Module 5
1920s Nativism and Mass Culture
- Urbanization of America–Twenties Style
- large immigrant cities, town life and away from agricultural, pastoral life
- retained small town values, rural strengths and weaknesses which caused racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts in the 1920s
- Negative Responses:
- Prohibition Era–18th Amendment banned all production and sale of alcoholic beverages, later repealed by 21st Amendment
- led to bootlegging, Italian/Sicilian mafia took advantage of billion dollar business opportunity, speakeasies, bathtub gin
- poor quality led to creation of the cocktail by bartenders, increase in sale of medicinal grade alcohol
- nativism vs German Americans in beer business for prohibition and neg after WWI—Anheuser-Busch, Milwaukee, Miller
- Ku Klux Klan–middle class, urban, attacked Cath, Jews, Afric Amer, foreign immigrants (Hiram W. Evans-“Imperial Wizard”)
- South–anti-black emphasis, North–anti-Catholic
- their propaganda was very appealing to those disenchanted with the fast pace and seeming moral decay of the 1920s, disillusionment after WWI also played a part as many Americans felt isolated and overwhelmed by changes in technology, population, and working life
- Large movement dies out by mid-late 1920s as corruption and immorality is exposed from within the movement’s leaders, up to that point had about 5 million members
- 1924 Immigration Act–established strict quotas and even literacy tests on admittance for some immigrants, primarily east Eur and Asia, looser for Latin America so large influx of MX
- nativist resurgence, Sacco-Vanzetti case
- convicted largely before the trial of murder though evidence at the time was circumstantial, electrocuted in 1926,
- DNA testing now shows that they were most likely guilty
- Scopes Trial (1925): trial of John Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, TN, who illegally taught the theory of evolution
- ACLU Clarence Darrow defended Scopes and William Jennigs Bryan prosecuted, Darrow got Bryan to admit that not all the Bible is literal and won a moral victory
- Scopes still convicted because basic fact was that he broke the law, whatever the ethical reasoning, fined $100 and returned to teaching
- Prohibition Era–18th Amendment banned all production and sale of alcoholic beverages, later repealed by 21st Amendment
- Commercial and Housing Developments
- Suburbs take off–for all ethnic groups, automobile gave mobility
- Road construction boom–including highways and roadside businesses like diners, truck stops, gas stations, billboards
- Skyscrapers go up–height competition, Empire State Building
- Mass production of disposable goods–develop Kleenex instead of hankies, plastics to throw away after use, lightbulbs, etc.
- large immigrant cities, town life and away from agricultural, pastoral life
- Mass Culture
- Consumerism: the desire to purchase goods for more than their basic value or need rather for the image it conveys or convenience it provides
- Advertising:
- celebrity endorsements: movie stars, athletes (Babe Ruth)
- coercive ad campaigns, Gerald Lambert and Listerine girl
- glamorizing products for their brand/image instead of quality
- Alfred Sloan, CEO of General Motors started “planned absolescence”–create new product lines each year to encourage turn over and new purchases (vs Ford’s Model T same for 30 years)
- Credit Revolution:
- buying on credit, layaway payments, short term loan
- “Buy Now, Pay Later”–up to 80% by end of the 1920s
- retail stores pandered to this, especially for big ticket items like houses, cars, furniture, appliances
- A.P. Giannini–Bank of Italy (later Bank of America, 3rd largest bank by 1930), started idea of branch banks in neighborhoods
- Entertainment and Popular Media
- movie houses/movies: mass audience, cheap tickets, open to all classes, “Talkies” by mid-1920s
- “Big Eight” Hollywood studios dominated industry, many of Jewish background (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer)which created racial tension and then accusations of sexual/moral permissiveness
- responded by establishing ratings, apptd “Morals Czar” Will Hayes to create self-censorship in movies
- Radio: mass media, inexpensive, in home, family entertainment
- news programs, daily and weekly broadcasts
- “SOAPS”, plays, serial stories
- music–JAZZ (leading Afric Amer were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, leading White Amer: George Gershwin), blues, swing
- “Amos ‘n’ Andy” 1st natl radio hit show–based on black minstrelry
- sports programs, especially baseball and boxing
- Print media:
- Hearst chain of newspapers controlled 14% of nation’s circulation, also tabloids
- Ability to widely advertise, new columns devoted to gossip, sports, society, crime, sex scandals
- Literature
- Writers disenchanted with the 1920s such as Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land; other authors include H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein and her “Lost Generation”, Dorothy Parker
- Harlem Renaissance: flourishing of Afric Amer writers, mostly from middle class Harlem which now a beacon of black American culture, authors such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston
- Hearst chain of newspapers controlled 14% of nation’s circulation, also tabloids
- movie houses/movies: mass audience, cheap tickets, open to all classes, “Talkies” by mid-1920s
- Advertising:
- Consumerism: the desire to purchase goods for more than their basic value or need rather for the image it conveys or convenience it provides
- Tendency to see 1920s as a caricature but positive and negatives
- flappers were an exception and largely limited to white middle class girls,
- sexual freedom was more thought of than realized,
- social change was more restrictive not less but image still persists
- 1920s: materialistic, self-absorbed, techno-worship, identity crisis
- all the while this is occurring, instability was emerging into the American economy and market
- maldistribution of wealth–top 5% held 33% of all personal income
- bad corporate structure
- weak banking structure
- imbalance in international trade
- poor state of economic intelligence–uninformed dealing on Wall Street, overused credit, mass expenditure/consumption, no savings
- The stock market crash in 1929 symptom but not reason for depression, people buying on the margin
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1000 shares @ $100/share $100,000 10% margin $10,000 down $90,000 loan 1000 shares@ $200/share $200,000 **say pay 10% of what 100,000 stock worth, you pay 10,000 and borrow 90,000. If stock then doubles in price, you pay back loan and keep the profit on a 10,000 investment.
- massive devaluation of stock, investors shy of market, rush on banks
- Crisis of Confidence in democracy and capitalism–fed by environment of nativism, some say Fascism and Communism only next logical step, Crisis of Confidence in American Values–reject individualism and small government
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