Full Presentation Notes

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Progressive Era/ WWI

Chapters 27-31 in the American Pageant

(1900 - 1929)

The Early 1900s

Foreign Relations

The Insular Cases (1901-1903): Supreme Court ruled that not all provisions of the Constitution need apply to those who lived under the American flag but outside the continental boundaries of the U.S. (regarding overseas possessions acquired by the Spanish-American War in 1898 like Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and Cuba)

The Philippines

Jones Act (1916): Signed by Democrat Woodrow Wilson, favored a steady progression toward ultimate independence for the Philippines

The Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934): Established the Philippines temporarily as a commonwealth, with the provision that complete independence would be granted in 1946

Cuba

The Platt Amendment (1901):

1. Cuba would sign no treaty impairing its sovereignty without the consent of the United States

2. Cuba would not incur a debt unless the interest could be met out of current revenues

3. The United States could intervene to preserve the independence or the political and social stability of Cuba

4. Cuba would grant to the United States land for the establishment of naval bases (the US built Guantanamo Bay as a naval station)

-By the 1920s, Americans controlled much of the sugar production and railroading in Cuba

-Cuba was in a full sense economically dependent upon the US even though it was in the strict sense politically independent

-In 1934 the Platt Amendment was repealed as part of FDR’s policy to improve relations with Latin America

The Progressive Era (1901-1917)

Progressivism began as a social movement that turned into a political one. Progressives wanted to fix the issues caused by the Industrial Revolution and improve the American way of life, believing that social problems like poverty, violence, greed, racism, and class warfare could be addressed by providing safe environments, better education, and improved working conditions. The goals of the Progressive movement were 1) to protect the social welfare of the nation 2) promote moral improvement for the country and its people 3) creating economic reform and limiting the power of Big Business and 4) to foster a more efficient and responsive government. The gains of the progressive Era can be seen in the creation of settlement houses, the direct election of Senators (17th Amendment), the right to vote for women (19th Amendment), the direct primary, and the establishment of Child Labor Laws.

Important People

• Theodore Roosevelt
• William H. Taft
• Woodrow Wilson: Democratic progressive governor of New Jersey before he became president
• Robert M. La Follette: Republican governor of Wisconsin who created the Wisconsin Idea, which leveled against the corruption of political bosses and the abuses of business interests (railroad)

Muckrakers:

A group of writers who stirred public opinion to the point of action by exposing abuses in business and corruption in politics

• President Roosevelt criticized these writers for their focus on sensationalism and coined the term “muckrakers”
• Frank Norris: The Octopus (1901), The Pit (1903)
• attacked the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Chicago grain market
• Ida M. Tarbell: History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)
• condemned the practices of that monopolistic corporation
• Lincoln Steffens: Shame of the Cities (1904)
• exposed corruption in various municipal governments across the nation
• Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906)
• exposed conditions in the Chicago meat-packing industry
• Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives (1890)
• study of the living conditions in New York slums
• served as the basis for future muckraking journalism
• Muckraking magazines included Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, Everybody’s, and McClure’s
• Significance:
• Legislation for the protection of consumers and federal suits against various trusts can be traced to the muckrakers

Reforms:

• The Initiative: permits a certain portion of the voters (10%) to initiate by petition a law, which is then submitted to either the state legislature or the people for approval
• The Referendum: permits a certain portion of the voters (10%), by signing a petition, to have submitted to the voters for their acceptance or rejection a law that has passed in the legislature. In some states the referendum procedure allows the state legislature to submit to the voters a proposed bill for their acceptance or rejection.
• The Recall: permits a certain portion of the voters (25%), by petition; to start proceedings to remove an officeholder before the expiration of the term for which he has been elected or appointed.
• The Direct Primary: Introduced during La Follette’s governorship, a preliminary election in which the voters directly nominate candidates of their own party to run in a general election.
• The Seventeenth Amendment (1913): direct election of United States senators
• The Nineteenth Amendment (1920): women’s suffrage

The Socialists:

• The Socialist party of America headed by Eugene V. Debs was formed in 1901 and had goals such as
• the reduction of workday hours
• enactment of unemployment insurance
• government ownership of railroad lines, telegraph companies, telephone firms, and other public utilities
• nationwide adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall
• implementation of proportional representation
• 1912 the first substantial vote received by a socialist candidate when Debs polled 897,000 votes
• In the election of 1920 when women could finally vote, Debs secured 919,000 votes

