The literary outpouring of the 1920s produced a number of novels of high merit. Several are valuable for the light thrown on social ambiance. Several novels by black writers include Claude McKay, Home to Harlem (1929), and Rudolph Fisher, The Walls of Jericho (1928). Sinclair Lewis expressed his disapproval of middle-class morality in two novels, Main Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922). F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about life in the fast lane in This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Great Gatsby (1925).

A number of feature films about the 1920s are worthy of special notice. Some reveal more about how Americans thought about the 1920s in later years than about the twenties themselves. The Great Gatsby was filmed several times. The version best remembered was made in 1949 by Elliott Nugent; it starred Alan Ladd. In 1960 Stanley Kramer made Inherit the Wind, starring Frederic March and Spencer Tracy, a film that offers a powerful and dramatic interpretation of the Scopes trial. Orson Welles produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane (1941), a universally lauded film about a newspaper tycoon who could have been modeled on none other than William Randolph Hearst. There is a whole genre of gangster films. The one that launched the gangster cycle was Little Caesar, made in 1931 by Mervyn LeRoy, with Edward G. Robinson in the title role. In 1931 William Wellman made The Public Enemy, starring James Cagney in a role modeled on gangster Dion O'Banion. A third gangster film, The Roaring Twenties (1939), was directed by Raoul Walsh; it also starred James Cagney, who this time played a character based loosely on gangster Larry Fay. Unlike the protagonist in Little Caesar, a vicious killer, this last film dealt with a good man gone bad. To what extent, students may wonder, do these films reflect the real life of the times?

Films for the Humanities and Sciences has several fifteen-minute videotape biographies. There is one on Charles Lindbergh that deals with aviation as well as the Lone Eagle, one on Rudolf Valentino, one on Bessie Smith, and one on Al Capone. Films for the Humanities has also produced a forty-two-minute videotape, Marcus Garvey: Towards Black Nationhood, that provides some understanding of this enigmatic figure. A seventy-seven-minute video from the same source, The 20s: From Illusion to Disillusion, treats the decade with a much broader brush, from sports to the arts to dictatorships abroad. Also from Films for the Humanities and Sciences is a city "biography," I Remember Harlem (three hours, fifty-two minutes), that tells the story of that district from its years as a Dutch farming community to its place in 1980 as a center of African-American life. PBS Video has produced two one-hour videotapes called The Second American Revolution, part of the A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers Series. Part 1 deals with African-Americans through 1930, touching on Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, and others. Also part of the Bill Moyers series is The Twenties, an hour ranging from the Charleston to the Ku Klux Klan. And PBS has in addition a fifty-five-minute treatment of Charles Lindbergh in its American Experience series. From PBS Video also comes One Woman, One Vote (120 minutes), documenting the effort that began with Seneca Falls in 1848 and led to the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment. Demon Rum (sixty minutes) examines the national prohibition campaign of the 1920s as well as the eventual repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, and Against All Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance (sixty minutes) concentrates on visual art. Both are from PBS.

Two videotapes called The Roaring Twenties, 1919-1924 and The Roaring Twenties, 1924-1929 consist of clips from the archives of Fox Movietone News, narrated by Lowell Thomas. They may be obtained from the Social Studies School Service of Culver City, California. Each is 142 minutes in length. From Zenger Media, P.O. Box 802, Culver City, California 90232, comes The Roaring 20s: Witness to History (twenty minutes), The Jazz Age (sixty minutes), and The Monkey Trial: In Search of History (forty-three minutes). Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968 (1995), edited by Allen Schoener, displays the work of some of black America's most noted photographers. The American Heritage Media Collection has in filmstrip format five filmstrips called The 20s and the 30s, three on the 1920s and two on the 1930s. Among the major incidents touched on are prohibition, the Red Scare, woman suffrage, the automobile, radio, advertising, Teapot Dome, national heroes, the Ku Klux Klan, the Scopes trial, and the stock-market crash.
Document Set 234-1

