Themes in American History

In the early twentieth century, during the Progressive Era, city government established city planning department in order to cope with everyday infrastructure problems, including traffic congestion, air pollution, and substandard housing. The problems of American cities were particularly acute, as much of the growth of those cities occurred with no comprehensive plan. In addition, the sudden quickness of that growth, especially with governments working with a laissez-faire economic policy that pretty much allowed business and industrial concerns free reign, led to many problems in both the physical and social environment.

America's First Garden City

In 1923, the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) was organized and offered grand vision for restructuring urban regions. They asserted that uncontrolled expansion was causing unnecessary congestion and that decentralization would relieve pressures of housing and traffic. Stein felt that “Dinosaur” cities like New York were outdated as a consequence of modern technology. These cities required vast amount of financial expenditures for transit and utility systems. They were overly congested and required intensive land utilization that resulted in highly inflated property values. An endless spiral of speculative real estate investments led to more intensive land use and even more congestion. On the other hand, the Garden City Movement in 1898 advocated the concept of “garden cities”. Those garden cities were surrounded by “greenbelts” of parks, farms and open land. The cities would contain enough business and industry to achieve a degree of economic self-sufficiency. They saw “garden cities” as a means to achieve a rational distribution of population and economic growth. In 1928, just prior the Great Depression, they tried to bring Howard’s garden city to the United States by creating Radburn, New Jersey.

Radburn was designed as a community for the affluent. In addition, restrictive covenants prohibited the selling of houses to Jews and to African Americans. Its advocates were bowing to the pressures for privacy, exclusivity, and safety and protection. It was also designed to minimize the requirement for automobiles. Automobiles were relegated to main arterial streets that were on the periphery, thus enabling the separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. People were able to wander through the local parks and pathways without worry of traffic, and underpasses were built under major streets. Radburn project represented the growing concern for minimizing the discomfort and dangers posed by the automobile. It became an inspiration for Resettlement Administration during the Great Depression.

Le Corbusierian "Radient City" from Plan Voisin of Paris designed in 1925

New city planning in the twentieth century has also been influenced by the modernist movement. In 1939, at the New York World’s Fair, General Motors had an exhibit that many consider the highlight of the fair. In its highways and horizons building, General Motors constructed a miniaturized scale model of a United States of the future – Futurama. The scale model consisted of a half-million individually designed buildings and thousands of miles of multilane highways. It was the future city of towers and highways, highly influenced by Le Corbusierian “Radient City”. Futurama articulated the view that the success of future city rests on the development of better and more efficient transportation. It was an illustration of the continued progress in high way design and construction, the expanded use of automobiles and the increased contributions of industry. This model greatly influenced in the building of post-World War II America and in urban renewal, interstate highways, and suburbia. Robert Moses, who was New York’s Park Commissioner and urban planner. He was influenced by “trafficgenerating” capacity of highways and driven the building of highway systems that served the city, for example the Long Island Expressway, the Triborough and Verrazano Bridges. Futurama became the prototype for the urban reconstruction of New York.

General Motor’s Futurama model of the city of the future, images from the New York World’s Fair’s brochure of 1939-1940

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An aerial shot of Manhattan that spotlights the newly constructed wall of public housing on the East River -- Lillian Wald and Jacob Riis -- and the middle-class private city at the right, Stuyvesant Town. Original Source: New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), circa 1949.

In the twentieth century, public housing was one aspect of the development in cities in the United States. Public housing in the United States was dedicated for the poor, low-income people, and for slum clearance. In New York City, the first public housing project was built in 1935.

At the beginning, the public housing projects in the United States were welcomed by many working-class whites as well as blacks. Public housing was highly demanded and was not only provided for blacks. In some cities, such as Chicago, the government allocated the poor of different races carefully into different apartments whose location matched the racial composition of that area. For black, there were projects in black communities, and for white, there were projects in white communities. There were also areas there racial composition was mixed.

