THE 1920s

I. Prohibition Law:

                     A. 18^th Amendment

(prohibiting manufacture, sale, transport)

                     B. Volstead Act

(making the 18^th a “bone dry” amendment)

                     C. "Five and Ten Law"

(1929, 5 year, $10,000 penalty)

III. Prohibition Failure:

Why Not More of a Success?

A. Minimal Enforcement:

B. Unrealistic Expectations:

C. Corruption:

D. Policy without Authority:

III. Repeal:

A. 21^st Amendment (Dec. 5, 1933)

         B. The Constitution and Federal Intervention

IV. Progress and Decline in the 1920s:

A.   20s as Decade of Cultural/Economic Flowering:

1.     Consumerism:

                    

                     Edward Bernays=father of modern pr

2.     Movies:

Warner Bros. Pictures inc. in 1923

MGM formed in 1924

Fox Film Corporation founded in 1912

         (became 20^th Century Fox in 1935)

United Artists, formed in 1919

(by stars Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Charlie Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith)

3.      Harlem Renaissance

4.     “Lost Generation”

5.     The “New Woman”

B.      1920s as a Decade of Ignorance,

Cultural Decay

1.     Influenza

--killed 25 million worldwide

(700,000 in U.S.)

Historian Alfred Crosby:

The virus “killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.”

2.     World Economic Chaos:

Ø  England=industrial problems: General Strike of 1926

         --2 million unemployed by 1930

         --3 million unemp. in 1933

Ø  Depression

         One billion per year in reparations

Hyperinflation in Germany:

                    

1 dollar=9000 marks (Jan. of 1923)

1 dollar=4.2 trillion marks

(Nov. of 1923)

                    

--one loaf of bread=580 billion marks

3.     Urban Racial Unrest: Chicago, 1919

…48 recorded lynchings in 1917

…78 recorded lynchings in 1919

4.     Nativism:

a.     National Origins Act of 1924

b.     Sacco and Vanzetti

5.     The KKK

6.     Scopes Monkey Trial

VII. Significance: