American History: A Survey

The 1920s were a time of many contradictions in the US. Politics headed in a more conservative direction, and prohibition still reigned, but at the same time, social conventions were loosening, especially among young people. All this played out against an economy that, after the postwar depression ended in 1922, flourished in a way never previously seen. As in previous times of economic growth, though, this prosperity was not universal; inequality continued to simmer below the surface. Brewing economic issues intensified within a decade as the Great Depression unfolded, but for several years it seemed that the US had finally become a place where prosperity was an inherent part of life.

Conservatism came primarily in the resurgence of isolationism after World War I, which many saw as an expensive folly that the US had no place as a participant. This isolationism went beyond a decline in foreign intervention; a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment rose in the 1920s after decades of relative openness to foreign newcomers. Under the guise of protecting traditional American values, conservatives pushed through restrictive laws that heavily limited immigration, especially for racial minorities. A major impetus for these decisions was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. While the original Klan was confined to the South and to racism against Black people, the new Klan took the country by storm. More than four million people from all walks of life joined the organization, which set its sights on anyone who didn’t conform to the traditional, white, Anglo-Saxon, patriarchal values that it held dear. Less damaging than the rise of bigotry but still a sign of increased conservatism was the particular strain of Christian Fundamentalism that became popular in the 1920s. Huge religious revivals, the precursor to modern mega churches, traveled the country and spread evangelical sentiment. In 1925, the State of Tennessee even attempted to make such fundamentalism law when it enacted a ban on the teaching of evolution in schools. The newly formed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) vowed to overturn the law in what became the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” The attorney representing the fundamentalist side was William Jennings Bryan, the former “progressive“ Democratic presidential candidate who had brought an end to the People’s Party.

Despite the conservative political landscape of the 1920s, open-minded social movements—in which women and Black people were particularly impactful—were on the rise. During World War I, the flow of Black people from the rural South into the cities had increased dramatically. Black neighborhoods like Harlem flourished, and within them Black culture was celebrated and promoted. Women, feeling liberated after gaining voting rights, increasingly rejected patriarchal rules. Although the popular image of partying flappers in skimpy dresses was not as common as conservatives claimed, young women of the 1920s certainly felt freer to express themselves and live lives of their own design than their mothers and grandmothers had.

Although consumerism had been growing for decades, the 1920s marked an acceleration in the availability of mass-market goods. The growing film and music industries made entertainment cheap and available to almost everyone, and automobiles became more widely available. Despite alcohol prohibition, dance halls became a popular place for young people to congregate. The growing middle class found itself with disposable income for the first time, so products like electric refrigerators, radios, mass-market books and magazines, fashionable clothing, and cigarettes were no longer strictly luxury purchases. Although the surge of leisure and the availability of resources to more people supported the growth of many important cultural movements, such as jazz music, the unrestrained excess of the 1920s was in many ways a harbinger of the devastating economic downturn that came in the next decade.

In stark contrast to the 1920s, the 1930s saw the Great Depression, which resulted from many issues, most related to the unchecked and increasingly complex economy that developed after the Civil War. Even in 1928, few could predict the disaster of the following year. The stock market was skyrocketing, leading to wild speculative investments and cheap, widely available credit. In modern times, these practices are recognized as dangerous, and securities have been established to prevent the most serious problems of the Great Depression from recurring. By the time the stock market crashed over the course of one day in 1929, the government could do nothing to stop the chain of events that plunged the entire country into financial ruin.

In many ways, the Great Depression was inevitable. The American economy, while diverse, was far too reliant on a few specific industries—such as automobiles—that were unable to sustain themselves when purchasing power was low. Because US banking was unregulated at the time, when banks ran out of money after the stock market collapse, bank customers had no way to protect their money. In the early days of the depression, many visited banks to withdraw their savings and found that all the money was gone. Rampant unemployment caused social unrest as people competed for limited job opportunities. Advances in employment opportunities for women and Black people during previous decades largely reversed as white men began to assert that they had the most rightful claim to jobs. Somewhat foreshadowing problems that the country would face later in the 20th century, an environmental catastrophe compounded the depression’s effects. After years of above-average rainfall, the important agricultural areas in the middle of the country entered a major drought, during which the area was referred to as the Dust Bowl, and displaced farmers migrated out of the area in droves.

Although almost all Americans struggled during the 1930s, many relied on relics of the 1920s consumer landscape for entertainment and distraction. Radio shows became wildly popular in the 1930s and were often the center of social gatherings, as whole families or communities gathered around to listen to a live sporting event or the latest installment of a serialized story. Cinema continued to gain popularity, and lighthearted satirical movies by people like the Marx Brothers became especially popular.

Politics in the 1930s focused primarily on repeated attempts to end the depression. Under the presidency of Herbert Hoover, elected in 1929, these attempts were mostly futile. Hoover served one term as a particularly unpopular head of state before losing to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. At first, Roosevelt appeared to have no better chance to bring an end to the depression; the major banking crisis occurred almost immediately after his inauguration, and the depression only seemed to be getting worse. In later years, though, Roosevelt boldly enacted a series of legislations that helped restore the country, and he became one of history’s most influential presidents.