Heimler's History: Unit 7, Culture and Politics of the 1920s

Demographic Shifts

• By 1920, more than half of Americans lived in cities.
• New opportunities emerged for women, international immigrants, and internal migrants.

Opportunities for Women

• Urban centers offered more workforce opportunities:
  • Jobs in nursing and teaching.
  • Unskilled labor in factories.
• Women in this era, known as "flappers," often:
  • Cut their hair short.
  • Smoked, drank, and showed ankles in public.
  • Symbolized women's liberation.

Immigration and Nativism

• Post-WWI saw an influx of immigrants, especially from Southern/Eastern Europe and Asia.
• Nativist backlash occurred:
  • Protection of native-born citizens' rights against immigrants.
  • Fear of job loss to lower-wage immigrant workers.
  • Concerns about racial purity.
• Key legislation:
  • Emergency Quota Act of 1921: Limited immigration to 3% of the 1910 population.
  • National Origins Act of 1924: Further restricted immigration.

Internal Migrations: The Great Migration

• Large numbers of Southern Black population migrated North/Midwest.
• Many settled in Harlem, leading to the Harlem Renaissance:
  • Birth of jazz (e.g., Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington).
  • Writers like Langston Hughes and Claude McKay expressed the Black experience.

The Lost Generation

• Group of post-WWI writers:
  • Notably, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
  • Themes of materialism and WWI's impact.

Cultural Crisis: Urban vs Rural Protestants

• Urban Protestants (Modernists):
  • Accepted changing culture, gender roles, and evolutionary theory.
• Rural Protestants (Fundamentalists):
  • Viewed cities as morally degrading.
  • Believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially Genesis 1.
  • Emphasized taking the Bible seriously, not necessarily literally.

The Scopes Monkey Trial (1925)

• Highlighted clash between modernists and fundamentalists.
• Tennessee law prohibited teaching Darwin's evolution theory.
• John Scopes taught Darwin, was arrested and tried:
  • Defended by Clarence Darrow.
  • Prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan.
• Media spotlight made the trial a national spectacle:
  • Darrow's questioning embarrassed fundamentalists.
  • Scopes convicted but overturned on technicality.
  • Perception: Modernism triumphed over fundamentalism.

Conclusion

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