Friday- watched last video

1.-Prohibition and gangsters

18th Amendment (1920-1933)
"The Noble Experiment"
Manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol was illegal
Supporters believed alcohol brought about corruption, crime, wife and child abuse
Supporters came mostly from Rural South and West
Anti-Saloon League and Women's Christian Temperance Union led the attack on alcohol
Alcohol was allowed for medicine and religious
Prescriptions and sacramental wine orders skyrocketed
Saloons closed and drunkenness went down
Volstead Act created the Prohibition Bureau to enforce the law
Failed for 3 reasons
- People despised it. Saw it as government meddling in people's lives
- Prohibition Bureau was underfunded. Had 1500 people to supervise the country
- Organized crime became commonplace
Bootlegging in the 1920's
- Illegally making or distributing alcohol
- Bootleggers
  - people that made or transported alcohol
  - named because people carried liquor in the legs of boots
  - most imported alcohol came in from Canada, Cuba, or West Indies
Moonshine
- alcohol made secretly in home made stills
- several hundred people a year died from drinking moonshine during the 1920's
- 1929, estimated that 700 million gallons of beer were produced in American homes
Speakeasies
- obtain alcohol legally, people went underground to secret bars called speakeasies
  - people spoke easily or quietly about it
  - could be anywhere
  - to be admitted, card or password had to be given
Organized crime
- came about as result of prohibition
- every major city had gang
- Al Capone's bootlegging business in Chicago made over $60 million a year
- Prohibition was repealed in 1933 as 21st amendment
Al Capone was taken down by tax evasion

2.-Women’s rights and freedoms

Right to Vote- 19th Amendment
Typical women jobs:
- clerk, cleaning
- waitress
- teaching
- nursing
- seamstress
- telephone operators
Decade made it okay for women to start going to college and getting jobs
Flapper Girls
Short hear
Short dresses
- heels
- socks
- dress to knees
- scarf
- not wearing a corset
- red lipstick
- attitude "go to college, get a job, date more than one guy, don't have to be married by 20"
smoked, drank in public
earned their own money
F. Scott Fitzgerald described Flappers as "Lovely, expensive and about 19."
- 1920's. a new woman was born
- Smoked, drank, danced, voted
- Cut her hair, wore make-up, went to petting parties
- She was giddy and took risks
Cult of Domesticity
- Developed throughout 1800's
- Ideal of womanhood had 4 characteristics:
  - piety (very religious)
  - purity (save themselves until marriage, only date one person)
  - domesticity (stay home, clean the house, put food on the table, take care of family)
  - submissiveness (woman isn't going to fight against the husbands power)

WWI
- WWI interrupted the campaign for woman suffrage
- Women took the men's jobs in WWI showing the country that they could do hard work
Roaring 20's
- good decade for women's rights
- 19th amendment
- flapper girls
- going to college more
- working more outside the home
Margaret Sanger
- founded American Birth Control in 1921
  - now known as Planned Parenthood
- women were able to take control of their own bodies
- movement educated women about existing birth control methods
Education
- 1928- women were earning 39% of the college degrees given in US
- 1900- it was 19%
- Today- almost 60%
1928 Olympics
- first Olympics that women could compete in
- arguments about this action
  - some argued that it was historically inappropriate since women did not compete in ancient Greek Olympics
  - others said that physical competition was "injurious" to women
"Pink Collared" Jobs- 120's-1970's
- game women a taste of the work world
- low paying service occupations
- made less money than men did doing the same jobs
  - secretaries
  - teachers
  - telephone operators
  - nurses

3.-Politics-elections, Normalcy and isolationism, President’s backgrounds and accomplishments, scandals, Republican philosophy

Harding
- broke 18th amendment
- had affairs in White House
- died during presidency
Coolidge
- very honest
- Harding's vice president
- believer in doing as little as possible
Hoover
- Iowa native
- go down as a bad president
- was good at first
- the era of "Permanent Prosperity"
- WWI food administration
Philosophy
- Trickle-down theory
  - Government is going to lower taxes on the wealthy
  - Rich are the ones who have control of the businesses
  - Expand businesses and give more people jobs
- Laissez- faire
  - Government keeps hands off of the businesses
  - Most companies today come from The Standard Oil Company
  - Businesses are what drive our country
- Rugged Individualism
  - Up to you to get money
  - Government isn't going to hand you a check
  - Earn your money
  - Don't depend on anyone else
- Normalcy
  - Get America back to "normal"
  - Focusing on "us" and staying out of war

4.-Entertainment, sports, music, radio, movies and fads

Greta Garbo
- Actress
Charlie Chaplin
- "Tramp" character
- "Adolf Hitler" character
Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer
- white people would pain their faces black
Marx Brothers
- comedians
- lost everything in the stock market
Harry Houdini
- magician
Babe Ruth
- baseball
Jack Dempsey
- boxing
Bobby Jones
- golf
Bill Tilden
- tennis
Red Grange
- football
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Great Gatsby

5.-Economy-Booming economy and stock market, buying on credit, high tariffs

Gross Domestic Product- total amount of goods or services produced in a country in a year
Booming because of making goods
Buying on Credit
- "buy now, pay later"
- Stocks market was booming
  - Buying on margin
High Tariff Policy
- tax on imported goods
- people buy American goods
- protecting big businesses
Era of "Permanent Prosperity"
- "As long as everyone has faith, everything will be fine."

