The 1920s was a decade of economic growth, social and political change. In the 1920s America broke away from its melancholy past and ushered in a more modern era. The 1920s was full of vivid “impressions of flappers and dance halls, movie palaces and radio empires, and Prohibition and speakeasies” (Zeitz). Although the 1920s was a decade of change, it was also an age of extreme contradiction. The unmatched richness and cultural advancement was accompanied by intense social unrest and reaction. The 1920s decade was the introduction of urbanism/modernism, the rebirth Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, nativism, and religious fundamentalism. During the 1920s, America was at a crossroads between innovation and tradition.
In the 1920s there was a rebirth …show more content…
Jazz was wide accepted by the younger generation. The younger generation loved the freedom they felt on the dance floor. But the older ones would describe the music of Jazz as vulgar, “moral disasters”.
Although there was a great revolution in morals, aesthetics, and everyday life that was sweeping through America didn’t meet with an astounding approval. Though the 1920s are remembered primarily as a decade of bold innovation and experimentation, the decade witnessed a fierce counter-revolutionary tendency.
During the 1920s, although some freedoms were expanded while others were curtailed. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, had banned the manufacture and sale of “intoxicating liquors.” The federal Volstead Act made it illegal to sell any “intoxication beverages” with more than 0.5% alcohol. For the many “middle-class white Americans, Prohibition was a way to assert some control over the unruly immigrant masses who crowded the nation’s cities” ("The Roaring Twenties."). Arguably, Prohibition was the most successful achievement of anti-modern forces in the …show more content…
It was avowedly white supremacist, but for good measure it also included Jews, Catholics, Asians, and ‘new women’ among its list of enemies” ("The Roaring Twenties."). Its followers were usually found in cities as well as in the countryside, but as a general rule, the organization was fundamentalist and conservative in both profile and disposition. As explained, “The Ku Klux movement seems to be another expression of the general unrest and dissatisfaction with both local and national conditions—the high cost of living, social injustice and inequality, poor administration of justice, political corruption, hyphenism, disunity, unassimilated and conflicting thought and standards—which are distressing all thoughtful men”
In the 1920s there was a rebirth …show more content…
Jazz was wide accepted by the younger generation. The younger generation loved the freedom they felt on the dance floor. But the older ones would describe the music of Jazz as vulgar, “moral disasters”.
Although there was a great revolution in morals, aesthetics, and everyday life that was sweeping through America didn’t meet with an astounding approval. Though the 1920s are remembered primarily as a decade of bold innovation and experimentation, the decade witnessed a fierce counter-revolutionary tendency.
During the 1920s, although some freedoms were expanded while others were curtailed. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, had banned the manufacture and sale of “intoxicating liquors.” The federal Volstead Act made it illegal to sell any “intoxication beverages” with more than 0.5% alcohol. For the many “middle-class white Americans, Prohibition was a way to assert some control over the unruly immigrant masses who crowded the nation’s cities” ("The Roaring Twenties."). Arguably, Prohibition was the most successful achievement of anti-modern forces in the …show more content…
It was avowedly white supremacist, but for good measure it also included Jews, Catholics, Asians, and ‘new women’ among its list of enemies” ("The Roaring Twenties."). Its followers were usually found in cities as well as in the countryside, but as a general rule, the organization was fundamentalist and conservative in both profile and disposition. As explained, “The Ku Klux movement seems to be another expression of the general unrest and dissatisfaction with both local and national conditions—the high cost of living, social injustice and inequality, poor administration of justice, political corruption, hyphenism, disunity, unassimilated and conflicting thought and standards—which are distressing all thoughtful men”