How far did Us society Change in the 1920s

• Example of tolerance


  • Jobs were given in Ford factories
  • Visa applications were amendable
• Black Americans

  • Discrimination - black Americans moved north to work in the lowest-paid sector. In factories where production increased
  • Segregation - black people were segregated into slum areas such as Harlem in New York. This shows how the people were differentiated due to their colour and the height of intolerance in the 1920s
• Sharecropper

  Gives a part of his crops to the landowner in return for land to farm
• Jim Crow Laws

  Enforce the segregation of black people
• Most black Americans lived in poverty and had a permanent fear of lynch mobs (hanging publicly)
• Native Americans - Red Indians

  • Living in reservation - the republic govt made Native Americans stay in reservations. The growing land was poor, and many Native Americans suffered from poverty, poor education, and ill health. Not suitable for farming and could not prosper
• There was fear of recent immigrants bringing communist and anarchist ideas from Eastern Europe, especially Russia
• When a series of strikes broke out in 1919, it confirmed the fears
• A series of bomb blasts in 1919 suggested a conspiracy against the state. One blast damaged the home of the Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer
• Strikers were faced with lock-outs. Suspected anarchists and communists were arrested, and many deported
• WASPS

  White Anglo-Saxon, Protestant community. They were fundamentalists. Doesn't accept any religions besides theirs and isn't tolerated. They follow religion literally. Their ideas clash with the Constitution
• Blacks, Jews, and Catholics were considered inferior to the WASPs
• John Scopes

  Biology teacher in Tennessee, the law stated that the evolution of man should not be studied in school, but he went against this and taught about Charles Daven's evolution theory of man. His trial was known as the Monkey Trial. Defended by Clarence Darrow. Fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan led the prosecution. The scope trial was the first ever broadcast on the radio
• Anglo–Saxon race

  Considered superior
• Eugenics

  The theory of eugenics was the belief that the human race could be improved by breeding
• Light-skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed people were superior
• The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)


  • Their hatred went wider than just black people; this included Catholics, Jews, foreigners, liberals, and homosexuals
  • Set up in 1864, felt foreigners were spoiling the culture; after the 1920s
  • 5 million people became members of the Klan, including many politicians and government officials
  • The most extreme prosecutions were hanged people, mutilating people, and lynching
  • In 1925 - the membership of the Klan declined due to one of the Klan leaders being convicted of rape and murder of a woman on a train
• Emergency Quota Act (1921)


  357,000 immigrants
• National Origins Act (1924)

  150,000 immigrants. Immigrants from China and Japan were barred entirely
• Sacco and Vanzetti

  Italian–Americans that had been arrested in 1927 for armed robbery and suspicion of murder in Massachusetts. They were self-centred anarchists
• This led to an international protest to prevent their execution
• Prohibition was a period of time in the USA HISTORY between 1920 and 1933 when alcohol was banned
• The eighteenth amendment (the law that was changed due to the current situation) in the USA's constitution made it illegal to manufacture, sell and transport alcohol in the USA

  16th January 1918
• Over half of states in the USA had some ban on alcohol, with 13 being completely dry
• Valstead Act

  In 1919, this act outlined what prohibition meant and what the punishments were for breaking the law
• Drinks with over 0.5 per cent alcohol were banned
• Aim

  Also known as "the noble experiment" was to stop the trade in alcohol
• Social and Political Reasons for Prohibition

  • Temperance groups
  • Anti-saloon League (ASL)
  • Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) Religious groups
  • Methodists
  • Baptists
• Liquor was responsible for

  • Crime and violence
  • Breakup of families, men waste wages on drinks and abuse wives and kids
  • Affects people's health
  • Seen against God's will
• Fundamentalist preacher - Billy Sunday

  Persuaded conservatives alcohol was evil
• Economic Reasons for Prohibition

  • Industrialists - Henry Ford supported Prohibition as he felt alcohol reduced the efficiency of workers
  • Difference between Brewer and Distiller - brewers say beer is healthy
  • No unity between brewers and distillers, hence no united front by the liquor industry against Prohibition
  • Patriotism - big liquor manufacturers, for example, Budweiser, were seen as unpatriotic to consume it (patriotic reason)
  • Anti-immigrant feelings - Americans disapproved of immigrants due to their drinking in their communities, such as Irish, German, and eastern European areas. Link this to anti-immigrant hate
  • Political considerations - politicians who drank in private supported Prohibition in public to not lose votes in the election
  • Financial considerations of the government - money from the new tax on people's incomes would make up for the loss of money from the tax on alcohol
• "dries"