6.-Red Scare-anti-immigration, Sacco and Vanzetti case

1919-1920
time period after WWI where world was fearful of Communism
Soviet Union had just become communist
Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels came up with communism
Communism- government is in complete control
Vladimir Lenin
Palmer Raids- houses were being bombed and then tried to make sure everyone was caught (radicalists, socialists)
Sacco and Vanzetti- accused of killing a pay master.
- Tried, convicted, and put to death
- Gun that was used was one of theirs
- Italian Radicals (anarchists)
- Today, they would have been found innocent
Ku Klux Klan
- everyone thought they were anti- African American
- Anti- communist
- made sure America was kept "pure"
  - White
  - Anglo
  - Saxon
  - Protestant
Immigration Act of 1924
- Asian Exclusion Act reduced immigrants
- Limiting specific groups of people like Jews and Europeans
- Africa, Asia, Middle East was also reduced
- Purpose was "to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity
- W.A.S.P

7.-Harlem Renaissance-KKK

Renaissance- rebirth (of a culture)
Music especially
People from the South moving to cities in the North (African Americans)
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, popular Jazz musicians
Cotton Club- most famous club in NY in 1920's, black performers to an all white crowd

8.-Lots of strikes-Boston Police, US Steel, United Mine Workers

didn't strike in WWI
struck in 20's
wanted better pay, hours, work conditions
didn't make a lot of progress
made major gains after WWII

9.-The Model T and the impact of the automobile

Positive Impact

transporting easier
allowed people to live in suburbs and drive to work
hurt small towns, kids left and never came back
started suburbs
vacation
jobs

Negative Impact

pollution
money spent
drunk driving

Route 66- first highway to get across the US

10.-Electricity in the homes and new appliances

candles
kerosene lamps
35% of people had electricity in 1920's
Edison vs Tesla
internet went live in '95

11.-Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhardt and the airplane

Used for entertainment
Charles Lindbergh "Lucky Lindy"
- first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean
- most famous person in the 1920's
- racist, anti-Jew, wanted to move to Germany in later 1930's
Amelia Earhart
- crashed in South Pacific somewhere by Howland Island
- tried to be the first person to fly entirely around the world
- ran out of gas, crashed, and drowned

12.-Scopes-Monkey Trial

Science vs Religion
- struggle between the modern scientific people and the Christian fundamentalists
- fundamentalists believed everything could be explained by the Bible
- disagreed with the theory of evolution especially
- Charles Darwin came up with scientific theory
Scopes Monkey Trial
- 1925, Tennessee passed first law making it illegal to teach evolution in school
- American Civil Liberties Union said it would defend any teacher willing to break the law
- John Scopes taught evolution and was arrested
- Clarence Darrow was hired by ACLU to defend Scopes
- William Jennings Bryan was the special prosecutor
- Scopes did not deny teaching evolution
- Trial was really about evolution being taught in schools
- Darrow called Bryan to the stand and asked him questions about the Bible
- Darrow made Bryan look foolish
- Scopes was found guilty and fined $100

13.-Stock Market Crash-causes

stock- buying part of a company, hoping it does well and you will make money
New York Stock Exchange
Dow Jones 30- 30 of the largest companies in the United States (Apple, Johnson and Johnson)
Causes 1929
- stock prices were grossly inflated, did not have real value-watered stock prices
- over speculation during the 1920's
  - led to watered stock
- "Buying on margin"
  - led to people being in debt and watered stock prices
- overproduction of goods and under consumption of consumers
  - kept pumping out goods
  - late 20's, people were in debt, didn't buy
  - companies profits were going down
  - stock prices were going up
- uneven distribution of wealth
  - only small percent of rich people
  - can only help the economy so much
  - other 99% help
  - not enough people buying things
- too much borrowing from banks
  - banks loaned money left and right to people
  - not very secure with their loans
  - didn't do credit background checks
  - don't know if they will pay it back or not
  - people are in debt
- Federal Reserve increased interest rates
  - "bankers bank"
  - bank runs
  - knew they had to increase rates, but knew that as soon as they did, it would crash
  - it was their fault to some degree because they should have had higher interest rate throughout the 20's
- Lack of government regulation
  - banks would take your money and invest it in the stock market
  - rich people would get together, buy cheap stock, pay people to write stories about it, rich people start selling it to everyone else
  - SCC regulates it

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January 18-22

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