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The Roaring 20's: Crash Course US History #32 — Transcript

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0:00Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course US History, and today we're gonna learn about one of the best eras ever:
0:05the 1920s.
0:06The 20s gave us jazz, movies, radio, making out in cars, illegal liquor,
0:11and the 20s also gave us prosperity--although not for everybody--
0:14and gangsters, and a consumer culture based on credit,
0:18and lots of prejudice against immigrants,
0:20and eventually the worst economic crisis the US has ever seen.
0:23Mr. Green, Mr. Green, but what about Gatsby?
0:25Yeah, me from the past, it's true that Gastby turned out all right in the end,
0:28but what preyed on Gatsby,
0:30what foul dust trailed in the wake of his dreams,
0:32did temporarily close out my interest in the aborted sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
0:37*theme music*
0:47So there's a stereotypical view of the 1920s as "The Roaring 20s,"
0:50a decade of exciting change and new cultural touchstones,
0:53as well as increased personal freedom and dancing.
0:56And it really was a time of increased wealth--
0:59for some people.
1:00The quote of the decade has to go to our famously taciturn president from Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, who said,
1:08Jay-Z would later update this for the 21st century noting,
1:14But anyway, during the 1920s, the government helped business grow like gangbusters,
1:17largely by not regulating it much at all.
1:20This is known as “laissez-faire” capitalism.
1:22Or “laissez-faire” capitalism if you’re good at speaking French.
1:24The Republican Party dominated politics in the 1920s,
1:27with all the presidents elected in the decade being
1:29staunch conservative Republicans.
1:31The federal government hewed to the policies favored by business lobbyists,
1:34including lower taxes on personal income and business profits,
1:37and efforts to weaken the power of unions.
1:40Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover stocked the boards of the Federal Reserve
1:44and the Federal Trade Commission with men
1:45who shared their pro-business views,
1:47shifting the country away from the economic regulation that had been favored by Progressives.
1:51And that was very good for the American economy,
1:53at least in the short run.
1:55The 1920s were also marked by
1:56quite a bit of government corruption,
1:58most of which can be pinned to the
1:59administration of Warren G. Harding. Now,
2:01Harding himself wasn't terribly corrupt,
2:03but he picked terrible friends. They
2:05included Attorney General Harry
2:06Daugherty who accepted money to not
2:08prosecute criminals, and Interior
2:10Secretary Albert fall, who took half a
2:12million dollars from private business in
2:14exchange for leases to government oil
2:16reserves at Teapot Dome. Fall later
2:18became the first cabinet member ever to
2:19be convicted of a felony, but on the
2:21other hand, business, man! Productivity rose
2:24dramatically largely because older
2:26industry's adopted Henry Ford's assembly
2:28line techniques and newer industries
2:30like aviation, chemicals, and electronics
2:32grew up to provide Americans with new
2:34products and new jobs. During the 1920s
2:37annual production of cars tripled to 4.8
2:39million, and automobile companies were
2:41gradually consolidated into the big
2:43three that we know today: Ford, Chrysler,
2:46and Harley-Davidson. What? General Motors.
2:49By 1929 half of all American families
2:52owned a car and thus began the American
2:54love affair with the automobile, which is
2:56also
2:56where love affairs were often
2:58consummated, which is why in the 1920s
3:00cars came to be known as Scootaloo
3:02pooping chariots. What's that? They were
3:04called brothels on wheels? And the
3:06economy also grew because American
3:07corporations were extending their reach
3:09overseas, and American foreign investment
3:11was greater than that of any other
3:12country. The dollar replaced the pound as
3:15the most important currency for trade
3:16and by the end of the decade America was
3:18producing eighty-five percent of the
3:20world's cars and forty percent of its
3:22overall manufactured goods. Stan can I
3:24get a Libertage?
3:29And companies turned out
3:30all kinds of labor-saving devices like
3:32vacuum cleaners, toasters, refrigerators,
3:34and not having to spend all day washing
3:36your clothes, or turning over your own
3:38toast like some kind of common or meant
3:40that Americans had more time for leisure.
