Labor unions lost their clout in the s after gaining acceptance for their role in the World War I effort of previous years. Americans grew fearful of communist influences; massive strikes in the steel and mining industries ended in failure; and union membership plunged.
Among the rollbacks in conditions for American workers, the U. Supreme Court in outlawed the minimum wage, a ruling that would stand for 14 years. The stock market soared, and in , the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a high that was six times its value in You may also like: 87 top rated charities to support military members and their families.
The number of American homes with electricity nearly doubled from the beginning of the decade to the end, when two-thirds of homes had power. People began buying refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, the ease of which made a huge impact on daily life.
But the vast majority of homes in rural America remained without electricity until the Rural Electrification Administration was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in The comedy featured two white men playing two black men who migrated north to Chicago from the South. The show moved to television in , where it was the first to feature a cast that was nearly all black. Criticism over its racial stereotypes led to its cancellation in Revival of the white supremacist group was aided by an effective publicity campaign that emphasized morality, small-town values and nationalism, playing on xenophobia and fears of foreign-bred communism after World War I.
Dozens of people were killed in a race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma in , and in , more than 50, white-robed Klan members marched in Washington D. In ensuing years, however, public condemnation grew, the Klan became more commonly recognized for its extreme racial views, and its numbers dropped.
The group's numbers would grow again amid civil rights battles in the s and s. Having built a huge business with its trademark catalog, Sears, Roebuck and Company opened its first retail store in Chicago in , after growing automobile use both dampened mail orders and allowed more people to drive to shop. By the end of the decade, there were more than Sears stores nationwide.
After decades of business, Sears closed its catalog sales in and filed for bankruptcy protection in Americans started snacking on some of the same foods still eaten today.
Wonder Bread made its debut in , Popsicles were patented in , and Kool-Aid was introduced in Girls Scouts made the sugar cookies and sold them door to door.
In , a child from Toronto became the first human patient with diabetes to be treated with insulin, and commercial production began on a wide scale.
Before insulin, diabetes was fatal. Decades later, in , the first synthetic insulin was produced to replace insulin from animal sources. The first vaccine for diphtheria was developed in to fight a disease that in alone killed nearly 16, people. Children were especially vulnerable to diphtheria, which today has all but disappeared from the United States. Consumer credit spread throughout the s, allowing Americans to buy goods they previously could not have afforded.
Department stores began offering installment payment plans, and in almost two-thirds of new automobiles were purchased on credit. Mid-decade, more than 1, credit and finance companies were doing business in the United States, contributing to the doubling of consumer debt by the end of the decade.
You may also like: Can you answer these real 'Jeopardy! Time magazine, founded in , changed the way Americans got their news. The articles were short and meant to be read quickly. Its first Man of the Year was aviator Charles Lindbergh, chosen in Made from cellulose fiber, rayon became the rage in s fashion.
Sometimes called artificial silk, rayon could be used to simulate the qualities of the more expensive fabric. The more-affordable price of rayon allowed more women to wear shiny, shimmery styles. Barnstorming brought excitement to rural America in the s, when stunt pilots buzzed overhead, performed aerial stunts, staged airshows, and offered passenger rides. Barnstormers often were former World War I aviators who took advantage of a surplus of inexpensive military training biplanes left from war.
Barnstorming came to an end with federal safety and aviation regulations put into effect in Air passenger travel took off in the s. But passenger planes were small, holding less than 20 people, and flew at altitudes of 3, feet or lower. At speeds of about miles per hour, air travel took longer than train travel because of the frequent need to refuel.
Air journeys were loud and cold. People also went to the movies: Historians estimate that, by the end of the decades, three-quarters of the American population visited a movie theater every week. But the most important consumer product of the s was the automobile. In there was one car on the road for every five Americans. Cars also gave young people the freedom to go where they pleased and do what they wanted.
Jazz bands played at venues like the Savoy and the Cotton Club in New York City and the Aragon in Chicago ; radio stations and phonograph records million of which were sold in alone carried their tunes to listeners across the nation.
The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the Jazz Age. During the s, some freedoms were expanded while others were curtailed. This drove the liquor trade underground—now, people simply went to nominally illegal speakeasies instead of ordinary bars—where it was controlled by bootleggers, racketeers and other organized-crime figures such as Chicago gangster Al Capone. Prohibition was not the only source of social tension during the s. This led to the passage of an extremely restrictive immigration law, the National Origins Act of , which set immigration quotas that excluded some people Eastern Europeans and Asians in favor of others Northern Europeans and people from Great Britain, for example.
Immigrants were hardly the only targets in this decade. The Great Migration of African Americans from the Southern countryside to Northern cities and the increasing visibility of Black culture—jazz and blues music, for example, and the literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance —discomfited some white Americans. Millions of people, not just in the South, but across the country, including the west coast, Midwest and Northeast joined the Ku Klux Klan in the s.
More specifically, the s represented economic and political uplift for African Americans that threatened the social hierarchy of Jim Crow oppression. During this decade, Black Americans sought stable employment, better living conditions and political participation. Many who migrated to the North found jobs in the automobile, steel, shipbuilding and meatpacking industries. But with more work came more exploitation.
In , civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph founded the first predominantly Black labor union , the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters , to draw attention to the discriminatory hiring practices and working conditions for African Americans.
And as housing demands increased for Black people in the North, so did discriminatory housing practices that led to a rise of urban ghettos, where African Americans were excluded from white neighborhoods and relegated to inadequate, overcrowded and insanitary living conditions.
Black Americans battled for political and civil rights throughout the Roaring Twenties and beyond. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other uses directly to the museum editorial staff. Spring The decade began with a roar and ended with a crash. The s was a decade of change, when many Americans owned cars, radios, and telephones for the first time.
The cars brought the need for good roads. The radio brought the world closer to home. The telephone connected families and friends. Prosperity was on the rise in cities and towns, and social change flavored the air. A substantial growth of industry occurred in North Carolina, especially in the areas of tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Some rural farmers were leaving their farms in order to receive a regular paycheck in the factories.
Unions were on the rise. In the Eighteenth Amendment to the U. Constitution was passed, creating the era of Prohibition. The amendment forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.
Many people ignored the ban, however. In the amendment was abolished, and it became the only Constitutional amendment to be repealed. They were coming back to their families, friends, and jobs. Most of the soldiers had never been far from home before the war, and their experiences had changed their perspective of life around them. After seeing Europe, they wanted some of the finer things in life for themselves and their families. Two events in kicked off the era of change that Americans experienced.
On August 18 the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote. In North Carolina, women voted for better roads and better education for their children. And radio became a family experience.
Everyone would gather around the radio and listen to the news, the comedy shows, and the music. Musical styles were also changing in the s. In Louis Armstrong started improvising and adding personal musical variations with his trumpet, playing in a style known as jazz. In the flappers found a new dance craze, called the Charleston.
In Mickey Mouse first appeared in the cartoon Steamboat Willie , and in Popeye first appeared in the comic strip Thimble Theater. Aviation represented another area in which things were changing quite rapidly, helped by advances and improvements in aircraft during World War I.
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