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Chapter 25
The Roaring Twenties
(1919-1929)
Why would people be against alcohol?
• Violence in the family• Crime• Health problems• Financial concerns for families
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II. New Ways of Life - ProhibitionA. Prohibition - ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor
1. Eighteenth Amendment - banned the use of liquor in the U.S.
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Prohibition – A Noble Experiment or a Failure?
2. Evading the law
a) Made their own.
b) smuggled it from Canada & Caribbean.
i. Smugglers hid it in their boots = bootleggers.
c) Speak-easies opened
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3. Organized crime
a. provided liquor for speak-easies
b. Crime = big business.
c. divided up cities -forced speak-easy owners to buy from them.
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4. Repeal - cancellation
a) Prohibition reduced drinking - never stopped it.
b) In 1933 Twenty First Amendment - repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.
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B. New Rights for Women
1. Women Voters
a) League of Women Voters – worked to educate voters, guarantee rights (jury service)
b) Voted like men – not as thought
c) 19th Amendment
2. Equal Rights Amendment – equality not denied based on gender
a. Never ratified
Suffragettes
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1. Changes for Women Workers
a. Worked outside home in jobs of men off at war
b. Poor joined by middle class
c. Life at home changed – appliances, ready-made clothes
i. Second shift at home
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C. Impact of the AutomobileThe invention of the automobile had a great impact on Americans in the 1920’s.
• Car sales grew rapidly during this period.
• Auto industry played a big role in the business boom of the 1920’s.
• Jobs, Steel, rubber, metal, tires, paint, glass, oil, paved roads, built highways, gas stations, garages, car dealers, motels, roadside restaurants, mechanic shops
• Car prices also fell because factories became more efficient.
• Henry Ford – assembly line (14 hours to 93 minutes)
• The cost of the Model T dropped from $850 to $290. Americans do not need to be rich to buy a car.
• Americans traveled to more places thanks to the automobile.
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With the low cost of the Automobile people moved outside of the towns, called suburbs. A suburb is a community located outside the city. With cars people could drive to their job in the city even though it was miles away.
A suburb
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Affordable • Did not need to be rich
to own a car (was $850 dropped to $290).
Economic
• 4 million jobs – steel mills, tires, paint, glass, oil, roads built, gas stations, garages, car dealers, motels, roadside restaurants, mechanic shops
Social
• Suburbs sprang up• No longer had to live in
the city to work in the city
• Women drivers• Brought people closer to
towns
Effect
Car sales grew rapidly
AUTO BOOM
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What, as a country, do we do that is uniquely American?
• Baseball hats• Gum chewing• Jeans• Car size• Food (burgers)
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• With travel easier, people learned more about different parts of the country = national cultural.
• New forms of entertainment also added to a national cultural (more money & time for leisure)
• RADIO• Shows – comedies, westerns
• Classical music, jazz
• News, sports broadcasts
• MOVIES• Millions of Americans went to the movies. The
first movies had no sound and were in black and white. A pianist played music that went with the action (1927 = “Talkies”)
• Westerns, romance, adventure, comedies
• Hollywood movie stars – Charlie Chaplin
New Ways of Life – Creating a Mass Culture