Introducton to American History
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1104_AmericanHistoryComb_9e_24.pptxChapter 24: The Jazz Age and Beyond: American Culture in Prosperity and Depression
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Introduction to American History Combined
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Learning Objectives
Describe the key psychological and scientific theories of the 1920s.
Define the key elements of Keynesian economic theory.
Discuss religion in the Jazz age. Evaluate the differences between liberal and fundamentalist church groups.
Discuss the Scopes “Monkey” trials and their implications for both religion and education.
Discuss the blending of Protestant fundamentalism and patriotism by Reverend Billy Sunday.
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Learning Objectives (Continued)
Discuss the influence of mass communications on American society.
Evaluate the contributions of painters, photographers, musicians, novelists and poets to American culture.
Discuss the influence of movies on the American public.
Evaluate the influence of prohibition on the lives of Americans.
Describe the major victories of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1920s.
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24.1a Living in the Good Times and Bad
Most people lived according to the old ways.
The upper middle class was the center of revolt (wild drinking, parties, jazz).
During the Depression, manufacturing suffered the most; however, the economy kept up or declined moderately in trade.
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24.1b Psychological Theories
New psychological theories were influential.
Behaviorism: Humans live by “conditioned reflexes,” not by reason.
Freud: Unconscious pressures guide behavior, not logic.
Aim was to help emotionally ill people.
Scientific approach weakened certainty.
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24.1c Changes in Education
John Dewey advanced a progressive approach to education.
Students should be prepared for daily life, rather than master a body of knowledge.
Health, fundamental processes, civil and social relations, and recreation were the key school activities.
1930s: Community, rather than child-centered approach, resulted in good group relations—but with little emphasis on academics.
In 1920, eight percent of 18- to 21-year-olds were in college, with 12 percent in 1930 and 16 percent in 1940.
Curriculum moved away from traditional programs.
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24.1d Physical and Social Theory
University science departments continued to be places of innovation.
Matter was not solid, but rather consisted of particles of energy; reality was not precise.
Social science could only discover laws by complex means of research.
Philosophy was interested in “How can any kind of truth be established?”
Most famous atomic scientist at the time was Albert Einstein.
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24.1e Keynesian Economics
First major revision of economic theory in the twentieth century.
Emphasis shifted from supply and demand to income distribution.
Increased income and spending of the poor stimulated business investment.
However, increasing the income of the rich would only increase saving.
Government could supply sufficient spending power to maintain a sufficient flow of income.
Higher wages and government investment were the keys.
Conservatives resisted this, but prosperity induced by World War II spending changed some minds.
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24.1f Religious Fundamentalism in the 1920s
The 1920s were a time of religious conflict.
Liberal churches were increasingly involved with social reform (Churches of Christ).
Fundamentalists resisted social orientation.
Darwin’s theory and Bible criticism challenged Bible literalism.
Darwin’s natural selection was well accepted in the scientific community.
Urbanization brought Darwin’s theory into conflict with religious fundamentalism.
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24.1f Religious Fundamentalism in the 1920s (Continued)
William Jennings Bryan and religious fundamentalists argued that the Bible must be chosen in conflicts with science.
Billy Sunday blended religion and patriotism.
The Scopes Trial in Tennessee dramatized the conflict.
Publishers voluntarily withdrew Darwin from texts.
Ethnic churches in cities tended to be fundamentalist and nationalistic.
Urban black churches were also conservative and concerned with the next world, rather than this one.
The Depression saw a decline in church membership for economic reasons.
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24.1g Scopes Monkey Trial
The teaching of evolution by a Tennessee science teacher, John Scopes, was involved.
Clarence Darrow defended Scopes; William Jennings Bryan prosecuted him.
The trial made Fundamentalists look foolish and backwards.
Scopes was convicted; however, the trial was, in many ways, a victory for modernism.
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24.1h Ethnic Churches in Urban Centers
Many ethnic churches were also fundamentalist.
Immigrants often supported their churches as a way of maintaining their culture.
Most Protestant churches—aside from those in the South—were supported by the middle class.
Church membership grew during the 1920s.
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24.2a Newspapers
Papers provided principal reading matter for adults.
Papers became less competitive in opinion (conservative) and more elaborate in format.
Tabloids became popular in urban areas.
Columnists were added (i.e., Walter Lippmann).
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24.2b Magazines
Weekly magazines were increasing.
Time began in 1923.
Reader’s Digest was the most widely read.
Movie magazines also were popular.
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24.2c Radio
Radio was one of the most significant innovations of the decade.