Theodore Roosevelt and the Square Deal

• McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz
• Roosevelt’s first State of the Union message
• greater control of corporations by the federal government
• more authority for the Interstate Commerce Commission
• conservation of natural resources
• extension of the merit system in the civil service
• construction of an isthmian canal
• a vigorous foreign policy
• The Square Deal:
• domestic program based on the conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection
• targeted at businessmen, laborers, farmers, and consumers
• Election of 1904:
• Alton B. Parker (D)
• Theodore Roosevelt (R)
• Roosevelt carried every state outside the solid South and was elected president by an electoral vote of 336 to 140 for Parker
• Trusts and Railroads:
• Gained fame as the great “trust-buster”
• Roosevelt was opposed to any program to destroy the trusts but advocated close governmental regulation of industry under the terms of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
• The Supreme Court handed down the “rule of reason,” holding that only those combinations that “unreasonably” restrained trade were illegal in 1911
• The Elkins Act (1903): intended to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Act, made it a crime for railroads to grant freight rates other than those which they have published.
• The Hepburn Act (1906): gave the Interstate Commerce Commission to power to set maximum railroad rates and extend its jurisdiction
• Conservation:
• The Newlands Act (1902): provided for the appropriation of most of the money received from the sale of public lands in the West and Southwest to finance the construction of irrigation projects
• Roosevelt set aside 148 million acres as timber reserves and also appointed the Internal Waterways Commission to promote irrigation projects
• In 1908 Roosevelt appointed the National Conservation Commission
• Consumer Protection:
• Scandal from supplying spoiled canned meat during the Spanish-American War and Upton Sinclair’s writings led to:
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): forbade the adulteration or fraudulent labeling of foods and drugs sold in interstate commerce
• The Meat Inspection Act (1908): supervision of conditions of sanitation in meat-packing firms engaged in interstate commerce and federal inspection of sold meat
• Significance and Impact:
• Roosevelt’s impact lay in his ability to arouse the people to an awareness of their civic duties, rather than in any notable progress toward social justice under his presidency

Taft and Reform:

• Election of 1908:
• William Jennings Bryan (D)
• William Howard Taft (R)
• Taft won 321 electoral votes to Bryan’s 162
• Muller v. Oregon (1908): Supreme Court accepted the constitutionality of laws protecting women in the workplace and called for special protection for females.
• The Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909): in essence a compromise bill to preserve party unity, actually did the opposite; called for fewer reductions and more increases in tariffs
• Debate over the tariff split the Republican party into Old Guards and Progressives
• Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy:
• Ballinger restored 3 million acres to private use and Pinchot, the head of the Forest Service, was fired by Taft after much investigation and scandal
• Drove a wedge between Roosevelt and Taft, leading to further splitting of the Republican project
• The Mann-Elkins Act (1910): corrected the defects in the Hepburn Act and strengthened the government’s regulatory control over the railroad industry
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (March 25, 1911): This was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York City history, causing the deaths of 146 workers. The managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits, so workers could not escape from the fire and perished or jumped to their deaths from the eighth, ninth, or tenth floors. The tragedy led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards.
• The Sixteenth Amendment (1913): permitted the imposition of a graduated income tax
• The Department of Labor & Department of Commerce were created separately

Wilson and the New Freedom:

• The New Freedom:
• domestic policy that sought to curb any business that enjoyed a monopoly and to restore an earlier condition of competition
• once American involvement in WWI began, progressive activity virtually ceased
• The Election of 1912:
• Woodrow Wilson (D)
• Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive “Bull Moose”)
• William Howard Taft (R)
• Three men differed on issues of the tariff and the handling of trusts
• Taft & Roosevelt: protective tariff
• Wilson: passage of a new tariff for revenue purposes only
• Roosevelt & Taft: stricter trust regulation known collectively as the New Nationalism
• Wilson: elimination of business monopoly as an inherent evil
• Democratic party won overwhelmingly due to the split in the Republican party
• as a result of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy, and more tensions
• The Underwood Tariff (1913): provided for the first substantial lowering of duties in over half a century; re-imposed the federal income tax and lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25%
• Panic of 1907:
• demonstrated the inelasticity of the monetary system and inflexibility of the credit structure in the US
• The Federal Reserve Act (1913): created a flexible credit structure so that funds could be transferred promptly from one section of the nation to another and instituted an elastic currency system so that the supply of money could be expanded and contracted.
• established the Federal Reserve System
• The Federal Trade Commission Act (1914): established a five-member bipartisan commission to prevent interstate businesses from using unfair methods of competition
• The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914): sought to exempt labor and agricultural organizations from antitrust prosecution, while explicitly legalizing strikes and peaceful picketing; it was a much needed improvement from Sherman’s Antitrust Act in 1890
• Aid to Labor:
• La Follette Seamen’s Act: required high standards of safety and sanitation and regulated the hours, food, and payment of wages to sailors
• The Adamson Act (1916): established the eight-hour workday
• Eighteenth Amendment (1919): Prohibition of alcoholic beverages; passed after WWI

