Heimler's History - AP U.S. History Unit 7: 1920s Culture and Politics

Urbanization and Demographic Shifts

By 1920, over half of Americans lived in cities.
Urbanization created new opportunities for women, immigrants, and internal migrants.

Traditional roles: Expected to manage households and have children.
Urban opportunities: Expanded workforce participation, notably in nursing and teaching.
Women in factories earned less than men.
Flappers: Symbol of liberation, challenged norms by cutting hair short, smoking, drinking, showing ankles.

Post-WWI: Surge in immigrants from Southern/Eastern Europe and Asia.
Nativist backlash: Protecting rights of native-born citizens (especially WASPs).
Concerns: Job competition, racial purity.
Legislation:
- Emergency Quota Act of 1921: Limited immigration to 3% based on 1910 census.
- National Origins Act of 1924: Further restricted immigration.

Southern Black population moved North and Midwest.
Significant settlement in Harlem, New York.
Harlem Renaissance:
- Cultural revival in arts and intellect.
- Jazz: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington.
- Literature: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay.

Urban Protestants:
- Modernists.
- Embraced changing culture, gender roles, evolution.
Rural Protestants:
- Fundamentalists.
- Literal interpretation of the Bible, opposed modern culture.
Scopes Monkey Trial (1925):
- Tennessee law against teaching evolution.
- John Scopes, a teacher, arrested for teaching Darwin.
- Media sensation; clash of modernism vs. fundamentalism.
- Clarence Darrow defended Scopes; William Jennings Bryan prosecuted.
- Outcome: Scopes convicted but later overturned; viewed as modernism's victory.