3:42And this was provided by radios and
3:44baseball games boxing matches vacations
3:47dance crazes. I mean before Gangnam style
3:49there was the windy and the Charleston
3:51but probably the most significant
3:53leisure product was movies and I'm not
3:55just saying that because I'm staring
3:56into a camera. The American film industry
3:58moved out to Hollywood before World War
4:00one because land was cheap and plentiful
4:02all that sunshine meant that you could
4:04shoot outside all year round and it was
4:06close to everything: desert, mountains,
4:09ocean, plastic surgeons. And by 1925 the
4:13American film industry had eclipsed all
4:14of its competitors and become the
4:16greatest in the world, especially if you
4:18count by volume and not quality, and more
4:20and more people had money to go see
4:21those movies thanks to consumer debt. The
4:24widespread use of credit and lay away
4:26buying plans meant that it was
4:27acceptable to go into debt to maintain
4:29what came to be seen as the American
4:31standard of living and this was a huge
4:33change in attitude. These days we don't
4:35even think of credit cards as debt,
4:37really. But they are. And that was a
4:39relatively new idea as was another
4:41feature of American life in the 20s that
4:43is still with us: celebrity. Opera singer
4:45Enrico Caruso has often been called the
4:47first modern celebrity but now he's a
4:49lot less famous than Charlie Chaplin or
4:51Rudolph Valentino or Babe Ruth but
4:53probably the biggest celebrity of the
4:55decade was Charles Lindbergh whose claim
4:57to fame was flying across the Atlantic
4:59Ocean by himself without stopping
5:02although he did use an airplane which
5:03makes it slightly less impressive. Now
5:05Lindbergh wasn't a truly contemporary
5:06celebrity in the sense of being famous
5:08for being famous, but he was
5:10a business more than a businessman. High
5:13culture also flourished. This was the age
5:15of the lost generation of American
5:17writers, many of whom lived and worked in
5:18Europe but America had its own version
5:20of Paris in New York. The decade of the
5:221920s saw continued migration of African
5:25American people from the South to cities
5:26in the nNorth, and Harlem became the
5:28capital of Black America. And speaking of
5:30migration, let us now migrated to the
5:32chair for the Mystery Document.
5:35The rules here
5:35are simple: I guess the author of
5:37the mystery document, I'm either right or
5:38I get shocked with the shock pen.
5:40Alright let's see we got here.
5:41“If we must die would it not be like hogs hunted and
5:44penned in an inglorious spot, while round
5:47us bark the mad and hungry dogs, making
5:50their market are a curse a lot... Like men
5:53we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
5:56pressed to the wall, dying but fight back.”
6:01Stan thank you for the poetry I
6:03appreciate that it's not some obscure
6:05document from 18th century blah blah blah
6:08It's Claude McKay Harlem Renaissance
6:10poet, the poem is called “If We Must Die.”
6:12Ah, it's the only thing in the world I'm
6:14actually good at. Now I know this from the
6:16imagery alone, especially the line about
6:18“mad and hungry dogs” that would
6:20figuratively and literally make up the
6:22mobs at the lynchings, but the giveaway
6:23here is the ultimate sentiment that we
6:26will fight back. This was part of the
6:28spirit of the Harlem Renaissance which
6:29rejected stereotypes and prejudice and
6:32sought to celebrate African-American
6:34experience. Meanwhile, things for changing
6:36for women as well, as they found new ways
6:38to express autonomy. Flappers kept their
6:40hair and skirts short, smoked and drank
6:42illegally in public, and availed
6:44themselves of birth control. And
6:45marketers encouraged them to buy
6:47products like cigarettes christened
6:48torches of freedom by Edward Bernays.
6:50Liberation had its limits though; most
6:52women were still expected to marry, have
6:54children, and find their freedom at home
6:56through the use of washing machines, but
6:58the picture of prosperity is as usual
7:00more complicated than it at first
7:02appears. The fact that so many Americans
7:04were going into debt in order to pursue
7:06the American dream meant that if the
7:08economy faltered, and it did, there was
7:10going to be lots of trouble. Let's go to
7:12the Thought Bubble. Prosperity in the 1920s
7:14wasn't equally distributed through the
7:16population. Real industrial wages rose by
7:18a quarter between 1922 and 1929 but
7:21corporate profits rose at twice that
7:23rate. By 1929,
7:24one percent of the nation's banks
7:25controlled fifty percent of the nation's
7:27financial resources and the wealthiest
7:29five percent of Americans share of
7:31national income exceeded that of the
7:33bottom sixty percent. An estimated forty
7:35percent of Americans lived in poverty.
7:37Now many Americans celebrated big
7:39business, and Wall Street was often seen
7:41as heroic possibly because by 1920 about
7:431.5 million Americans owned some kind of
7:46stock, but big business also meant that
7:48smaller businesses disappeared. During
7:50the 1920s the number of manufacturing
7:52workers declined by 5%, the first time
7:55this class of workers had seen its
7:56numbers drop, but not the last. Now some
7:58of these jobs were made up for by new
8:00jobs in retail finance and education, but
8:03as early as the 1920s New England was
8:05beginning to see unemployment in
8:06deindustrialization as textile companies
8:09moved their operations to the south
8:10where labor was cheaper and
8:12working-class people still made up the
8:13majority of Americans and they often
8:15couldn't afford these newfangled devices,
8:17like in 1930, seventy-five percent
8:19of american homes didn't have a
8:21washing machine, and only forty percent
8:23of them had a radio. Farmers were even
8:25worse off many had prospered during
8:26World War One when the government
8:28subsidized farm prices in order to keep
8:30farms producing for the war effort, but
8:32when the subsidies ended, production
8:33didn't subside, largely due to
8:35mechanization and increased use of
8:37fertilizer. Farmers incomes dropped
8:39steadily and many saw banks foreclose
8:41upon their property. For the first time
8:43in American history the number of farms
8:45declined during the 1920s. For farmers
8:48the Great Depression began early.