Foreign Policies

Theodore Roosevelt

• Big Stick Diplomacy
• “Speak softly and carry a big stick”
• Roosevelt ordered a warship to Panama to maintain the free and uninterrupted right of way across the isthmus
• Negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty with Panama, granting the US the perpetual control of a canal zone in Panama 10 miles wide
• The Monroe Doctrine was reinterpreted to justify the intervention of the United States in the domestic and foreign affairs of Latin America
• Roosevelt Corollary: the United States will intervene in conflicts between European Nations and Latin American countries to enforce legitimate claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly (Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua)

William Howard Taft

• Dollar Diplomacy
• relied on business and financial pursuits to increase American participation and influence abroad

Woodrow Wilson

• Anti-imperialism
• rejected both military intervention in the affairs of weak countries and the use of diplomatic relations to foster American economic enterprise overseas
• changed policies after American interference in World War I

Society and Culture in the Progressive Era

• Tremendous industrial expansion after the Civil War produced a mass society with new needs and values
• US emerged as an empire-rich global power
• “Modern” mass society
• struggle of blacks for equality
• employment of women
• tremendous growth of cities
• arrival and assimilation of a large number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe
• new philosophy of education
• testing of the old religious beliefs
• influence of new advances in technology and medicine
• Important people:
• Booker T. Washington: advocated that blacks strive for economic equality with whites through vocational training
• W.E.B. Du Bois: “talented tenth” should study academic subjects in order to prepare for professional careers
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):
• founded in 1909; devoted to combating lynchings
• An increasing number of women in the work force
• Discrimination against “New Immigrants”
• difficult to assimilate into American culture but enriched the language with expressive words and phrases and embellished the diet with ethnic foods
• “Gentlemen’s Agreement”: administered under Roosevelt; Japan promised to deny passports to Japanese laborers seeking to emigrate to the US while the US agreed not to prohibit Japanese immigration completely
• Reformers:
• Joseph Pulitzer (New York World)
• Jane Addams (Hull House for the poor in Chicago)
• Carry Nation (smasher of saloon property)
• John Dewey: Teachers should be knowledgeable and sympathetic guides to classroom activities; established a new direction for elementary schools
• Ford’s Model T (1908):
• 1914 Ford introduced the assembly line
• The Radio:
• built by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901
• The Airplane:
• 1903 first human flight by Wilbur and Orville Wright in North Carolina
• Art = realism
• Architecture = revival of Renaissance style
• Literature = realism and naturalism
• Motion pictures = The Great Train Robbery (1903); nickelodeons and celebrities

Word War I (1914-1917)

Events Leading up to:

• Unrestricted submarine warfare (Sinking of the Lusitania – 1915)

- The British liner Lusitania was torpedoed in May 1915. 128 American lives were lost. Wilson insisted that Germany stop its attacks on unarmed vessels and recognize the U.S. neutrality in the war.

• Zimmermann Note (1917)

- British intelligence intercepted a note written by German secretary of foreign affairs, Arthur Zimmermann. The note suggested that if a war between the U.S. and Germany ensued, Germany would be able to recover Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and give them back to Mexico.

• The Sussex Affair (1916)

- In March of 1916, the French passenger steamer Sussex, was torpedoed by German forces. Two Americans lost their lives. This event caused Wilson to send an ultimatum to Germany: to end unrestricted submarine warfare or risk losing all diplomatic relations with the U.S.

• National Security League, the American Defense Society, and the American Rights committee.