However, in the late 1940s, this racial allocation seemed to be hard to maintain. As more and more blacks applied to public housing and more and more white looked for alternatives in private market, the government had to fill the public housing units with increasing amount of blacks, rather than let the units vacant. In Chicago, the black population of the Frances Cabrini Homes had reached 40 percent by 1949, the double of the original 20 percent limit. The percentage of blacks continued to increase and reached 85 percent by 1959. This was the same in New York City. The white population of public housing in New York City dropped from 66 percent to 25 percent during the 1950s. Since then, public housing became as a label of impoverished black residents, and even became a way of segregation. (Chudacoff, 233)

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Image depicts the idea of the quota laws set forth during the 1920's in the United States. Original Source: American Isolationism Cartoon, 1921 (Library of Congress)

During the 1920s many American cities saw quota laws that limited or completely stopped a group of people from entering into the United States. One of the cities that was affected by these quota laws was NYC which saw a great decline of immigration during the 1920s. The congressional acts of 1921, 1924, and 1929 limited greatly the amount of immigrants coming from southern and eastern Europe places where the majority of immigration came from to NY (Chudacoff & Smith 206). On the other hand these laws did not limit the immigration coming from the Western Hemisphere therefore, during the 1920’s the majority of the immigrants entering the country where Mexicans. While some of them moved up to some of the northern cities like Chicago and Detroit many of them resided in southwestern cities. For example during this decade Mexicans where a little more than 50% of the population in El Paso, a little less than 50% of the population in in San Antonio and 20% of the population in Los Angeles (Chudacoff & Smith 206). This influx of Chicanos provided a large body of labor as they worked in steel mills, tanneries, meat-packing industries, automobile factories, etc. However these Chicanos were also faced issues in the United States such as segregation a negative aspect of their time here.

Image of a Mexican immigrant couple during the 1920's. Original Source: UC Berkeley Bancroft Library

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The 1920s was a great period of change for Americans. The post-war prosperity and Government policies lead to an economic boom. Immigrants fled into the country to escape Europe’s post-war poverty and with the nineteenth amendment giving women the right to vote, American society was going under a big change. Like all change, these changes which took place in such a short space of time attracted the growth of many opposing parties. Such groups were the anti-flirt league, who opposed revolutionary young women, known as ‘flappers’. Perhaps the most recognized opposing group at the time was the Ku Klux Klan, which had been revived recently and gained immense membership throughout the early twenties when it reached five million members. The Ku Klux Klan is a violent hate group who opposed Blacks, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, unionists, and bootleggers in the 1920s to name a few. The reason for the Ku Klux Klan’s uprising in the 1920s is that people feared the change that was taking place in America, and they wanted to band together to try and uphold ‘American White Supremacy’.

In Chudacoff’s book, the author mentions the historian Kenneth T. Jackson estimated that half the Klan’s membership “lived in cities of over fifty thousand people”. Also he states that Chicago, with an estimated fifty thousand Klansmen, “contained the largest operation in the country.”(Chudacoff 235).  Moreover, Jackson states : “At the time, the “Invisible Empire” was known for anti-Catholicism as much as for white supremacy and anti-Semitism, and Chicago had an abundance of all three targets. The Chicago Klan drew its primary support from lower-echelon white-collar workers, small businessmen, and semiskilled laborers, all of whom resented the growing influence of persons who did not meet the Klan’s definition of “one hundred percent American.” (encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org)

On the other hand, in New York City, the Klan was not as violent as cities in the south and in rural places: “In cities, Klansmen often turned to politics rather than using violence and display to achieve their goals.” (Chudacoff 235). One example of the ways of the Klan to try to achieve its goals was in the Democratic National Convention: “The Klan issue played a significant role at the bitterly divisive 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The leading candidates were Protestant William Gibbs McAdoo, with a base in areas where the Klan was strong, and Catholic New York Governor Al Smith, with a base in the large cities.” (Wiki)

Bibliography

Jackson, Kenneth T. The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930. 1967.

Encyclopedia Chicago History.org

Cover of sheet music for the song "We Are All Loyal Klansmen"-It is copyright 1923 by William Davis, William M. Hart, Charles E. Downey, and E. M. McMahon

Ku Klux Klan parade in New York State, 1924

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The Great Depression began with the crash of the New York Stock Exchange of October, 1929 and it rapidly spread worldwide.  The market crash manifest the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, deflation, diminishing farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth. In the Great Depression the American dream had become a nightmare. What was once the land of opportunity became the land of desperation. Unemployment rose and wages fell for those who continued to work. Thousands of banks and businesses failed and millions were homeless.

