Roaring Twenties and Roosevelts New Deal Essay Example for Free

Roaring Twenties and Roosevelts New Deal Essay The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The Roaring Twenties is a term sometimes used to refer to the 1920s, characterizing the decades distinctive cultural edge in America, Berlin, Paris, London and many other major cities during a period of sustained economic prosperity. Normalcy returned to politics in the wake of the-emotional patriotism during World War I, jazz music blossomed, and the flapper redefined modern womanhood. The nation’s total wealth doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar â€Å"consumer society.† Economically, the era saw the large-scale diffusion and use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, and electricity, unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home team and filled the new cinemas and stadiums. In many major countries women were given the right to vote for the first time. Finally the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression set in worldwide, bringing years of worldwide hardship. Another cultural controcersey of the 1920’s was a conflict over the ploace of religion in contemporary society. Fundamentalists insited the Bible was to be interpreted literally. They really opposed the teachings of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution had openly challenged the biblical story of the Creation. In March 1925, the legislature adoped a measure making it illegal for any public school teacher â€Å"to teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.† The Tennessee law caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, founded in 1917 to defend pacifists, radicals, and conscientious objectors during World War I. The ACLU decided to offer free counsel to any Tennessee educator willing to defy the law and become the defendant in a test case. A twenty four year old biology teacher named John Scopes agreed to take part in this case test. The ACLU decided to send Clarence Darrow to defend scopes and because of this William Jennings Bryan announced that he would travel to Dayton to assist the prosecution. Of course, Scopes clearly and deliberately broke the law so the verdict was guilty. Scope was fined a hundred dollars and the case was dismissed in a higher court due to a technicality. However, this has made a great influence in todays society with religion in schools. In 1921, Congress passed an emergency immigration act, establighing a quota system by which annual immigration from any country could not exceed three percent of the number of persons of that nationality who had veen in the Enited States in 1910. The new law cut immigration from eight hundred thousand to three hundred thousand in a year, but the nativists remained unsatisfied. Five years later, a further restriction set a rigid limit of a hundred and fifty thousand immigrants a year. In reality, however, only about half that actually permitted into the country. This was a major cause of the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. At first the new Klan was largely concerned with intimidating blacks. After World War I, however, Catholics, Jews, and foreigners became top priority. Most Klan units tried to present their members as patriots and defenders of morality, and some did nothing more menacing than stage occasional parades and rallies. However, the Klan was often times very violent towards blacks, Jews, Catholics, and foreigners. They would publicly whip, tar and feather, set fire to, and lynch their victims. What the Klan really feared was anyone who posed a challenge to traditional values. College educated women were no longer pioneers in the 1920’s. There were now two and even three generations of graduates of women’s or coeducational colleges and universities. However, most employed women were still nonprofessional, lower class workers. Middle class women still chose to largely remain at home. Yet the 1920’s constituted a new era for middle class women. In particular, the decade saw a redefinition of motherhood. Women now openly considered their sexual relationships with their husbands not as just a mean to procreate but as an important and pleasurable experience. One result was growing interest in birth control. Margaret Sanger, began her career as a promoter of the diaphragm and other birthcontrol devices out of concern for middle class women. She believed large familes were the major cause of poverty and distress in poor communites. This was also the time the â€Å"flapper† emerged and many women gave up their Victorian â€Å"respectability†. They could smoke, drink, dance, wear seductive clothes and makeup, and attended lively parties. At night, such women flocked to clubs and dance halls in search of excitement and companionship. Despite all the changes, most women remained highly dependent on men and relatively powerless when men exploited that dependence. In January 1920, when prohibition of the sale and manufacture of alcohol went into effect, it had the support of the middle class, which constisted mostly of women, and progressives. After a year, however, it was clear that the new law was not working very well. Just because alcohol was now illegal doesn’t mean that people stopped drinking it. Speakeasies became very popular along with organized crime. Al Capone was an American gangster who led a prohibition era crime group. The â€Å"Capones,† was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago. Before long, it was almost as easy to get illegal alcohol in many parts of the country as it had once been to get legally. The eighteenth amendment was finally repealed soon after the beginning of the Great Depression. During Franklin Roosevelts twelve years in office, he became more central to the life of the nation that any president had ever been. More importantly, his administration constructed a series of programs that fundamentally altered the federal government and its relationship to society. By the end of the 1930’s, the New Deal had not ended the Great Depression. It caused relief but did not cause recovery, that only happened at the start of WWII because like WWI they needed primary products, such as coal and iron, to build weapons for war, which in turn created many jobs. I don’t think I would of done things too much different than Roosevelt. I think he did all he could at the time but a stock market crash like this just takes time to recover. So in reality WWII is what ended the Depression and only because it created jobs which stimulated the economy.