NATIVISM & ISOLATIONISMthedudeteacher.weebly.com/uploads/5/5/1/6/55161823/3.3_20s_nati… · NATIVISM & ISOLATIONISM Swept over America as people became suspicious of foreigners &

NATIVISM & ISOLATIONISM

Swept over America as people became suspicious of foreigners & wanted to pull

away from world affairs

IsolationismIn the 1920s, the US adopts a

plan of isolationism and

withdraws from world affairs. As

Examples:

1923 Kellogg Briand Pact

(International Agreement) bans war

and the US demobilizes (eliminates)

much of its military.

In 1921 Secretary of State Charles

Evans Hughes proposed a 10 year

moratorium, or pause, on the

construction of major new warships.

American Isolationism

Isolationists like Senator Lodge, refused to allow the US to sign the Versailles Treaty.

Security treaty with France also rejected by the Senate.

July, 1921 Congress passed a resolution declaring WW I officially over!

Sen. Henry Cabot

Lodge, Sr. [R-MA]

The end of WWI hurt the economy:

• Returning soldiers took jobs away from women & minorities …OR…

• Returning soldiers faced unemployment themselves.

Nativism Resurges

• With increasing immigration after World War One, many Americans saw immigrants as a threat to stability and order.

• Favor native born Americans over immigrants.

Nativism

•Patriotism• Many Americans

believed that foreigners could never be fully loyal to the US.

Nativism

•Religion• Most nativists were

Protestants• Thought you couldn’t trust

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Catholics, or Jews.

Nativism

•Urban Conditions• Problems of

the cities, such as slums and corruption, were the fault of immigrants.

Nativism

• Jobs• Workers feared that

immigrants would take their jobs away from them.

LIMITING IMMIGRATION…

How did Americans show their Nativist feelings?

Immigrants at Ellis Island

CONGRESS LIMITS IMMIGRATION

• Congress, in response to nativist pressure, decided to limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe

• The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 set up a quota system to control and restrict immigration

• Further restricted in the National Origins Act of 1924

America changed its formally

permissive immigration policy

Nativism

•Intention of these acts was to discriminate – and most low-paying jobs went to MIGRANT workers from Mexico and Canada

Hispanic immigration

• Hispanic immigration increased dramatically between 1914 and the end of the 1920s. The National Origins Act did not apply to people from the Western hemisphere.

1924, Immigration from Japan banned.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti•The one event that came to symbolize the hatred and mistrust of immigrants was the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti

•2 Italian immigrants (anarchists) were accused of killing 2 men during a robbery

Sacco Vanzetti

SACCO & VANZETTI

• Italian anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti were a shoemaker and a fish peddler

Sacco & Vanzetti were admitted anarchists but…

Denied committing any crime.

The case against them was weak & they were convicted anyway

JUDGE WEBSTER THAYER

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Many Americans thought the two anarchists were guilty because they were immigrants. After several years of appeals, the two were executed.

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Anarchists – those who were against all forms of govn’t

SACCO & VANZETTI

Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco (Dedham courthouse, 1923)

Sacco and Vanzetti

•Were electrocuted in 1927.

Many protested the conviction…They believed it was based on a fear of foreigners.

Sacco & Vanzetti executed in 1927

Death Watch in Union Square, New York

Funeral Procession

Sacco and Vanzetti death masks

Sacco and Vanzetti > Demonstration for Sacco and Vanzetti, Boston, 1925

Sacco and Vanzetti > Funeral after the executions, Boston, August 1927

Sacco and Vanzetti > The Daily Worker Cartoon, 1927

Ku Klux Klan.

THE KLAN RISES AGAIN

•As the Red Scare and anti-immigrant attitudes reached a peak, the KKK was more popular than ever

•By 1924, the Klan had 4.5 million members

The Ku Klux Klan

• A fundamentalist group that formed in the South soon after the Civil War

• Opposed to immigration as well as minority groups (African-Americans, Catholics, Jews)

• “A Birth of a Nation” produced in 1915 to glorify the KKK

A KKK Meeting

Beliefs of the 1920s KKK

• A return to traditional US moral values IE The KKK of the 1920s commonly supported Protestant churches.

• Anger toward immigrants (Nativism), and Catholics who were believed to be responsible for taking away jobs and attempting to transform American culture IE English and Protestantism.

• Anti-Jews as Jews were believed to be in charge of American banking and finance (Remember that farmers commonly faced the threat of bank’s foreclosing on their farms).

• Although African Americans were not liked by the KKK of the 1920s, in the North they were often not the number one target because politically they normally voted Republican, just as the KKK voted Republican.

Ku Klux Klan

• The Klan experienced a resurgence because of increasing immigration. The Klan’s membership reached 4 million in the 1920s.

Ku Klux Klan

In the 1920s, until his

conviction for the rape and

murder of an Indianapolis

woman, Grand Imperial

Dragon of the KKK, D.C.

Stephenson nearly

controlled Indiana’s

government. D.C. Stephenson

Euginics

• Fake science based on racism

• Belief that you could selectively breed humans to have most desired personality and intellectual traits

• Believed in by many leaders of the day, including presidents and business leaders.