1920: WWJ in Detroit became the first commercial station.
Advertisers dictated what was broadcast.
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24.2d Painting
The most popular painters were the realists, such as Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and John Stuart Curry (Midwest).
Urban painters used art as a social weapon.
Lois Jones, Ben Shahn, William Gropper, and Philip Evergood explored problems of cities.
Poverty was a result of capitalism, but it was not pathetic.
The Federal Arts Project (in 1930s) was a strong surge of popular, realistic painting.
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24.2e Photography
Photography became an art form during the interwar years.
Alfred Stieglitz was a strong realist.
During the Depression, Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange who were hired by the Farm Security Administration, recorded rural suffering.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was published in 1941.
Life magazine (1936) hired distinguished photographers.
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24.2f Music
Radio and the phonograph gave composers and musicians a mass audience.
Jazz was the only “purely American” contribution to the arts.
Jazz in the Jazz Age: A Group Portrait
Dance bands became popular.
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24.2g Literature and Drama
The decade was a very fertile period for literature.
Alienation from American society and values, as well as from business values and materialism, grew.
Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and Sherwood Anderson—all saw no way for reform.
The Harlem Renaissance included James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston—all who portrayed the world as they knew it.
The Great Depression saw a return to social issues.
John Dos Passos attacked capitalism.
John Steinbeck told about the misery of tenant farmers and migrants.
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24.2g Literature and Drama (Continued)
Henry Roth and James Farrell depicted life in the slums.
Richard Wright depicted destructive pressure of the city on young black men.
Thomas Wolfe accepted, rather than damned, his environment.
William Faulkner ignored war, prosperity, and depression, and sought the ultimate meaning of life.
In poetry, T. S. Eliot and Hart Crane were much admired for “The Wasteland” and “The Bridge.”
Eugene O’Neill produced eleven plays.
Clifford Odets praised the labor movement.
Lillian Hellman was a severe critic of American life.
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24.2h Motion Pictures
Movies began to enjoy extraordinary influence.
Art was subordinate to business.
Spectacles, melodramas, romance, and comedy (Charlie Chaplin) flourished.
The motion picture became the standard form of visual entertainment for Americans, and sound came in by 1927.
In the 1930s, studios turned out mostly escapist fare; and movies were a warm, dark refuge from reality.
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24.2i Architecture
The skyscraper was an innovation of worldwide importance.
It was a monument to marketing and commercial values.
It made economic sense to increase the height of buildings in the most valuable locations.
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24.3a Motorization and Urbanization
By 1930, there were 23 million cars (26 million families).
Few places remained remote.
Zoning became important in cities; 37 percent of cities had zoning by 1930.
Cars became a sign of social status—a new car was a symbol of success.
This led to a demand for new and bigger machines.
Installment buying was introduced.
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24.3b The Emancipated Woman
Upper and middle class women were shaking off the confines of Victorian customs.
Women’s influence in party politics was minimal.
They were also still excluded from professional schools.
Little change in “women’s work” occurred, with women continuing to be paid less for performing the same job as men.
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24.3c An Urban Black Society
World War I increased the black migration to Northern urban centers.
Racial violence spread in 1919.
NAACP fought to establish civil rights.
The Sweet Case in 1925 established right to defend oneself from whites.
The Texas Primary Case (1927) outlawed the white primary.
Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association was very popular with working-class blacks: Black Pride.
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24.3d Prohibition
Prohibition was America’s greatest experiment in government control over personal habits.
Congress made no effort to enforce the Volstead Act and had less than 3,000 federal agents for enforcement.
Urban areas openly defied enforcement.
Illegal liquor was a multi-million dollar business.
In dry areas, Prohibition worked; in urban areas, it was undermining moral values of the young and honest government.
The Twenty-first Amendment (1933) ended federal prohibition.
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24.3e Gangster Wars
Prohibition led to the growth of organized crime.
Calvin Coolidge appointed Herbert Hoover as head of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924.
Bureau of Investigation became involved in pursuit of notorious gangsters under the Motor Vehicle Theft Act.
FBI pursued and killed Public Enemy #1, John Dillinger.
Bonnie and Clyde went on a spree of murder and mayhem.
Bonnie and Clyde were killed in an ambush by lawmen in Louisiana in 1934.
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24.3f Interwar Years
The Great Depression would mark the greatest depth of politico-economic failure in US history.
In 1932, people suffered deprivation with remarkable silence.
Society went from highest period of prosperity to greatest depth of failure from 1929 to 1932.
The Depression created a new tradition of public responsibility for the welfare of private citizens.
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