The Business Values of The 1920s: Promise and Reality

1. 1. Frederick Lewis Allen Recalls the Business Ethos of the New Era, 1931
2. 2. Edward Purington's Endorsement of Business Values, 1921
3. 3. Herbert Hoover Embraces Individualism, 1928
4. 4. Kirby Page Assesses the Social Consequences of Corporate Labor Policies, 1922A critical organizing theme for this chapter is the endorsement of individualism and free enterprise in a period increasingly dominated by the rise of associationalism and oligopoly. An introductory lecture building on the text coverage of "merger mania" might stimulate discussion of the apparent contradiction between business fondness for organization/centralization and the powerful social myth of competition. The documents provide ample evidence of support for the mythical free-enterprise assumptions of Americans in the 1920s.Elaborating on this theme, instructors may wish to employ Herbert Hoover's articulate expression of individualism as a springboard for discussion of the public yearning for a vanished American with fewer personal restraints. Public reaction to Hoover's appeal may be compared with the response to individualistic hero figures like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.Reverence for individualism and respect for business values were not unrelated. Students should be encouraged to explore the connection between these tendencies and the predicament of organized labor in the 1920s. The documents should be used to promote discussion of welfare capitalism and the workers' place in the "New Era" of Republican prosperity; moreover, they provide valuable evidence of the social consequences of business dominance in the labor-management struggle.Another important question raised by the documents involves the definition of government's proper role in the economy. The evidence should encourage students to eschew simplistic interpretations of stereotyped figures, such as Herbert Hoover, in favor of more sophisticated evaluations that consider the subtleties and nuances in the thought patterns of the 1920s. The poorly understood Hoover would be an excellent subject for such analysis, which might begin with a careful reading of his remarks on individualism. A nuanced interpretation of Hoover's ideas may be linked to the textbook's focus question comparing them with those of Harding and Coolidge.Finally, these documents are likely to stimulate student awareness of past-present linkage, since the evidence presented contains the potential for comparison with the values of the 1980s and 1990s. Instructors may take advantage of this interest to encourage caution in seeking parallels, while acknowledging the similarities as a basis for thoughtful inquiry. Students might be asked to compile lists of similarities and to speculate on their implications; the discussion might then conclude with debate over the economic effects of the 1920s on the direction of modern American government.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 234-1


William W. Barber. Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy (1986).

Irving Bernstein. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (1960).

Stuart D. Brandes. American Welfare Capitalism, 1880-1940 (1976, rep. 1984).

David Brody. "The Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism," in John Braeman et al., Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America: The 1920s (1968).

H. M. Gitelman. "Welfare Capitalism Reconsidered," Labor History (Winter 1992).

Ellis W. Hawley. The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order (1979).

Angel Kwolek-Folland. Engineering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870-1930 (1994).

David Montgomery. The Fall of the House of Labor (1987).

J. W. Prothro. The Dollar Decade: Business Ideas in the 1920's (1954).

John Hoff Wilson. Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (1975).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 234-1


America Series, Episode 10. The Promise Fulfilled and the Promise Broken (videotape--52 min.). Reel 1. Time-Life Multimedia, 110 Eisenhower Drive, P.O. Box 644, Paramus, N.J. 07652.

The Crash of 1929. From The American Experience Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Henry Ford's America (film--57 min.). National Film Board of Canada, 1251 Avenue of the Americas, 16th floor, New York, N.Y. 10020.

Lindbergh, from The American Experience Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

On the Line, The People's Century Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.
Document Set 234-2

