The 1920s as an Age of Reaction?

Guess where this picture was taken?

The 1920s as an Age of Reaction?

Women of the Ku Klux Klan Marching in Front of the

Broome County Court House

What comes to mind when you think about the 1920s?

The “New Woman” (Flappers)New Styles & BehaviorsSpeakeasies & BootleggingRapid Economic ExpansionThe Lost GenerationThe Harlem RenaissancePolitical Corruption

Historical Context: The Twenties

The “Roaring Twenties”

Reactions to Rapid Social Change

Nativism

Political Intolerance

Temperance (Prohibition)

Christian Fundamentalism

Racial Tensions

The Twenties Were Also an “Age of Reaction”

A Temperance Poster

Immigration in the 1920s

What is the main idea of the cartoon?

What do we call anti-immigrant

feelings?

Immigration in the 1920s

How did the Quota Acts affect American immigration?

Nativism

• Nativism: Anti-immigrant feeling

• Quota Acts (National Origins Act)… set strict limits on immigration, especially from Eastern & Southern Europe

• Based on scientific racism• Reflected growing nativist &

anti-radical sentiment by groups like the KKK

The Second Ku Klux Klan•Founded at Stone Mountain, GA 1915 by former minister William Simmons

•Release of film “Birth of a Nation” in 1915 popularized & glamorized the KKK

•Targeted not just African-Americans but also Jews, Catholics and immigrants in general

•By mid-1920s national membership reportedly reached 4.5 million

The Klan Arrives Broome CountyThis pamphlet was found on

people’s doorsteps in Binghamton on March 17,

1923.

Question: Who do you think the local Ku Klux Klan was targeting?

Answer: The Irish and Other Immigrants (especially Catholics and Jews)

The Klan Arrives Broome County•Klan activity in Broome County first noted on St. Patrick’s Day 1923 when KKK pamphlets were left on doorsteps

•20,000 workers (many of whom were immigrants) in the Triple Cities during the 1920s, including 12 E-J factories

•Local KKK was partly a reaction to this immigration

Binghamton as State Klan Headquarters

New York State Klan Headquarters Henry &

Wall Streets, Binghamton

•1923 Binghamton chosen as NYS headquarters for the KKK

•State-wide conventions held, including cross-burnings and rallies in Endicott & Whitney Point

•In 1924 George F. Johnson received anonymous letter from a Klan member threatening a boycott of EJ Shoes unless he fired foreign workers

Question: What is currently located at this site?

Answer: The Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade

Klan Rally at Stow Flats Fairgrounds

July, 1924

Local Klan Meetings

What criteria did someone have to meet in order to join the KKK? What does this

suggest about how

the KKK understood themselves

?

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

-Groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) fought to outlaw alcohol, prostitution, and other vices

-In Broome County, the WCTU appeared to ally with the local KKK.

Why would they do that?

Religious Revival• 1920s Marked a Rise in

Religious Fervor• Question: What is Christian

Fundamentalism?• Answer: A strict, literal

interpretation of the Bible.• “Sister” Aimee, Billy Sunday,

and Other Radio Evangelists Reached Mass Audiences

• What was the topic of Billy Sunday’s sermon in this clip?

“Sister” Aimee McPherson

The Scopes “Monkey” Trial

-High School teacher John Scopes is tried for teaching evolution in Tennessee

Clarence Darrow & William Jennings Bryan

-Became a debate on evolution & religious fundamentalism

-First major trial to reach a mass audience as it was broadcast live on the radio

Putting It All Together…

How did Christian Fundamentalists embrace aspects of modernism

even as they appeared to struggle against it?

Race RiotsThe period between 1919 and 1921 was marked by violent race riots in northern cities.

Why might this have happened?

Chicago, 1919

The Red ScareA. Mitchell

Palmer, U.S. Attorney General

-Bombs Sent to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer & Other Government Officials

-Palmer Raids: 10,000 Suspected Communists & Anarchists Arrested

-249 Deported to Soviet Union

-Labor Unions like IWW targeted

“Put Them Out and Keep Them Out,” The Philadelphia Inquirer

(1919)

Sacco & Vanzetti Trial

Sacco & Vanzetti-Italian Immigrants & Anarchists

-Convicted of Murder w/out Much Evidence

-Reflects both Nativism & Anti-Radicalism

-Controversial Execution

Putting It All Together…

Why would there have been so much fear of radicalism

after 1917?

Hint: What else was happening in other parts of

the world at this time?

Closing Reflection

What label should we use to characterize the

1920s?

The Twenties

?

The Jazz Age

The Age of

Business

The Roaring Twenties

TheAge of Reaction

The Conservative

Decade