Critical Thinking Questions

17. Explain how the 1920s was a decade of contradictions. What does the relationship between mass immigration and the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan tell us about American attitudes? How might we reconcile the decade as the period of both the flapper and prohibition?

18. What new opportunities did the 1920s provide for women and African Americans? What new limitations did this era impose?

19. Discuss what the concept of “modernity” meant in the 1920s. How did art and innovation in the decade reflect the new mood of the postwar era?

20. Explain how technology took American culture in new and different directions. What role did motion pictures and radio play in shaping cultural attitudes in the United States?

21. Discuss how politics of the 1920s reflected the new postwar mood of the country. What did the Harding administration’s policies attempt to achieve, and how?