- Many organizations and leaders began to campaign for greater military readiness. Public opinion on military preparedness was mixed as some groups encouraged more armaments while others wanted neutrality and peace.

• National Defense Act (1916)

- Expanded the national army from 223,000 men to 450,000 men.

• Army Appropriation Act

- Established the Council of National Defense to create plans for the use of national resources in case of a war.

• Election of 1916

- Woodrow Wilson (D)

- Charles Evans Hughes (R)

• Hughes was unable to take a firm stand on American foreign policy and was

portrayed as the “Sphinx” by cartoonists. The democrats proudly proclaimed “He kept us out of the war” and suggested that voting for Hughes would mean definite war. Wilson won most of the South and beat Hughes 277 to 254 electoral votes.

The Wartime Policies:

• Committee on Public Information
• Also called the Creel Committee as it was directed by George Creel. The group displayed the U.S. government position on certain aspects of the war.
• Used every medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and enlist public support against foreign attempts to undercut America’s war goals

• Espionage Act (1917)
• The act imposed heavy penalties for spying, sabotage, and obstructing the draft.

• Sedition Act (1918)
• set of amendments to the Espionage Act that forbade the use of disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the US government; restricted freedom of speech during wartime

• War Industries Board
• Organization that served to increase the production of the U.S. and eliminate waste. It aided in the conversion of peacetime facilities to wartime factories.

• Wilson’s fourteen points
• Major point was the introduction of the League of Nations which would provide an international committee to ensure peace and allowed for “mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike”

• War Labor Board
• Federal agency created in April 1918 by Woodrow Wilson Its purpose was to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers in order to ensure labor reliability and productivity during the war.

Treaty of Versailles(1919):

• Ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers and required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay heavy reparations, as stipulated in Article 231 (war guilt)

• Lodge Reservations: Fourteen reservations that included the ability for the U.S. to leave the League of Nations and that mandates from the League could only be enacted if approved by the U.S. Congress. President Wilson fiercely opposed the reservations and urged supporters to vote against the treaty.
• The Senate voted on the Treaty on November 19, 1919 and the treaty was shot down due to Wilson’s supporters who rejected the Lodge Reservations.

The 1920’s: Return to Normalcy

• Election of 1920:
• The issue was American entry into the League of Nations
• The fiirst election in which women were able to vote
• James M. Cox (D)
• Warren G. Harding “Dark Horse Candidate” (R)
• Harding’s great victory signified the public’s disapproval of the Wilson administration and their desire to have power transferred to the Republican party
• Cabinet
• “best minds”; placed great confidence in his personal friends and political associates but some betrayed that trust (Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall and Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty)
• Andrew Mellon (Secretary of the Treasury)
• Called for a budgetary reform and a decrease in tax rates both on corporations and on individuals in the higher personal income brackets
• surplus revenue was used for the steady reduction of the national debt
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922)
• Reversed the low rates of the Underwood Tariff; restored the duty levels of the Taft administration’s Payne-Aldrich Tariff
• Farmers would blame it for the agricultural depression
• Teapot Dome (1923-1929)
• Secretary of the Interior, Albert B.Fall, Secretary of the Navy,Edwin Denby, and Harry F. Sinclair were accused of being involved in a bribery scandal and Fall was sentenced to a year in prison and $100,000. This was the first cabinet to go to jail for dishonoring his office.
• Death
• Harding suddenly died of a stroke on August 2, 1923 and VP Calvin Coolidge was thrust into the presidency.
• Election of 1924:
• Calvin Coolidge (R)
• John W. Davis (D)
• Robert M. La Follette (Progressive)
• Landslide victory for Coolidge - big advantage to the Republicans were the prosperous times
• Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928):
• Declared that all signatories renounced war as an instrument of national policy and agreed to settle all disputes among themselves by peaceful means
• Proved ineffective because of the lack of enforcement
• Election of 1928:
• Herbert Hoover (R)
• Al Smith (D)
• Hoover enjoyed a landslide victory, winning the electoral votes of 40 states, because the American people were in no mood to break the great prosperity induced by Republican rule.
• Domestic Issues:
• Farmers
• The mechanization of agriculture lead to the decline of agricultural prices in the market
• Prosperous years were few
• The Agricultural Marketing Act (1929): created a Federal Farm Board authorized to extend low-interest loans to agricultural cooperatives; attempted to prevent low farm prices from falling to ruinous levels through the storage of surplus crops
• Tariffs
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930): highest rates in the nation’s history
• 33 foreign countries retaliated against the high rates by increasing their rates on American products
• Business
• Boom years included
• Decline in manufacturing costs
• Increased number of stockholders
• Proliferation of chain stores
• Extension of credit to customers
• Significant increase of wages in most industries
• Signs of danger
• Agricultural profits lagged far behind industrial profits
• Wages of factory workers were increasing but not nearly so rapidly as the prices of manufactured goods
• Factories and farms were producing more than American and foreign customers could buy, while the high tariff was curtailing overseas market
• Consumers were buying an increasing amount of goods on installment
• Large portion of the annual national income was being invested in highly speculative manufacturing, mining, and transportation enterprises
• Stock Market Crash
• October 24, 1929 (Black Thursday): 13 million shares were traded
• October 29,1929 (Black Tuesday): 16 million shares were sold; worst day in history of New York stock market
• Collapse of the New York Stock Exchange was the prelude to economic disaster
• Foreign Policy
• Feeling of political isolationism and economic nationalism was exceedingly strong
• Participated in League of Nations international conferences
• Dawes Plan (1924): this cycle of money from U.S. loans to Germany, which made reparations to other European nations, who paid off their debts to the United States, locked the western world's economy into that of the U.S
• Anti-War Movement
• Washington Conference (November 1921 to February 1922): US, Great Britain, France, and Japan would respect one another’s possessions in the Pacific and confer in the event that any issue threatened to disrupt harmonious relations in the area
• Political independence and territorial integrity of China and reaffirmed support of the open-door policy
• Japanese aggression on Machuria
• The Stimson Doctrine: the US would not recognize any agreement that impaired the political independence or territorial integrity of China or that adversely affect the open-door policy
• Latin America
• Clark Memorandum: clarified the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1928
• declared that the US would not again claim the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a Latin American country
• repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