8:50Thanks, Thought Bubble. So in general the federal
8:51government did little to nothing to help
8:53farmers or workers. The Supreme Court was
8:55the only segment of the government that
8:57kept any progressive ideas alive as they
8:59began to craft a system of ideas that we
9:01call the jurisprudence of civil
9:03liberties. Now the court still voted to
9:05uphold convictions of left-wing critics
9:07of the government but gradually began to
9:08embrace the idea that people had the
9:10right to express dissonant views in what
9:13Oliver Wendell Holmes called the
9:14“Marketplace of ideas.” In Near vs. Minnesota,
9:17the Supreme Court struck down
9:18censorship of newspapers and by 1927
9:21Justice Brandeis was writing that
9:23“Freedom to think as you will and to
9:25speak as you think are indispensable to
9:27the discovery and spread of political truth.”
9:29But despite increased free speech
9:31and torches of liberty and flappers and
9:34the Harlem Renaissance the 1920s was in
9:36many ways a reactionary
9:37period in American history. For instance
9:39the decade saw the resurgence of the
9:40Ku Klux Klan in a new and improved form and
9:43by improved I mean much more terrible.
9:45Spurred on by the hyper patriotism that
9:46was fostered during World War One, the
9:48Klan denounced immigrants and Jews and
9:50Catholics as less than one hundred
9:52percent American, and by the mid 20s the
9:54Klan claimed more than 3 million members
9:57and it was the largest private
9:58organization right here in my home state
10:01of Indiana. And with more immigrants
10:02coming from Southern and Eastern Europe
10:04who were often Catholic and Jewish,
10:06White Protestants became more and more
10:08concerned about losing their dominant
10:10position in the social order.
10:11Spoiler alert: it turns out okay for you, White Protestants
10:15The first immigration
10:16restriction bill was passed in 1921,
10:18limiting the number of immigrants from
10:19Europe to 357,000. In 1924, a new
10:23immigration law dropped that number to
10:25150,000 and established quotas based on
10:27national origin. The numbers of
10:29immigrants allowed from Southern and
10:31Eastern Europe were drastically reduced
10:32and Asians except for Filipinos were
10:34totally forbidden. The quota for
10:36Filipinos was set at 50 per year
10:39although they were still allowed to
10:40emigrate to Hawaii because their labor
10:42was needed there. There were no
10:44restrictions, however, on immigration from
10:45the Western Hemisphere because
10:46California's large-scale farms were
10:48dependent upon seasonal laborers from
10:50Mexico. These immigration restrictions
10:52were also influenced by fear of radical
10:54anarchists and pseudo scientific ideas
10:56about race; whites were seen as
10:58scientifically superior to people of
11:00color and as President Coolidge himself
11:02declared when he signed the 1924
11:04immigration law, “America must be kept American”
11:08Tell me Calvin Coolidge about
11:09how American you are. Are you Cherokee, or
11:12Cree, or Lakota? The 1920s also saw
11:14increased tension between science
11:16education in the United States and
11:17religious beliefs. The best known example
11:19is of course the trial of John Scopes in
11:21Tennessee in 1925. Scopes was tried for
11:23breaking the law against teaching
11:26evolution which he had been encouraged
11:27to do by the ACLU as a test case for
11:29freedom of speech. Scopes was prosecuted
11:31by William Jennings Bryan whom you will
11:33remember as having recently resigned as
11:35Secretary of State and who had become a
11:36leader of the Fundamentalist Movement.
11:38And Scopes was defended by Clarence
11:40Darrow, that famous defense attorney who
11:42contemporary defense attorneys always
11:44point to to argue that defense attorneys
11:46aren't all scum. Scopes and Darrow
11:48actually lost the trial but the case
11:50drew national attention and ultimately led to
11:52evolution being taught in more American
11:54schools. The Scopes trial is often seen
11:56as a victory for free thinking and
11:57science and modernism, and I suppose it
12:00was, but for me it's more a symbol of the
12:02contradictions of the 1920s. This is the
12:04decade that gave us mass consumer
12:06culture and celebrity worship, which are
12:08important and very complicated legacies.
12:10And it also saw the birth of modern
12:11conceptions of civil liberties. It was a
12:13period when tolerance became an
12:15important value, but at the same time it
12:17saw a rise in lynchings. Immigrants were
12:19necessary for the economic boom of the
12:211920s, but at the same time their numbers
12:23were restricted, as they were seen as a
12:25threat to traditional American value, and
12:27that raises a question that we're still
12:28struggling with today: What are those
12:30values? I don't mean that rhetorically
12:32let me know in comments.
12:34Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.
12:35Crash Course is produced and directed by
12:37Stan Muller, our script supervisor is
12:39Meredith Danko, the Associate Producer is
12:40Danica Johnson to show is written by my high
12:42school history teacher Raoul Meyer
12:43Rosianna Rojas and myself and our
12:45graphics team is Thought Cafe.
12:47I nailed that.
12:47Every week there's a new caption
12:48for the Libertage. You can suggest your
12:50own in comments or ask questions about
12:52today's video that will be answered by
12:53our team of historians.
12:54Thank you for watching Crash Course,
12:56If you enjoyed today's episode make sure you subscribe.
12:57And as we say in my hometown:
12:59Don't Forget to be Awesome.

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