Topic 13 - Prosperity and Depression (1919 - 1939)

Lesson 2 - Social Change

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By 1920, the Progressive social reformers had seen their efforts bear fruit in the form of constitutional amendments. Prohibition and suffrage became the law of the land. The effects of those new laws, however, were not all positive.

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Start up

Look at the photograph of the driver. Consider social limits placed on women in earlier times. Write about what it meant that more women were learning to drive and buying cars in the 1920s.

Guiding Questions

Why was Prohibition called the “noble experiment”?
How did women’s lives change in the 1920s?
What changes did the automobile bring to American society?

Vocabulary

Academic Vocabulary

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Prohibition

For nearly a century, reform groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union had worked to ban alcoholic beverages. They finally achieved this when the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919. One year later, Prohibition, often referred to as the “noble experiment,” went into effect. Prohibition was the legal ban on the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol.

In 1920, as today, alcohol abuse was a serious problem. Many Americans hoped the ban on liquor would improve American life. In fact, the ban did have some positive effects. Alcoholism declined during Prohibition. However, in the end, the ban did not work.

Going Underground

Many Americans found ways to get around the law. Some made their own alcohol, while others smuggled liquor into the country. These smugglers became known as rum-runners or bootleggers. Meanwhile, illegal bars, called speakeasies, opened in nearly every city and town. In some ways, speakeasies made drinking liquor more popular than ever. To enforce the ban, the government sent out federal Prohibition agents. These “g-men” traveled around the country, shutting down speakeasies and stopping smugglers.

Organized Crime

Prohibition gave a huge boost to organized crime, or criminal activity organized as a business. Every speakeasy needed a steady supply of liquor. Professional criminals, or gangsters, took over the job of meeting this need. Gangsters divided up cities and forced speakeasy owners in their “territories” to buy liquor from them. Sometimes, gangsters bribed police officers, public officials, and judges.

The Experiment Ends

Gradually, more Americans began to think that Prohibition was a mistake. The ban reduced drinking but never stopped it. Worse, argued critics, Prohibition was undermining respect for the law. Every day, millions of Americans were buying liquor in speakeasies. By the mid-1920s, almost half of all federal arrests were for Prohibition-related crimes.

By the end of the decade, many Americans were calling for the repeal, or ending, of Prohibition. In 1933, the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The noble experiment was over.

Analyze Graphs The number of Americans in prison rose sharply after 1920.

Identify Cause and Effect Explain why prison populations rose so sharply during Prohibition.

READING CHECK

Identify Cause and Effect Why did Americans begin to think that Prohibition was a mistake?

How Did Women’s Lives Change During the 1920s?

Another constitutional amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, also changed American life, but in a very different way. Ratified in 1920, it gave women the right to vote.

The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. This photo shows women voting in New York City in 1922.

Women Cast a Vote

Women went to the polls nationwide for the first time in November 1920. Their votes helped elect Warren Harding President. Women did not vote as a group, however, as some people had predicted. Like men, some women voted for Republicans and some for Democrats, and many did not vote at all.

In 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National Woman Suffrage Association, set up the League of Women Voters. The organization worked to educate voters, as it does today, and to protect other rights, such as women’s right to serve on juries.

Women served as delegates in the 1924 Republican and Democratic conventions. That year, the first two women governors were elected—Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas.

Women in Puerto Rico asked if they now had the right to vote. They were told that they did not. Led by Ana Roqué de Duprey, an educator and writer, Puerto Rican women crusaded for the vote. In 1929, their crusade finally succeeded.

An Equal Rights Amendment

Leaders in the suffrage movement began to work for new goals. Alice Paul, who had been a leading suffragist, pointed out that women still lacked many legal rights. For example, many professional schools still barred women, and many states gave husbands legal control over their wives’ earnings. Paul called for a new constitutional amendment in 1923. Paul’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Many people feared that the ERA went too far. Some argued that women would lose legal safeguards, such as laws that protected them in factories. Paul worked hard for the ERA until her death in 1977. The amendment passed in Congress but was never ratified by the states.

Women in the Workforce

Women’s lives changed in other ways in the 1920s. During World War I, thousands of women had worked outside the home for the first time. They filled the jobs of men who had gone off to war. When the troops came home, many women were forced to give up their jobs. Still, some remained in the workforce.

For some women, working outside the home was nothing new. Working-class women had been cooks, servants, and seamstresses for many years. In the 1920s, they were joined by middle-class women who worked as teachers, typists, secretaries, and store clerks. Some became doctors and lawyers despite discrimination.

Life at home also changed for women. More of them bought ready-made clothes for the whole family rather than sewing them at home as they had done in the past. Electric appliances such as refrigerators, washers, irons, and vacuum cleaners made housework easier. However, women who worked outside the home found that they had to work a second shift when they came home. Most husbands expected their wives to cook, clean, and care for children even if they held full-time jobs.

READING CHECK

Summarize Why did the proposed Equal Rights Amendment fail to gain ratification?

How Did the Automobile Change America?

“Why on earth do you need to study what’s changing this country?” one man asked the experts. “I can tell you what’s happening in just four letters: A-U-T-O.” In the 1920s, Americans traveled to more places and moved more quickly than ever before—all because of the automobile.

The auto industry played a central role in the business boom of the 1920s. Car sales grew rapidly during the decade. The auto boom spurred growth in related industries such as steel and rubber.

Analyze Images As cars became popular, entrepreneurs built many new filling stations, such as this one in Maryland in 1921.

Compare and Contrast How does this gas station compare to a modern one?

Cars Become Affordable

Lower prices sparked the auto boom. By 1924, the cost of a Model T had dropped from $850 to $290. As a result, an American did not have to be rich to buy a car. Car prices fell because factories became more efficient.