The Roaring Twenties

• Blacks showed newfound dignity; women enjoyed increased independence
• Strict conservation policies greatly limited use for liquor production and gave impetus to the success of the long drive for prohibition
• Fads:
• Crossword puzzles, mah-jongg, bell-bottomed trousers, long raccoon coats; “the bee’s knees”, “the cat’s meow”, “flapper”, and “speakeasy”
• Blacks:
• Migrated to the North for work during the War
• Blacks in the North enjoyed political rights such as voting and running for office but was still economically and socially discriminated
• Universal Negro Improvement Association: founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914; espoused worldwide black unity and emphasized the worth and glory of African civilization
• dismissed efforts to achieve integration and advocated a back-to-Africa program
• Women:
• Voted in large numbers in the presidential election of 1920
• New opportunities in employment (writers, editors, realty agents)
• Introduction and developing general use of electrical housekeeping appliances
• Rapid increase in commercial bakeries eliminated necessity to make own pastries
• Immigration
• The Literacy Test Act (1917): passed over Wilson’s veto, required immigrants to be able to read and write a language, whether English or another
• The Emergency Quota Act of 1921: limited immigration from Europe in any one year to 3% of the number of each nationality resident in the US according to the 1910 census
• The Quota Act of 1924: limited immigration from Europe in any one year to 2% of the number of each nationality resident in the US according to the census of 1890; drastically reduced the quotas of immigrants coming from eastern and southern Europe; totally prohibited immigration from Asia
• The National Origins Plan: total number of immigrants from outside the Western Hemisphere was restricted to appx. 150,000 annually; each country was given a quota based on the proportion that the number of persons of that “national origin” residing in the US bore to the total American population in 1920
• Labor Movement
• Decline in moderate unionism, such as the American Federation of Labor
• Activities of the radical wing of American labor were curbed by the anticommunist campaign of the federal and state governments during the post-WWI period
• Prohibition
• The Eighteenth Amendment (1919): prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol
• The Volstead Act (1919): passed over Wilson’s veto, provided the machinery for implementing the Eighteenth Amendment
• Extensive smuggling of liquor and bootlegging gangs like those of Al Capone and Dion O’Banion arose
• The Twenty-First Amendment (1933): repealed the Eighteenth Amendment
• Antiradicalism
• The “Red Scare”
• Stemmed from the success of the 1917 communist revolution in Russia
• In the fall of 1919 Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer authorized raids on both acknowledged and alleged communists, arresting more than 4000 people, many of of whom were held in violation of their constitutional rights
• The raids ended in spring of 1920
• Sacco-Vanzetti Case
• In 1920 the two Italian men were found guilty of murdering a paymaster and a guard in the course of a robbery despite inconclusive evidence; they were both executed in 1927
• forced large numbers of Americans to reappraise their fears of radical views and those who held them
• Ku Klux Klan
• Founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1915 by William Joseph Simmons; took firm root in Deep South
• Drew membership from villages and small towns unaffected by immigration, industrialization, and liberal thought of modern America
• Anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and antiforeigner sentiments added in the 1920s
• Became a force in the presidential races of 1924 and 1928
• At the height of its activity in the mid-1920’s, membership reached 4 million
• Religion
• The Scopes Trial (1925)
• Liberals v. Conservatives
• William Jennings Bryan urged state legislatures to prohibit teaching theory of evolution in public schools
• John T. Scopes, a young teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was indicted in a test case for presenting the evolutionary theory to his high-school biology class
• Scopes was found guilty of violating the state law and fine $100 that was never actually paid
• Significance
• Weaknesses of fundamentalist beliefs in opposition to modern science were exposed and the fundamentalist cause steadily declined
• Technology
• Automobile
• General Motors Corporation, Ford, and Chrysler Corporation dominated American automobile manufacturing
• Gave people true mobility, standardizes customs and manners, bringing rural and urban areas closer together
• Created the industry of tourism and stimulated growth of steel and rubber industries
• Promote construction of paved roads
• Airplane
• Charles A. Lindbergh made a 33-and-a-half-hour solo flight across the Atlantic in his airplane The Spirit of St. Louis on May 20,1927
• Impelled Americans to focus on the vast possibilities of aviation, propelling the US into the air age
• Medicine
• Psychoanalysis
• Viennese physician Sigmund Freud’s theories maintained that mental illness originated in the repression of sexuality and focused on investigating the subconscious
• Dream analysis and free association
• Significance
• Sex became a respectable topic for consideration