In Virginia the economic impact of the Great Depression was less harsh. While the state suffered industrial reverses, unusual unemployment, and much hardship, Virginians did not experience, in the same degree, the extensive hardship that the rest of the nation endured. Virginia had a delayed reaction to the financial catastrophe. The state’s manufacturing did not include the heavy production of steel and automobiles that sustained huge national losses. A major part of Virginia’s industry was consumer oriented; producing the sort of necessities that even a poor person could not do without, such as food and clothing. While these buffers eventually broke down, they minimized the depression’s effect on Virginia and contributed to its more rapid recovery by 1935. Virginia was fairly better off than most other states during the depression, with industrial production and employment rising in the last 10 years.

Depression: Breadlines: long line of people waiting to be fed: New York City

(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

Depression: Breadlines: long line of people waiting to be fed: New York City: in the absence of substantial government relief programs during 1932, free food was distributed with private funds in some urban centers to large numbers of the unemployed. (Circa February 1932)

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I think the different visual footage other students have posted is amazing since it really captures life in the 1920s–the jazz music, dancing, cigarettes, new role for women as flappers, and fashion. I also wanted to make not of the rise of actors in the 1920s. Most of these rising starts were New Yorkers or from the East Coast. Hollywood was not the cosmopolitan of movie making, but New York was. It wouldn’t be until 1927 that Hollywood really becomes huge. Movies, for the majority, were silent films and black and white. Movies with sound were called “Talkies.” And movie theaters were called “Nickelodeons.” Normally in theaters there would be an organ player to add sound. Especially after  the first World War, this visual entertainment was very appealing, comical and successful. Mickey mouse made it’s first appearance in 1928 in NYC.

Almost a century later, our actors of today are treated much like actors of the 1920s. Individuals such as Mary Pickford, Rudolf Valentino and Charlie Chaplin were paid large salaries and had the opportunity to travel across the world to promote their film.

Here is also a link of Steamboat Willie which was Disney’s first animation (with sound) of Mickey Mouse.

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Airplanes started out as a relatively new invention in the earl 1920s. However the quickly caught on later in the decade.  Airmail  began to take flight in 1919 and 1920 when planes travelling started to travel from  New York and Washington DC. Since air travel cut down the time from weeks to just a few days, it quickly became popular. Later in the 1920s, as planes became more reliable and well built,  passenger planes started to make flights across the US. Today we see airplanes as a normal means of transportation that is almost essential to our everyday lives, while back in the 1920s airplanes were revolutionary.

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By 1900, industry was mainly centralized in the downtown of the city. Manhattan was the place where factories concentrated and where opportunities for jobs gathered. However, by the 1920s, because of the improvement of transportation and, more importantly, electric power made it possible for industry to decentralize from the center of the city. Factories were able to extend greater flexibility in location and made possible the assembly line. Thus, corporations began to look for suburb, where lands were cheaper ad tax burdens were less, as new locations. When industry moved out from the central city, many white workers followed and moved to cheaper suburban house lots. This phenomenon extended the use of automobiles and the building of expressways and parkways. Government invested a lot of money in street improvement, traffic regulation, and new road construction. The more people living in suburb areas; the more automobiles would be needed; the more highways would be built, and the more development would take place in suburban areas.

On the other hand, as the industry was decentralizing from the center of the city, professional services such as finance, management, and clerical increased their presence in downtown areas. Skyscrapers emerged and altered the skyline of the downtown. Skyscrapers in the 1920s not only answered the demand of office but also served as a visual symbol of the development in cities in the 1920s. Corporate offices, banks, law firms, and advertising agencies contributed to this vertical expansion of cities. Woolworth Building was one of the skyscrapers that was built during the 1920s. This new pattern of spatial specialization formed metropolitan districts—regions that included a city and its suburbs.

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Women have been looked down upon by men since the beginning of time. Most women took the ridicule thinking that social casting would never change, but some had courage to fight for justice, equality and rights. By the early 20^th century, women had not yet received any rights in the American Democracy. Women were not allowed to vote, had no property rights, not accepted into universities, worked for a fraction of a man’s salary and so on.  On August 18, 1920 the 19^th Amendment was ratified after decades of struggle by women’s rights advocates, bringing a successful end to the US women’s suffrage movement. The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote on sex. Without the following women, it is unlikely that women in the US would have all the freedom that they have today: Frances Wright, Ernestine Rose, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth C. Stanton. Besides, America has dramatically changed since women gained the right to vote, both economically, politically and culturally.

