US History/Contents/Roaring Twenties and Prohibition
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[edit] Automobile
In the 1920s, the United States automobile industry began an extraordinary period of growth. Henry Ford increased the use of the assembly line in manufacturing, thus reducing the time taken to manufacture each product. Also, assembly lines reduced the costs of manufacturing. Average citizens were able to purchase cars, unlike earlier.
Due to this increase in the production of cars, industries that produced products utilized in cars also grew; petroleum, steel, and glass companies earned more profits. Also, the states began to build roads and highways in rural areas. Gasoline stations were put up, further increasing the growth of the petroleum industry. In addition, automobile dealers introduced the installment plan, that idea spread to other parts of business. Thus, the automobile industry's growth had repercussions throughout the nation.
[edit] Radio
Radio broadcasting became feasible with the increasing electrification of the United States and the development of better circuitry. The first broadcasting station in the world was KDKA, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1920; other stations started in every state, and in 1924, the first U.S. radio network, the National Broadcasting Company, began operations between New York and Boston. In 1927, the Columbia Broadcasting System began to broadcast.
[edit] Movies
The U.S. movie industry began to locate in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the 1920s, and movies also grew into a popular recreation. Movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin became iconic images around the world.
The development of the automobile, radio, and the movies changed the popular culture of the United States. Programs such as Amos 'n' Andy affected the nation's habits; people stopped what they were doing twice a week to listen to the program. In the case of movies such as The Birth of a Nation, a fictionalized account of the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan membership grew as a result.
[edit] Prohibition
In 1851, the state of Maine passed a law banning the production and sale of intoxicating liquors. Twelve more states followed by 1855. During the Civil War, however, the movement to prohibit alcohol was stalled. Saloons, which focused on the sale of alcohol, sprang up across the country. However, many viewed saloons as immoral; by 1916, almost half the states had banned saloons. The election of that year focused on Prohibition (the banning of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors.)
The Congress that assembled in 1917 overwhelmingly passed the Eighteenth Amendment, which enacted Prohibition. By 1919, the requisite number of states had ratified the Amendment. The Amendment actually came into effect, under its own terms, one year after ratification. On January 16, 1920, the National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, came into effect which banned drinks with alcohol content above 3.2%.
Although total alcohol consumption halved, many people blatantly disregarded Prohibition. Bootleggers illegally manufactured and sold liquors at unlawful saloons called speakeasies. Gangs prospered due to profits from illegal alcohol. Some felt that Prohibition was too harsh and that it made a criminal out of the average American. Nonetheless, Prohibition remained law until 1933, when the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.
[edit] Jazz
Jazz is an American musical art form which originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. The style's West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, call-and-response, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note of ragtime.
[edit] Women and Equal Rights
Before the Nineteenth Amendment, most states only granted men the right to vote. Suffragettes - those who campaigned for a woman's right to vote - were successful in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. Encouraged women campaigned for women's rights. Several women's organizations requested an Amendment that guaranteed Equal Rights. (Congress actually proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, but it expired under its own terms in 1982 since three-fourths of the states had not ratified it.) However, after gaining suffrage, women lost most battles for equality.
Women's Suffrage in the United States in 1919, before the Nineteenth Amendment
[edit] African-Americans and the Ku Klux Klan
Southern states segregated public facilities (like buses). In half the South fewer than 10% of the blacks were allowed to vote.
The Ku Klux Klan flourished 1921-26 with a membership of millions of Protestants. Klansmen argued for a purified nation and denounced African-Americans, Catholics, and Jews, as well as bootleggers and adulterers.
[edit] Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed coup d'état that occurred between the evening of Thursday, November 8 and the early afternoon of Friday, November 9, 1923, when the Nazi party's leader Adolf Hitler, the popular World War I General Erich Ludendorff, and other leaders of the Kampfbund, unsuccessfully tried to gain power in Munich, Bavaria, and Germany. Putsch is the German word for "coup."
The attempted putsch was inspired by Mussolini's successful March on Rome. Hitler and his associates planned a march on Munich. He planned to use Munich as a base for a big march against Germany's Weimar Republic government in Berlin. But the circumstances were different from those in Italy. Once Hitler realized that von Kahr either sought to control him or was losing heart (history is unclear), Hitler decided to take matters into his own hands. Hitler, along with a large detachment of SA, marched on the Bürgerbräukeller, a Munich beer hall where von Kahr was making a speech in front of 3,000 people. The sixteen fallen were regarded as the first 'blood martyrs' of the NSDAP and were remembered by Hitler in the foreword of Mein Kampf. The Nazi flag they carried, which in the course of events was stained with blood, came to be known as the Blutfahne (blood flag) and was brought out for the swearing in of new recruits in front of the Feldherrnhalle when Hitler was in power.
Shortly after he came to power, a memorial was placed at the south side of the Feldherrnhalle crowned with a swastika. The back of the memorial read 'Und ihr habt doch gesiegt!' ("Yet victory was yours"). Behind it flowers were laid, and either policemen or the SS stood guard in between a lower plaque. Passers-by were required to give the Hitler salute. The putsch was also commemorated on three sets of stamps. Mein Kampf was dedicated to the fallen and, in the book Ich Kämpfe (given to those joining the party circa 1943), they are listed first even though the book lists hundreds of other dead. The header text in the book read "Though they are dead for their acts they will live on forever." The army had a division named the Feldherrnhalle regiment, and there was also an SA Feldherrnhalle division.
Every year (even during the war up to 1942) a commemoration, attended by Hitler, took place in Munich, the centrepiece of which was usually a recreation of the march, from the Burgerbräukeller to the south side of the Feldherrnhalle. Every Gau (administrative region of Germany) was also expected to hold a small remembrance ceremony. As material given to propagandists said, the sixteen fallen were the first losses and the ceremony was an occasion to commemorate everyone who had died for the movement.
