1920s Nativism and Mass Culture

1. Prohibition Era–18th Amendment banned all production and sale of alcoholic beverages, later repealed by 21st Amendment
   1. led to bootlegging, Italian/Sicilian mafia took advantage of billion dollar business opportunity, speakeasies, bathtub gin
   2. poor quality led to creation of the cocktail by bartenders, increase in sale of medicinal grade alcohol
   3. nativism vs German Americans in beer business for prohibition and neg after WWI—Anheuser-Busch, Milwaukee, Miller
2. Ku Klux Klan–middle class, urban, attacked Cath, Jews, Afric Amer, foreign immigrants (Hiram W. Evans-“Imperial Wizard”)
   1. South–anti-black emphasis, North–anti-Catholic
   2. 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
   3. 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
3. 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
4. nativist resurgence, Sacco-Vanzetti case
   1. convicted largely before the trial of murder though evidence at the time was circumstantial, electrocuted in 1926,
   2. DNA testing now shows that they were most likely guilty
5. Scopes Trial (1925): trial of John Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, TN, who illegally taught the theory of evolution
   1. 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
   2. Scopes still convicted because basic fact was that he broke the law, whatever the ethical reasoning, fined $100 and returned to teaching

1. celebrity endorsements: movie stars, athletes (Babe Ruth)
2. coercive ad campaigns, Gerald Lambert and Listerine girl
3. glamorizing products for their brand/image instead of quality
4. 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)

1. buying on credit, layaway payments, short term loan
2. “Buy Now, Pay Later”–up to 80% by end of the 1920s
3. retail stores pandered to this, especially for big ticket items like houses, cars, furniture, appliances
4. A.P. Giannini–Bank of Italy (later Bank of America, 3rd largest bank by 1930), started idea of branch banks in neighborhoods

1. movie houses/movies: mass audience, cheap tickets, open to all classes, “Talkies” by mid-1920s
   1. “Big Eight” Hollywood studios dominated industry, many of Jewish background (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer)which created racial tension and then accusations of sexual/moral permissiveness
   2. responded by establishing ratings, apptd “Morals Czar” Will Hayes to create self-censorship in movies
2. Radio: mass media, inexpensive, in home, family entertainment
   1. news programs, daily and weekly broadcasts
   2. “SOAPS”, plays, serial stories
   3. music–JAZZ (leading Afric Amer were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, leading White Amer: George Gershwin), blues, swing
   4. “Amos ‘n’ Andy” 1st natl radio hit show–based on black minstrelry
   5. sports programs, especially baseball and boxing
3. Print media:
   1. Hearst chain of newspapers controlled 14% of nation’s circulation, also tabloids
      1. Ability to widely advertise, new columns devoted to gossip, sports, society, crime, sex scandals
   2. Literature
      1. 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
      2. 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

**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.