Causes Of Prohibition, Nativism, And Modernism

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”-Socrates. A quote at which the urban and rural citizens could have taken advice in for in the 1920’s change was everywhere, and tolerance for it was at an all time low. Cities were growing rapidly, and while the urban citizens took pleasure in the idea of unlimited money with credit, and unlimited boundaries with the automobile rural citizens were still farming their way through life. This clash between modern and tradition triggered a cultural war fought at schools, churches, even political campaigns. The three major reasons behind this urban-rural war being prohibition, nativism, and modernism. Prohibition seemed to be the topic of almost …show more content…
People who believed that immigrants were coming into their country and tarnishing the land held back a whole group of people from thriving in their environment. One of the biggest motives for this hatred being the competition for jobs between Americans and immigrants. Business owners knew that immigrants would be willing to work for less pay than americans and for this exact reason began filling them into their factories. Which you can see in Document 1 when it says, “We found our great cities and the control of much of our industry and commerce taken over by strangers who stacked the cards of success and prosperity against us.” this being extremely biased because the documents source was the Klu Klux Klan who targeted not only blacks, but also catholics, jews, immigrants, and others who it believed were enemies of traditional americanism. This tendency to form a blame against immigrants was also seen in Document 3 when it says, “ the vicious forms of crime are committed by recent immigrants who have not yet learned the necessity for conforming to the statutes and restrictions of our government.” Although immigrants had suffered through long citizen processes such as Angel and Ellis island they still were seen to had just invaded the country and blamed for all problems that the native born citizens had participated their part in. Discriminating groups such as the Klu Klux Klan appealed to their members by …show more content…
The rural people were happy with their simple way of lives. Rural people were content with things such as porch talks and farming. One of their biggest beliefs was in fundamentalism and or the reliving of the bible and strong belief in its legacy. However in this time of change people were also in favor of Modernism. One of these topics people began to wonder about in this new era was evolution. The teaching of evolution by John Scopes in biology lead to him being charged with breaking a state law and was named the Scopes Trial.”The trial was battle between Fundamentalism on the one hand and twentieth century skepticism on the other.” Document 2 People believed the traditional belief in god is what needed to be taught in schools which you see in Document 1 when it says, “The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity,and finally even our right to teach our own children in our own schools fundamental facts and truths were torn away from us.” This phrasing of “ our school” also displays the conflict that now with people paying taxes for school they thought they had ownership, and began to stop respecting authority believing that in a way they were the authority. Although Tennessee farmers were ready to defend their faith they also were curious as to what the evolutionary theory might be. This idea of forcing tradition was also shown in Document 6. The image discusses returning a