Important Note:

1. These notes are just for last minute reference and will help only if you revise regularly.
2. Use your text book for revision.
3. Take your own notes while revising, writing helps register better and you can get the spellings right.
4. Attempt Rigour and BA tasks sincerely.
5. Make a habit of writing in the book, and not on the ipad/laptop. This will help you practise and speed up your
writing, finally aiding you in your exams- time management. You will be able to attempt all questions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2 - 10B How far did US society change in the 1920s?

The USA in the Roaring Twenties

Focus Points
• What were the ‘Roaring Twenties’?
• How widespread was intolerance in US society?
• Why was Prohibition introduced, and then later repealed?
• How far did the role of women change during the 1920s?

What were the changes in society?

1 - ENTERTAINMENT
1. Associated with changing morals and entertainment.
2. Working hours fell, wages increased.
3. People had time and money, spent on entertainment - boom in this industry.

2 - RADIO
1. By 1930, Radio was shared among households in the districts of Chicago.
2. The choice of programmes grew quickly. Only 1 radio station in 1921. By 1922 508 radio stations were set up.

3 - JAZZ
1. Jazz music became an obsession among young people. African Americans who moved from the country to the cities
had brought Jazz and Blues music with them.
2. Blues music - African Americans; Jazz - both white and African American youth.
3. Jazz music + New dances such as the Charleston.
4. New styles of behaviour which were summed up in the image of the FLAPPER, a woman who wore short dresses and
make-up and who smoked in public.
5. The older generation saw jazz and everything associated with it as a corrupting influence on the young people of
the USA.

4 - SPORTS
1. Sport was another boom area. Baseball became a big money sport. (Baseball, Boxing)
2. Millions of Americans listened to sporting events on the radio.

5 - CINEMA
1. Hollywood - a major film industry was developing.
2. Charlie Chaplin - funny movies. Douglas Fairbanks thrilled them in daring adventure films.
3. In 1927 the first ‘talkie’ was made.

6 - MORALS
1. In the generation before the war, sex had still been a taboo subject. Now no more.
2. Scott Fitzgerald, one of a celebrated new group of young American writers said : ‘None of the mothers had any idea
how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed.’
3. The cinema quickly discovered the selling power of sex. Wildly successful films with titles like Forbidden Path and
When a Woman Sins. Clara Bow was sold as the ‘It’ girl. It meant sex, all knew.
4. Hollywood turned out dozens of films a month about ‘It’.
5. Male stars too, such as Rudolph Valentino, were presented as sex symbols.
6. The more conservative rural states were worried by the deluge of sex-obsessed films, and 36 states threatened to
introduce CENSORSHIP legislation.
 7. In the real world, contraceptive advice was openly available for the first time.
8. Actually people loved to talk about it, watch it rather than do it.

7 - THE CAR
1. They carried their owners to and from their entertainment places.
2. Cars carried boyfriends and girlfriends beyond the moral gaze of their parents and they took Americans to an
increasing range of:
- sporting events,
- beach holidays,
- shopping trips, picnics in the country,
- or simply on visits to their family and friends.

WOMEN IN THE 1920s

Before war:
1. Middle-class women in the USA, like those in Britain, were expected to lead restricted lives.
2. They had to wear very restrictive clothes and behave politely.
3. They were expected not to wear make-up.
4. Their relationships with men were strictly controlled.
5. They had to have a chaperone with them when they went out with a boyfriend.
6. They were expected not to take part in sport or to smoke in public.
7. In most states they could not vote.
8. Most women were expected to be housewives.
9. Very few paid jobs were open to women. Most working women were in lower-paid jobs such as cleaning,
dressmaking and secretarial work.

Women formed half of the population of the USA. And their lives changed after the first world war. In the 1920s, many of
these things began to change, especially for urban and middle-class women, for a range of reasons.
1. Impact of war When the USA joined the war in 1917, some women were taken into the war industries, giving them
experience of skilled factory work for the first time.
2. The vote - In 1920 they got the vote in all states.
3. The car - Through the 1920s, they shared the liberating effects of the car.
4. Housework Their domestic work was made easier (in theory) by new electrical goods such as vacuum cleaners and
washing machines.
5. Behaviour - For young urban women many of the traditional roles of behaviour were eased as well. Women wore
more daring clothes. They smoked in public and drank with men, in public. They went out with men, in cars, without
a chaperone. They kissed in public.