Sources of Social Conflict: Reactions to Changing Moral Values

1. Henry Pratt Fairchild Questions the "Melting Pot" Theory, 1926
2. Hiram W. Evans on the Ku Klux Klan Program, 1926
3. Bartolomeo Vanzetti's Last Court Statement, 1927
4. Prohibition in Philadelphia, 1919-1925
5. William Jennings Bryan Attacks Evolutionary Thought, 1922
6. A Report on the New Moral Code, 1925
7. Suzanne LaFollette on Marriage and Divorce, 1929
8. Community Pressure for Cultural Conformity in Granite City, Illinois, 1920
9. Changing Moral Values: A Visual EssayThis unit focuses on cultural conflict in the 1920s as a reflection of social tensions produced by a value system in transition. Consistent with extensive text treatment of the clash in values, the documents encourage students to examine the social consequences of urbanization and economic modernization. By analyzing the evidence, they may gain perspective on the price of progress and the consequences of a shattered moral code.A useful introduction to these materials would be a lecture dealing with demographic and economic changes. Reemphasizing text themes, instructors might then move to discussion of the value systems of an "old" and a "new" America. The Nash and Ward interpretations of Ford and Lindbergh could be stimuli to classroom debate. Equally helpful would be several feature films made in the 1920s. Either Dancing Mothers (1926) or Our Dancing Daughters (1928) reflects the changing value structure of the era, particularly with regard to women and the moral code. Instructors might profitably screen one of these films, linking it with the issues raised in the documents; any such exercise should be accompanied by discussion of the motion picture as a historical document.Most students will be interested in the shifting moral values of the 1920s, including attitudes toward prohibition, social life, and sexual behavior. In this connection provocative interpretive slants might be introduced by assigning revisionist work by James McGovern, Daniel Scott Smith, or Paula Fass (see "Recommended Readings"), all of which provide a basis for exploring the new morality. Students may thus become acquainted with the contemporary perception of a social fault line and it significance for understanding the cultural conflict of the era.These documents provide an excellent opportunity to establish past-present linkage, whether related to a sexual revolution or to the presence of ethnic and racial intolerance in America. Equally relevant is Bryan's assault on Darwinian theory, which relates directly to the question of the modern religious right and the debate over creationism. The documents should stimulate discussion of the moral vacuum created by a relentless assault on the prewar value system.Beyond this, the materials encourage reflection on the causes and consequences of intolerance, particularly the documents dealing with immigration and the Ku Klux Klan. One analytical exercise likely to provoke debate would be a comparison of the values expressed in the documents and the views of later generations. This unit, then, links past with present as students attempt to understand their own society.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 234-2


Paul Avrich. Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background (1990).

David M. Chalmers. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (1965).

George Chauncey. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (1994).

Stanley Cohen. Rebellion Against Victorianism: The Impetus for Cultural Change in America (1991).

Paula Fass. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's (1958).

Ray Ginger. Six Days or Forever: Tennessee v. John Scopes (1955).

Edward J. Larson. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution (1989).

J. Stanley Lemons. The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920s (1973).

James R. McGovern, "The American Woman's Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals," Journal of American History 55 (September 1968): 315-333.

Daniel Scott Smith, "The Dating of the American Sexual Revolution: Evidence and Interpretation," in The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective, ed. Michael Gordon (3d ed., 1983).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 234-2


Dancing Mothers (feature film--70 min.) Budget Films, 4590 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif. 90029. An alternative is Our Dancing Daughters (film--90 min.). Films, Inc., 5547 N. Ravenswood Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60640-1199.

Demon Rum, from The American Experience Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

The Twenties (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

The Twenties, from A Walk Through the Twentieth Century Series, with Bill Moyers (videotape--55 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Women of Summer: The Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, 1921-1938 (film--60 min.). Filmmaker's Library, 133 E. 58th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. An alternative, including valuable excerpts on the Sacco-Vanzetti case, would be Image as Artifact (with teacher's guide materials--total length--120 min.). American Historical Association, 400 A Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.
Document Set 234-3

Labor under Stress: Southern Workers in the "New Era"