  These are the people who supported Prohibition. Alcohol did severe damage to family life
• "wets"

  These are the people who disliked Prohibition. Drinking was a popular pastime and a major part of communities' culture and I thought the govt shouldn't interfere
• The manufacturing of alcohol was an important source of employment and also helped farmers because it used up their surplus grains
• Impact of Prohibition

  • Illegal activities came into being. Illegally manufactured moonshines in places known as speakeasies (a bar that sold alcoholic beverages illegally during prohibition)
  • Soon, there were more speakeasies than normal bars. In 1929, New York had 32,000
  • Illegal bootleggers (deal in illicit goods), moonshiners (brew alcohol illegally), and rum runners (smuggle or transport alcohol illegally)
  • Alcohol-related deaths increased from 98 in 1920 to 760 in 1926. Homemade moonshine caused death - too strong or contaminated. Industrial alcohol had poison added to it to discourage people from drinking, but people stole and resold for drinking
  • People switched from beer to more potent spirits
  • Increase in corruption - bribing of police, judges and politicians were common
  • Prohibition reduced respect for the law
  • Between 1926 and 1927, 130 gangland murders in Chicago were linked to al Capone
  • Organized crime, for example, the mafia, has expanded
  • Split the democratic party. The "dry" is from the rural south and west, and the "wet" is from the urban north and east
  • Boosted spending on other items such as guns and cars
• Reasons why Prohibition Failed

  • It was impossible to enforce the Valstead Act
  • Lack of public support - many people were "wets", and it was impossible to persuade them to change their habits. Non-WASPS resented the government interfering with their freedoms
  • Alcohol was readily available. Supplied by bootleggers, moonshiners, and rum runners. There were around 30,000 speakeasies in New York by 1929. 280,000 illegal stills were seized
  • The enforcement of prohibition by government officials was very ineffective. Patrolling thousands of miles of us borders with Canada and Mexico, both major routes for smuggling liquor, was impossible. Blocking 29,000 km of the coastline was also very difficult. Rum continued to come from the West Indies; rum runner'' boats were faster than those used by the government
  • The Prohibition Bureau appointed 2,300 special Prohibition agents, but they were too few in numbers and were low on salaries ($2,500 per year), which meant they were prone to corruption
  • One in twelve agents was sacked for taking bribes
  • Judges and politicians also often took bribes. Only Elliot Ness and his Untouchables were a group of US federal agents assigned to bring bootlegging to an end and were above corruption
• Crime, Violence and Corruption

  • Organized crime - Mafia families took advantage of Prohibition to make fortunes. They fought each other for control of cities
  • Al Capone - The most notorious gangster was Al "Scarface" Capone. Ran massive bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling rackets in Chicago in the late 1920s. Dominated a range of ethnic gangs, Italians, Irish, Jews, and black Americans. Controlled city officials like judges through bribery or intimidation. Most notorious events. The "St Valentine's Day massacre" in 1920 when he ordered the murder of seven of his main rivals. "The Last Supper" in 1929, when he personally battered three Sicilians with a baseball bat
  • Corruption in government - Warren Harding gained a reputation for giving important and influential posts to his political friends and members of his cabinet. Members of this "Ohio gang" were in positions of power. At the beginning of 1924, soon after Harding's death, congress began investigating reports of corruption and bribery during Harding's administration
• The twenty-first amendment to the constitution in 1933 ended Prohibition. In the future, laws on alcohol were to be stated, not federal
• Reasons for ending Prohibition (financial and practical)


  • The National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, also known as the Wickersham Commission, set by President Hoover, said Prohibition was unenforceable
  • Unregulated production of alcohol was leading to too many deaths
  • Pressure groups, such as the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform, campaigned vigorously to end
  • Prohibition had an increase in crime rate, not a decrease
  • The cost of enforcement was very high (13.4 million)
  • Government income from taxes on alcohol had decreased by 11 billion
  • Rising unemployment in the late 1920s meant jobs were needed, and the alcohol industry could provide them
  • Influential industrialists such as JD Rockefeller Junior wanted Prohibition to end
• Women before the World War

  • Tradition women – WASPS believed the more kids, the more religious u are
  • Most women couldn't vote, and any paid work was limited to occupations such as domestic service, secretarial work, and teaching
  • Restrictive dresses - corsets and full-length skirts along with dresses with tight waists
  • Controlled public behaviour - modest, polite, and discrete. No drinking or smoking, and if unmarried, no male company without a chaperone