Postwar Social Change

Postwar Social Change

Chapter 20

Women’s Changing Roles

• Flapper Image

• Young• Energetic• Rebellious• Fun loving• Bold• Confident

Working• Many jobs refused to hire

women

• Would not let women advance past entry level positions

• Expected to quit if they became pregnant

Voting• Only 35 % of registered

voters voted

• 11 % did not vote due to lack of interest

• It would take time before women made voting a habit

American Heroes

“Lucky Lindy”• Charles Lindbergh

• Flew from New York to Paris in 33 ½ hours in 1927

• Showed American innovation

Amelia Earhart• First women to fly across

Atlantic in 1928

• Attempted to fly around the world

• Disappeared in the Pacific 2/3 of the way there

“The Spirit of St. Louis”

Heroes cont.

Jim Thorpe • Won decathlon

• Pentathlon

• Played pro baseball

• 1st president of what became known as the NFL

George “Babe” Ruth• 714 homeruns

• 60 homeruns in 154 game season

Mass Media

• U.S is a large collection of regional cultures

• Most Americans simply did not understand what went on in other parts of the country

Media

Newspapers• Between 1920 and 1929

newspaper sales grew from 27 million to 40 million

• 42% increase

• Began focusing on tabloids (fashion, sports, crime, scandal)

Movies• Movie attendance increases

from 40 million per week to 80 million

• 100 % increase

• Films switched from silent to sound

Radio

• 1920 – 1929 households with radio’s increase from 60,000 to 10,250,000

• Increase of 16,983 %

• The country began listening to the same news, jokes, stories, and commercials

Prohibition (18th amendment)

• Bootlegging– Alcohol could no longer be produced– This created a new type of criminal

• Speakeasies– Bars that operated illegally– 4,000 in Boston– 700 in D.C

Organized Crime

• Rival gangs began fighting for control of territory

• Cities became battlegrounds for:– Gambling– Prostitution– Racketeering (Paying police for protection)– Bootlegging

Al Capone

• Ran the largest gangster organization in the U.S (Chicago)

• 1925 Scarface made 60 million from bootlegging

• Sentenced to prison in 1931 for tax evasion

Capone (Mugshot) St. Valentines Day Massacre

Fundamentalism

Evolution• Life was created from

organisms that evolved into what they are today

Creationism• Religious belief that some

sort of supernatural being created

• Human life• Earth• The universe

Racial Tensions (1920’s)

• Great Migration brings African Americans to the Northeast, they find violence there

• Summer of 1919 known as “Red Summer” for racial violence in D.C, Tulsa, and Chicago

• 537 wounded in Chicago

Revival of KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

• In 1922 membership is at 100,000

• In 1924 it is 4 million

• Vowed to defend white Protestant culture, not just blacks that seemed to them un – American– Catholics, Jews, immigrants and others

KKK by definition

• Several different past and present groups that use hate crimes and intimidation to protect the rights and further the interest of white Americans

• Record of using violence by murdering African Americans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and other minority groups

Propaganda Rally (1923)