As you have read, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in his automobile factory in 1913. Before the assembly line, it took 14 hours to put together a Model T. In Ford’s new factory, workers could assemble a Model T in 93 minutes. Other companies copied Ford’s methods. In 1927, General Motors passed Ford as the top automaker. Unlike Ford, General Motors sold cars in a variety of models and colors.

Henry Ford had once boasted that people could have his cars in “any color so long as it’s black.” When General Motors introduced a low-priced car available in different colors, Ford lost many customers. Faced with the success of General Motors, he changed his mind. His next car, the Model A, came in different colors. Soon, car companies were offering new makes and models every year.

Americans hit the road. Between 1920 and 1928, vehicle registrations boomed. In some areas of the country, they increased more than 200 percent.

A Boost for the Economy

Car sales spurred growth in other parts of the economy. By 1929, some four million Americans owed their jobs to the automobile, directly or indirectly. Tens of thousands of people worked in steel mills, producing metal used in cars. Others made tires, paint, and glass for cars. Some drilled for oil in the Southwest or worked in the oil refineries where crude petroleum was converted into usable gasoline.

The car boom had other effects. States and cities paved more roads and built new highways. In 1925, the Bronx River Parkway in New York was the first of many highways in parklike settings. Gas stations, car dealers, motels, and roadside restaurants sprang up across the country to serve the millions who traveled by car. In 1920, there were only about 1,500 filling stations in the entire United States. By 1929, there were more than 120,000. Auto-repair shops also became a necessity.

Analyze Graphs Throughout the decade, more than a million cars were sold each year.

Make Predictions Predict one reason for the rise in auto sales in 1927–1929.

Social Effects of Car Ownership

Cars shaped life in the city and in the country. Many city dwellers wanted to escape crowded conditions. They moved to nearby towns in the country, which soon grew into suburbs. A suburb is a community located outside a city. With cars, suburban families could drive to the city even though it was many miles away. They could also drive to stores, schools, or work. No longer did people have to live where they could walk or take a trolley to work.

Another major shift came when suburban housewives refused to be confined to the passenger seat. Instead, they took their place behind the wheels of their own automobiles. As they did, they broke down still another barrier that separated the worlds of men and women.

In rural areas, cars brought people closer to towns, shops, and the movies. One farm woman bought a car before she got indoor plumbing. “You can’t go to town in a bathtub,” she explained.

Analyze Images The new field of advertising helped popularize the automobile.

Use Visual Information Who was the target of this advertisement?

READING CHECK

Identify Main Ideas How did the automobile boost the American economy?

The Rise of a National Culture

By making travel easier, cars helped Americans from different parts of the country learn more about one another. They played a role in creating a new national culture that crossed state lines.

New forms of entertainment also contributed to the rise of a mass culture. Mass culture is the set of values and practices that arise from watching the same movies, listening to the same music, and hearing the same news reports as others around the nation. In the 1920s, rising wages and labor-saving appliances gave families more money to spend and more leisure time in which to spend it.

Analyze Images As more people went to the movies, massive new theaters were built in a style that lived up to the name “movie palace.” Today, the Chicago Theatre (built in 1921) has been restored to its past beauty.

Infer Why do you think movie palaces were made so spectacular?

Entertainment at Home

Radio became very popular in the 1920s. The country’s first commercial radio station, KDKA, started broadcasting in Pittsburgh in 1920. By 1929, more than 10 million American families owned radios.

A new lifestyle emerged. Each night after dinner, families gathered around the radio to tune in to shows such as “Roxy and His Gang” or “Jack Frost’s Melody Moments.” Radio listeners enjoyed comedies and westerns, classical music and jazz, news reports and play-by-play sports broadcasts.

Going to the Movies

In the 1920s, the movie industry came of age. Southern California’s warm, sunny climate allowed filming all year round. Soon, Hollywood became the movie capital of the world.

Charlie Chaplin’s fame as a silent film star began in the 1910s and continued through the 1920s and beyond. Chaplin continued to make popular silent films years after the shift to “talking pictures” in 1927.

Movies contributed to the new mass culture. Millions of Americans went to the movies at least once a week. They were thrilled to watch westerns, romances, adventures, and comedies. In small towns, theaters were bare rooms with hard chairs. In cities, they were huge palaces with red velvet seats.

The first movies had no sound. Audiences followed the plot by reading “title cards” that appeared on the screen. A pianist played music that went with the action.

Fans adored Hollywood movie stars. Cowboy stars like Tom Mix thrilled audiences with their heroic adventures. Clara Bow won fame playing restless, fun-seeking young women. The most popular star of all was comedian Charlie Chaplin, nicknamed “The Little Tramp.” In his tiny derby hat and baggy pants, Chaplin presented a comical figure. His attempts to triumph over the problems of everyday life moved audiences to both laughter and tears.

In 1927, Hollywood caused a sensation when it produced The Jazz Singer. The film was a “talkie”—a movie with a soundtrack. Soon, all new movies were talkies.

READING CHECK

Identify Main Ideas How did radio contribute to a new national culture in America?

Lesson Check

How did Prohibition support the growth of organized crime?
Why did many women demand an Equal Rights Amendment?
Assess an Argument Warren Harding won the presidency in 1920 because of his overwhelming support by women, who finally had the right to vote. Do you agree with the preceding statement? Why or why not?
Support Ideas with Evidence How did the automobile change America?
Identify Main Ideas How did a mass culture develop in the 1920s?
Writing Workshop: Find and Use Credible Sources What types of sources will offer you credible information about the subject of your New Deal research paper? Start finding and listing possible sources now.

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