Reconstruction

Change and Reaction in the 1920s

The 1920s were a period of dramatic changes. More than half of all Americans now lived in cities and the growing affordability of the automobile made people more mobile than ever. Although the decade was known as the era of the Charleston dance craze, jazz, and flapper fashions, in many respects it was also quite conservative. At the same time as hemlines went up and moral values seemed to decline, the nation saw the end of its open immigration policy, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and the trial of a Tennessee high‐school teacher for teaching evolution.

It was the beginning of modern America, in politics, arts, customs and fads, literature, sports, etc. Americans felt a relief following the Great War. The nation had survived the deadly worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918. The Twenties was a time of change for just about all the population. Youthful "Flapper" women provoked the older generation by smoking in public, wearing brief skirts, bobbed hair styles, and the use of lots of makeup. New fads included the Charleston dance, dance marathons, flagpole sitting, and flying stunts in the new airplanes. Many sports became "spectator sports" with Baseball and Babe Ruth perhaps being the biggest. Business continued to grow and outward appearances seemed to indicate no slowdown in site. More new products were developed and the consumer was given the opportunity to buy these products "on time." Government seemed unwilling to try too much regulation for fear of upsetting the economic boom.

The Red Scare and immigration policy. In the first few years after World War I, the country experienced a brief period of antiradical hysteria known as the Red Scare. Widespread labor unrest in 1919, combined with a wave of bombings, the Communists in power in Russia, and the short‐lived Communist revolt in Hungary, fed the fear that the United States was also on the verge of revolution. Under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell...