Walsh Kang

Mr. Aloisi
US History II Honors
7 December 2014
Research Paper Outline
Thesis: The 1920’s was a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on one hand,
with traditional values and nostalgia on the other. The 1920’s was ultimately a period of
modernism and new attitudes because of the Harlem Renaissance, the Boston Police Strike,
and the Immigration Quota Act of 1924.

First Body: The Harlem Renaissance exemplified the spirit of modernism of the 1920’s perfectly.
● Harlem used to be a predominantly white neighborhood, but with the changes of the
1920’s, more than 200,000 blacks started to move into its apartments.
● Traditionally, there was no mix between black and white, accentuated by the Jim Crow
laws, but during the Harlem Renaissance, many whites came from the rest of New York
City to Harlem as a nighttime population enjoying nightclubs and anti-Prohibition clubs.
● For the first time, Harlem was a black-run neighborhood, free from the segregation and
discrimination of the whites.
● Unknown to the common citizen, Black literature and poetry became more and more
predominant in the US literary scene. Alain Locke, professor at Howard University,
edited Four Negro Poets, introducing Black poetry and the Harlem Renaissance to the
country.
● Unusually, there were white patrons sponsoring black poets and writers to churn out
avant-garde works. People like Charlotte Osgood Mason and Carl Van Vechten
facilitated the explosion in literature. This seems modernistic, but this is a traditionalist
principle at work. Whites are controlling blacks and inherently enslaving them and their
ideas to the wants of the white patron.
● But above all this, the Harlem Renaissance was a movement of blacks wanting to show
the voice of the New Negro, and blacks wanted to replace old stereotypes with “asservie
writing, poetry, and painting” (Streissguth 104).
Second Body: The Boston Police Strike, with its call for better hours and pay, showed that the
1920’s was a time of modernism and change.
● In 1919, the Boston police unionized and affiliated with the American Federation of
Labor, showing that the police officers wanted change and deviation from their traditional
pay and hours.
● The Boston police force used to be one of the best forces of the nation until their pay
didn’t keep up with rising living costs. The traditional pay was well below the
government-set subsistence minimum.
● The Boston Police Union went against the traditional values of Edwin U. Curtis, the
police commissioner, and the union wanted to fight against their low wages and high
hours.
● The police striked on Sept. 9 1919 protesting the firing of officers who asked for higher
wages. This strike shows that there was a modernist sentiment with the police officers
who wanted to rebel against traditional working parameters.
 ● The traditionalist struggle was that the strike failed, with Mass. governor Coolidge calling
in the National Guard and famously saying that, “‘There is no right to strike against the
public safety by any body, any time, any where’” (Neumann).
● Ultimately, the police officers showed that the 1920’s was a time of modernism because
of their sentiment to strike.
Third Body: The Immigration Quota Act of 1924 was a modernist Act because it aimed to stop
immigration, which was a traditional act for all of the history of America.
● Immigration has been happening for most of America’s history: after all, America is a
country of immigrants.
● An act stemming the flow of immigrants is stemming the flow of tradition, so the
Immigration Quota Act truly was an Act of modernism.
● This law put a cap on each country sending immigrants to the United States, aiming at
reducing the amount of southeastern Europeans in the US.
● A modernist idea that came with this act was the idea of “Nordic Superiority and decrying
the perils of ‘mongrelization’” (“Restrictive”).
● The movement to keep the white race pure was a new idea, bolstered by scientific data,
a modernist idea.
● The Quota Act also had an aspect of traditionalism in the fact that whites wanted to
retain the superiority. This was not a new idea, giving the Quota Act an air of
traditionalism.
● But in the end, the Quota Act was modernistic because it stemmed the traditional flow of
immigrants and introduced the new idea of Nordic superiority.