Culture

• Art
• Transition of photography into an art form
• Commanding figure was Alfred Stieglitz (portraits of wife Georgia O’Keefe, views of Manhattan, studies of clouds)
• Literature (Realism and the Lost Generation)
• Sinclair Lewis
• Main Street (1920); Babbit (1922)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• This Side of Paradise (1920); The Great Gatsby (1925)
• Ernest Hemingway
• The Sun Also Rises (1926); A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• Theodore Dreiser
• An American Tragedy (1925)
• a man’s ruinous quest for wealth and social position
• Ezra Pound
• Cantos (1925), group of over 100 poems
• T.S. Eliot
• “The Wasteland” (1922)
• Pound and Eliot’s styles became standards for other poets, using intricate language and abstruse references
• decisive break with the content and form of the nineteenth-century poetry
• Eugene O’Neill
• Influential playwright who experimented with realism and naturalism to characterize American drama
• Harlem Renaissance
• Flourishing of culture among black Americans, predominantly in New York City
• Writers: James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes
• Newspapers and magazines catered to special-interest readership; used photographs and illustrations
• Music made contributions of musical comedy and jazz
• Writers: Vincent Youmans, Jerome Kern, and George Gershwin
• Jazz aka ragtime: characterized by syncopated rhythm and contrapuntal ensemble playing, the interspersing of vocal renditions with instrumental performance, and improvisation of the players
• black composers and performers dominated
• Scott Joplin (ragtime pianist); W.C. Hangy (blues composer)
• Bessie Smith, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Leon Bismarck “Bix” Beiderbecke
• Motion pictures
• Hollywood developed into the movie center of the world
• Talkies revolutionized the film industry: The Jazz Singer (1927) was the real breakthrough
• combined sound with film
• Radio
• Presidential election returns in 1920 was the first major public event to be broadcast
• 1926 National Broadcasting Company was established
• Millions of listeners tuned in to the same programs
• greater uniformity in customs and manners than ever before
• Sports
• Baseball
• “golden age”: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby
• Boxing
• “golden age” as well: William Harrison “Jack” Dempsey became one of the most celebrated heavyweight boxing champions
• Football
• American Professional Football Association (later National Football League in 1922) was established in the early 1920’s
• Golf
• increasing popularity of golf transformed the once highly exclusive country club into a relatively common