History- America 1910-1929

• Immigration


  Over 6 million immigrants came to America
• Why did immigrants come to America?
• 1917 Immigration Act


  Introduced literacy test as a requirement before immigrants could enter America
• Why were people worried about immigration?
• What role did the Palmer Raids play?


  Sought out everyone they could find with unusual political beliefs - 6000 suspected communists were arrested, 556 'aliens' were deported
• Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists put on trial for the murder of Allesandro Berardelli
• Religious fundamentalism


  Fundamentalists did not believe in Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, didn't like the changes
• What was the Monkey Trial?

  John Scopes, a biology teacher, was put on trial in 1925 for teaching evolution, which was broadcast on national radio and became a public argument over whether humans were descended from apes
• Native Americans did not get full voting rights, and children were sent to boarding schools
• Black Americans faced segregation through Jim Crow laws that reinforced white supremacy
• How did black people challenge the treatment?

  NAACP - Legal aid to help black people overcome segregation laws, UNIA helped send black people back to Africa
• Prohibition


  Introduced because people believed drinking alcohol was ruining American families
• Life under prohibition was difficult as most people were unprepared to give up alcohol, which was used socially
• Prohibition led to


  • Many people producing alcohol illegally, legal underground bars and clubs (speakeasies) opening, rise of gangsters like Al Capone
• The Teapot Dome Scandal involved Albert Fall secretly giving drilling rights on government oil fields
• Cinema growth


  By 1910 there were more than 6000 cinemas, by 1929 over 100 million people a week went to the cinema, the most spectacular innovation was the introduction of synchronized sound
• Music that flourished during this era

  • Jazz became popular with young middle class whites, radio also became very popular
• Speakeasy culture allowed white and black people to mingle socially for the first time
• Women's lives


  • Not allowed to play a part in politics, middle/upper class women didn't work, expected to give up jobs men did during the war
• Women gained the right to vote in 1919
• How Jazz culture affected women

  Provided new opportunities for women to break free from the norm, flappers developed new fashions and behaviours