Steven Doerstling

Seth Brown
APUSH- 2B
3/7
DBQ
In the 1920s America experienced a period of robust economic activity as well as
a time of tension between novel and conventional ideals. Freshly emerged from the
trenches of World War I, the United States began an isolationist policy dubbed the
return to normalcy. This policy placed emphasis on domestic matters, and although the
American economy experienced an unprecedented growth, clashing viewpoints on the
framework of society soon surfaced. Thus ensued the battle between the old
fundamentalists and the "roaring" modernists. The introduction of modern ways of
thinking and what many fundamentalists would call a decline in American morality
became hotbeds of conict between the two halves of American society.
The 1920s was host to numerous social issues involving women and education
exemplied the clash between new and old idiosyncrasies. The early 1900s was host to
advancements in womens role in society. During World War I, the jobs of those who
were ghting abroad were often taken by women, and various Progressive legislation
such as the 19th Amendment in 1919 gave women the rights to suffrage and general
equality. Thus, women began taking a larger role in American culture; one such activity
that highlights this escalating feminine power is the advocation for reform, especially
temperance of alcohol. The National Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU),
founded by Frances Willard in 1874, was one prevalent entity that fought for such
changes. In the New York Times article Women Smokers, the WCTU encouraged
further scientic research into the effects of nicotine and believed that it was
responsible to protect the coming generation. The mere fact that women were taking
such a monumental step toward equal participation in society is the epitome of
modernist thinking. On the other hand, fundamentalists still maintained the traditional
mindset of female inferiority. Education also began to experience clashes of its own as a
result of John Dewey pushing for a modernist educational policy. It was his ideas that
began discussion on the topic of evolution, and in 1925 Tennessee passed a law
prohibiting the teaching of evolution. When Tennessee biology teacher John Thomas
Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution, the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 became
the national embodiment of the dispute of traditional and modern ideas. Tennessee is in
the Bible Belt of the south; thus, beliefs in the pure teaching of the Bible had an inherent
stronghold- this traditional view represented the fundamentalist side of the argument.
The teaching of evolution was an extremely modernist concept, and the scale of the trial
was indicative of the sizable disparity. As the trial began, Clarence Darrow defended
John T. Scopes while William Jennings Bryan fought for the State of Tennessee. The
heated disputes escalated to what is referred to as the Gotcha moment when Darrow
overcame Jennings with a counteractive Biblical argument. As mentioned in The Worlds
Most Famous Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case, Darrow asserted that it was perfectly
easy to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale? The jury did nd Scopes guilty, but his
punishment of a $100 ne was no where near as extreme as the underlying conict that
remained unresolved. Therefore, womens increasing role in society and the teaching of
society and the teaching of evolution were both manifestations of the contrasting
viewpoints between traditional and modern thinking.
Nativist thinking and racial discrimination were bespoken by the KKK and various
anti-immigration beliefs and legislation, revealing varying opinions of the matters at
hand. As a result of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a Red Scare of communism
swept through the United States in 1919-1920. Attorney General Mitchell A. Palmer led
a series of raids to arrest and deport suspected communists. This fear of foreigners
continued throughout the 1920s, and in 1927, the execution of Italian immigrants
Vincent Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti became a topic of dispute among
fundamentalists and modernists. While the fundamentalists had a strong nativist agenda
that praised the elimination of possible foreign threats, modernists viewed the treatment
of Sacco and Vanzetti as an unmerited racist bash against immigrants. The continual
inux of immigrants (over 500,000 in 1920 alone) warranted the implementation of
immigration legislation. In 1921, the Emergency Quota Act set an immigration cap at 3%
of the population from the country of origin; this rate was later lowered to 2% with the
Immigration Act of 1924. Furthermore, the fear of radical foreigners resulted in a
resurgence of the KKK in the 1920s. The KKK reached beyond the bounds of African
Americans and now ostracized anyone who was not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
(WASP). The Klans legacy of lynching and oppression continued unrestrained.
Fundamentalists supported the KKKs mission of ridding the United States of threats,
but the modernists once again despised such harsh measures taken against
immigrants. Nonetheless, the KKK thought it was doing America justice. As Hiram
Wesley Evans suggests, the group thought they were responsible for the whole of
modern civilization. Their usage of modern reected what they thought an ideal
modern society would include. Even the rst full length movie, Birth of a Nation (1915),
portrayed the KKK in a positive light. The practices of the KKK caused an incendiary
debate between traditional nativists and open-minded modernists. In addition, the
emergence of Jazz music caused even more racial tension, especially against African
Americans. Ever since W.C. Handy picked up a guitar, a revolution of Jazz music
began. Often, the 1920s is referred to as the Jazz Age, a term coined by Lost
Generation writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. To modernists, Jazz music was a fun, wild genre
that was accompanied by a party lifestyle. However, fundamentalists often attacked
Jazz music on many accounts, especially for its African American roots. As Langston
Hughes reveals in The Nation, the Philadelphia clubwoman...turns her nose at jazz and
all its manifestations. This quote reects upper white class prejudice toward jazz. But
as Hughes later explains, the purpose of jazz was to ght the superiority of the whites. It
was the responsibility of the up and coming negro generation to change the purpose of
jazz from I want to be white to why should I want to be white? Jazz music further
exemplied the racial opposition of fundamentalists and the racial acceptance of
modernists.
Lastly, fundamentalists argued that the modernists indulged in activities and
ideas that were indicative of a decline in American morality. After World War I, tradition
began to take a back seat in American culture. One prime example of this can be seen
in a graph of Marriage and Divorce Rates, 1890-1930. The year 1920 served as the
point where marriage rates began to decline and divorce rates proliferated, an
extremely modernist trend. This breaking of matrimonial sacrament would have been
lamented in earlier decades. However, as exposed by Lost Generation writers such as
Fitzgerald and Hemingway, with World War I came a loss of innocence, and as a result,
long- lived traditions such as marriage soon began to crumble. Furthermore, the rising
popularity of Jazz music signied an even deeper disregard for morality and law. The
lifestyle of Jazz included open talks of sex, appers (inappropriately dressed women),
and belligerent drinking. Although the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act both
outlawed the production and consumption of alcohol, speakeasies, illegal saloons, soon
became popular and synonymous with jazz music. Modernism is evidently shown in
pushing the bounds of appropriate dress, talk, and conduct. In addition, Americas
likeness of Charles Lindbergh suggests a supercial American opinion of what was
considered good. In May 1927, Charles August Lindbergh completed the rst solo
transatlantic ight in a time of 33 hours and 39 minutes. Instantly, he was hailed as the
rst American hero of the modern era. Even his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis (model
number: N-X-211) became an icon with Lindbergh. Lindbergh was so liked by the
American people that when his son was kidnapped and murdered, it was called the
Crime of the Century. As Mary B Mullett indicates in The American Magazine, we
shouted ourselves hoarse for Lindbergh. He was praised for being clean in character.
While Lindbergh did accomplish a huge feat in aviation, he was far from a good role
model. Underneath his public guild of stardom, Lindbergh was actually sympathetic to
the Nazi cause; he was a strong advocate and supporter of eugenics himself. However,
the growing American modernist society refused to dig past the surface level of
amazement they had for Lindbergh. Modernism in the 1920s took form as a disregard
for propriety in which traditional values were overrun by wild and fun innovations.
From fear of communism to a shifted mindset of ethics, many reasons can be
traced to the clash between fundamentalists and modernists in the 1920s. While no
clear victor emerged at the end of the decade, discrepancies between Americans were
fostered in the era of Jazz, and a greater loss of innocence, morality, and life loomed
around the corner in Nazi Germany.