EMPLOYMENT
1. In urban areas more women took on jobs – particularly middle-class women.
2. Working women became the particular target of advertising.
3. Even the housewives were the ones who took decisions about whether to buy new items for the home.
4. There is evidence that women’s role in choosing cars triggered Ford, in 1925, to make them available in colours
other than black.

CHOICES
1. Films and novels also exposed women to a much wider range of role models. (daring heroines)
2. The newspaper, magazine and film industries found that sex sold much better than anything else.
3. Women were less likely to stay in unhappy marriages. Example: In 1914 there were 100,000 divorces; in 1929 there
were twice as many.

LIMITATIONS
1. It looked like everything was changing. But it was not. Why? For example - WORK. Women were still paid less than
men, even when they did the same job. One of the reasons women’s employment increased when men did not was
that women were cheaper employees.
2. In politics as well, women in no way achieved equality with men.
3. Political parties wanted women’s votes, but they didn’t particularly want women as political candidates as they
considered them ‘unelectable’.
4. Example : many women, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, had a high public standing, only a handful of women had been
elected by 1929.
HOW DID WOMEN RESPOND?
1. Unlike shown in the movies, all American women were not living passionate lives full of steamy romance.
2.

Women before WW1 Women during 1920s

Clothing/dressing Fully dressed. No make-up. Short hair (bob cut), short skirts, Make-up

Behaviour

Attitude

Employment

Priorities

Relationships

Intolerance towards immigrants

The vast majority of Americans were either immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants.
Immigrants were from:
● Jews from Eastern Europe ● Africa ● Ireland
and Russia (fleeing ● Mexico ● Austria-Hungary
persecution) ● Norway ● Balkans
● Italy ● Sweden ● West Indies
● France ● Russia ● China
● Germany ● Germany ● Japan
● Canada and Newfoundland ● Great Britain

Irish Americans, French Canadians, German Americans looked down on few European, Italian, African American and Mexican
immigrants.

The RED SCARE

1. Racist attitude made worse by increased fear of BOLSHEVISM (Communism).
2. With immigrants, Russia and Eastern Europe were bringing RADICAL (wanting great social or political change) ideas.
3. This reaction was called THE RED SCARE.
4. 1919- Disturbance, American workers went on strike, looters, thieves roamed freely, RACE riots in 25 towns.
5. Fear of communism + prejudice ( a strong unreasonable dislike) was a powerful mix.
6. Fear was justified - Anarchists published pamphlets and distributed them in America, asking for overthrow of the
Government.
7. For instance: In April 1919 A bomb planted in a church in MILWAUKEE killed 10 people.
8. Bombs were posted to many Americans. US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer was killed.
9. 60000 suspects, 19-20 - around 10,000 individuals were deported from the USA.

Video : Just for Knowledge

Capitalism-Capitalism is an economic system in which the trade and industry of the economy is owned and controlled by
private individuals, to make profit.

Communism-Communism refers to a social system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by the community
and the share of each individual relies on his ability and needs.

Source 13
Black- hand - Italian extortion group
Anarchy - people completely disobey the rules or laws.
Allegiance - support for a leader, government, belief, etc.
Source 14:
Leon Trotsky, was a Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician.

1. Purge- the act of getting rid of something unwanted, harmful, or evil.

2. Palmer used the fear of revolution and build his own political support and run for President.

Sacco and Vanzetti

1. High profile victims of Red Scare were Italian Americans - a) Nicola Sacco. b) Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
2. They were self-confessed anarchists. Anarchists hated the American system of government and believed in
destroying it by creating social disorder.
3. Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted on flimsy evidence.
4. After six years of legal appeals, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927 to a storm of protest around the world
from both radicals and moderates who saw how unjustly the trial had been conducted.

Immigration Quota:
1. In 1924 the Government introduced a quota system that ensured that the largest proportion of immigrants was from
north-west Europe (mainly British, Irish and German).
2. No Asians were allowed at all.

The experience of African Americans

1. African Americans had long been part of America’s history. Thy were brought to USA as slaves by white settlers in the
2. seventeenth century.
3. They could not vote.
4. They were denied access to good jobs and to worthwhile education, and well into the twentieth century they
suffered great poverty.

The Ku Klux Klan

1. The KU KLUX KLAN was a white supremacy movement to intimidate African Americans.
2. It glorified the Klan as defenders of decent American values against renegade (a person who leaves one political,
religious, etc. group to join another that has very different views) African Americans and corrupt white businessmen.
3. With the support of President Wilson, the Klan became a powerful political force in the early 1920s.

Video: (just for knowledge).