The Roaring 20s

Growing conflict in American society between native-born Americans and new immigrants is displayed in this image. The apparently worrying growth in Japanese population, along with a wide variety of other ethnicities and nationalities such as Italians, Jews, Irish, and Slavic, caused native-born Americans to react with violence, bigotry and pushes for segregation. The federal government reacted by passing The Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and later with the Immigration Act of 1924, which placed specific quotas on the number of immigrants from specific regions that were allowed to immigrate into the US. The Immigration Act of 1924 served as an update to the Emergency Quota Act, and also banned Japanese people from immigrating to the US during that period.

Dr. Sigmund Freud contributed to some of the roaring social change in the 1920s for publishing controversial theories regarding sex, sexual repression and the effects of these intimate matters on emotional and social health. 

A performance of the hit song Puttin’ on the Ritz: a song that was popular in the 1920s

After the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, many citizens were displeased, as it prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol. A law set to control the private lives of American citizens was hard to enforce, and led to the growth of speakeasies and illegal manufacturing of alcohol by moonshiners. Because of the prohibition, some growth in bank savings resulted and there was less industrial-absenteeism. 

The second Klan (KKK) of the 1920s had some short growth and a sudden death during the 1920s, as a result of the Red Scare and a steep incline in immigration. Peddled by fundamentalist WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), the Klan grew mostly in the Midwest and in the bible belt of the South amongst evangelists. This iteration of the Klan was short, and it died in the late 20s.

Ernest Hemmingway

Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti were sentenced to death after being convicted of murder in an armed robbery. The influence of Christian Fundamentalists in the judge and jury of their trial is questionable, because of their anti-Italian, anti-anarchist and anti-atheist sentiment. The men were executed in 1927.

The Cotton Club, was a part of the Harlem Renaissance for popularizing African American artists such as: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Fats Waller. It was originally in Harlem and was limited as a whites-only establishment, despite having African-American performers often.

Some Flappers in NYC smoking publicly

Christian Fundamentalists protesting teaching Charle’s Darwin’s theory of Evolution in public schools. These guys would be really unpopular in NYC

Ford Model T. Brand fresh off the assembly line

Al Capone