1. Income and Farm Tenancy in the South, 1880-1920
2. "The Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," ca. 1930s
3. Organized Labor's View of Southern Industrial Conditions, 1927, 1929
4. James Edmonds: Union Man, ca. 1930
5. Clara Williams: No Union for Her, Late 1930s
6. George S. Mitchell Assesses Obstacles to Unionism, 1931
7. Fred E. Beal Recalls the Gastonia Strike of 1929
8. Liston Pope Analyzes Gastonia's Meaning, 1942The text notes the regional variations in wage levels that gave southern cotton textile manufacturers an important advantage in the industry's intersectional competitive struggle during the 1920s. The documents provide clear evidence that the new employment opportunity created by southern industrial development came at a price to workers who found themselves at the mercy of paternalistic employers whose first loyalty was to the bottom line. Bent on the maximization of profits, management created an economic and social system in which the dignity of labor often suffered. By examining the worker culture of the southern milltowns, this unit will enable instructors to emphasize a modern interpretation of labor history that incorporates worker experience in both the workplace and the larger community.A good point of departure would be an examination of the family histories of the southern operatives who sustained the regional economy of the 1920s. This might be accomplished through a classroom discussion in which students are asked to reflect on the consequences of the New South movement addressed in Document Set 18-3. Emphasis might be placed on the reasons for migration to the milltowns and the implications for worker values and social behavior in the 1920s.This discussion might explore the assertion that the milltown social and economic structure replicated the feudal system of earlier times. Students might be assigned to research the term feudalism independently and to bring their understanding of the word to class. The class debate could then focus on the applicability of the feudal analogy to the twentieth-century South. Students might also be asked to discuss the effect of feudal relationships on worker behavior.On no subject was worker deference more clearly expressed than in response to the appeals made by the often frustrated labor unions of the 1920s. The documents are rich in material bearing on worker reaction to the idea of collective bargaining. Students might be challenged to explain the apparent resistance to unionism in spite of sometimes brutal working conditions. This discussion could probe sources of predominant value systems in any time or place, using the South in the 1920s as a test case.Alternatively, the labor union issue might be raised through a student role-playing exercise in which various groups of students would assume the positions of pro-union, anti-union, uncommitted, male, female, and youthful interest groups. Each group could research the relevant arguments, using the documents as a starting point for more extensive exploration. When the research findings are brought to class and students assume the identities of their reference group, the result may be a lively discussion of the problems and opportunities created by unions, as well as the worker culture of the southern mill communities.Finally, the last group of documents focuses on the divisive strike at Gastonia, North Carolina in 1929. Instructors will want to present further background information to set the stage for an adequate student understanding of the Gastonia strike. Because of the Communist role in the organizational activity in Gastonia, instructors will have an opportunity to engage students in a thoughtful analysis of worker ideology and self-image. With guidance from the instructor, students may be drawn into a discussion of the social and political values of American workers as revealed in the confrontation at Gastonia. Instructors will want to explore the Communist role in the strike, the worker response, the relative importance of ideology in the workers' defeat, the impact of community pressure, and the validity of radical claims concerning both worker grievances and management/community tactics in crushing the strike. Students might also be encouraged to assess the strike demands and the results of the struggle as they try to place these events in historical context and consider their implications for the future of southern labor.Should instructors wish to extend this inquiry, they might screen the film Norma Rae as a means of establishing the past-present linkage between the worker struggles of the 1920s and the ongoing effort to improve the conditions of southern labor. Based on the organizing effort at the J. P. Stevens Company, this film raises some of the same questions that the documents address and portrays the significance of worker community in pursuing the goals of unionism. Discussion of this film will therefore return students to the central theme in the evidence: the importance of worker culture in its southern regional context.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 234-3


Irving L. Bernstein. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (1966).

David Carlton. Mill and Town in South Carolina, 1880-1920 (1982).

James C. Cobb. Industrialization and Southern Society, 1877-1984 (1984).

J. Wayne Flynt. Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites (1979).

Alice Galenson. The Migration of the Cotton Textile Industry from Northeast to the South, 1880-1930 (1985).

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall et al. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (1987).

Jacqueline Jones. The Dispossessed: America's Underclasses from the Civil War to the Present (1992).

John A. Salmond. Gastonia 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike (1995).

Allen Tullos. Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont (1989).

Gavin Wright. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (1986).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 234-3


America and Lewis Hine (videotape--56 min.). Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10019.

Crystal Lee Jordan (videotape--16 min.). Indiana University AV Center, Bloomington, Ind. 47401.

Matewan (videotape--132 min.). Facets Multimedia, Inc., 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60614.

Norma Rae (videotape--117 min.). Facets Multimedia, Inc., 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60614.

Testimony: Justice vs. J. P. Stevens(film--25 min.). Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, 770 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10003.