Heimler's History: The 1920s Culture and Politics

Urbanization and Demographics

• By 1920, over half of Americans lived in cities.
• Shift in demographics led to new opportunities for different groups:
  • Women
  • International immigrants
  • Internal migrants

Opportunities for Women

• Urban centers offered more workforce opportunities:
  • Jobs in nursing and teaching
  • Unskilled labor in factories with lower wages than men
• Some women, known as "flappers," challenged social conventions:
  • Short hair, smoking, drinking, publicly showing ankles
  • Symbol of women's liberation in the 1920s

Immigration and Nativism

• Post-WWI, large influx of immigrants from Southern/Eastern Europe and Asia.
• Resulted in nativist backlash, similar to previous immigration waves:
  • Fears of job loss to immigrants willing to work for lower wages
  • Concerns about racial "pollution"
• Legislation as a result of nativist sentiment:
  • Emergency Quota Act of 1921: Limited immigration to 3% of the population by 1910 census
  • National Origins Act of 1924: Further restricted immigration

Internal Migrations: The Great Migration

• Part of the Exodusters movement
• Southern Black population moved North and Midwest
• Significant settlement in Harlem, New York, leading to the Harlem Renaissance:
  • Revival of Black arts and intellectual pursuits
  • Birth of jazz with musicians like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington
  • Writers like Langston Hughes and Claude McKay highlighting the Black experience

The Lost Generation

• Writers concerned with materialism and WWI's wastage:
  • Notable figures: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway

Cultural Divisions: Urban vs. Rural Protestants

• Urban Protestants:
  • Modernists embracing changing culture and evolutionary theory
• Rural Protestants:
  • Fundamentalists against urban moral degradation
  • Believed in literal interpretation of the Bible, particularly Genesis creation
• Scopes Monkey Trial (1925):
  • John Scopes taught Darwin's evolution theory, leading to arrest
  • Media-focused trial between Clarence Darrow (defense) and William Jennings Bryan (prosecution)
  • Outcome: Scopes convicted but conviction overturned on a technicality
  • Symbolized modernism's triumph over fundamentalism in public perception

Conclusion

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