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This clip is basically talking about how the Prohibition of Alcohol in 1920s influenced the society negatively. In the beginning of the 19^th century, alcohol was abusively used by many people. Many people blamed many problems upon alcohol. Many organizations were created to fight against consumption of alcohol. The state laws were already passed in the beginning of 20^th century, and eventually, the 18^th amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, and put into effect on the same day of 1920. “[It] banned the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol in America.” The consequences of this new act were “saloons selling alcohol closed, alcohol prices rose, and consumption of alcohol decreased especially among the poor.” The rose of “organized crime” gangs was the biggest and worst consequence, which they took over the distribution and sale of alcohol. Al Capone was the top leader of these gangs. Illegal alcohol was smuggled from many other places, such as Europe, Mexico, Canada, and the West Indies.

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The HarlemRenaissance was a cultural movement that covered the 1920s. It was also known as the “New Negro Movement”.  During this time period, the musical style of blacks was becoming more attractive to whites.  In this time period, the “Jazz Age” emerged and with the introduction of jazz came a totally new movement in the United States. The jazz was mainly credited to African Americans, but expanded and improved to become socially suitable to middle class white Americans. Jazz was the sound of the 1920s; it became the “people’s” music despite some trouble being accepted by the black “cultural elite”. Music in general exploded during the 1920s. Jazz were key to nightclubs, Apollo Theater, and the Cotton Club. Harlem Renaissance music was defined by lively clubs and characters who constantly improved and modified jazz’s sound. Men like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Willie “The Lion” Smith were the “gladiators” of jazz. Harlem Renaissance music was more than just music, but for many, jazz was a way of life.

Louis Armstrong

Duke Ellington

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The American Industrial Revolution (1870-1920) changed the United States citizens from an agricultural people to one that is highly industrialized. They began to performed much of their work in factories and on machines. This transition took fifty years and caused a dramatic change in the nation’s economic history. In the second industrial revolution from (1860-1920), unskilled immigrant laborers were the dominant factory manufacturing labor force. Industrial development in the United States exhibited two major production technologies: factory- assembly (1820-1920), and factory continuous (1920-). By far the greatest reason for new immigration was for employment. The Southern and Eastern European Nations most new immigrants fled were in dire economic times with high unemployment and limited opportunity. The stunning growth in the US industrial development fueled a seemingly endless demand for workers, which the desperate immigrants seemingly fulfilled.

Many newly arrived immigrants found themselves at the mercy of corrupt political forces like Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall in New York City. Political machines such as these used the votes of newly arrived immigrants to dominate and corrupt the political process in many of America’s growing cities.

The contributions of the new immigrants were transformative to America. The ethnic diversity of the immigrants changed America into a more multi-cultural society with varied language, traditons and practices. The cultural contributions of the new immigrants can be seen in the art, food, music and culture of modern America. (Direct Essays, regentsprep.org, www.mcgill.ca)

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Highway Act of 1921 for sure was a technological modernity of 1920s. The plan was created by Senator Lawrence C. Phipps of Colorado. It was the first plan in US history that described the national road systems. $75 million was given to the 11 states by the end of 1921. The act started a boom for building roads. By 1920s many people had cars, by traveling without good roads was anemic. New roads connected states and allowed people to migrate much easier or travel long distances in comfort.

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At the beginning of nineteenth century, the Architecture of New York City shifted from low-rise to high-rise. The building were not only high-raised, but also were stylish.  The Government put new regulation on building taller than six stories to combat water pressure. “In 1916, Zoning Resolution required setback in new building restricted on size to allow sunlight to reach the street bellow”(Wikipedia).

One of the tallest buildings built in 1913 is the Woolworth building which was not only one of the tallest (57 stories) but also was stylish with the art of gothic architecture. It was one of the 50 most tallest building in The United State until 1966

The Woolworth building under construction

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i84xYelZI

The video above shows an example of the type of silent movies viewed during this time period.

The 1920s are greatly known for the entertainment developed during the time period. People had more free time and began spending this time several different types of leisure activities. People began watching sports especially baseball as well as boxing. Some even became involved in sports such as tennis baseball and golf (Chudacoff & Smith 217). The movie business continued to expand as more and more people began too visit theaters. For example about 110 million people visited the movies in a week when the population of the U.S. was only about 120 million (Chudacoff & Smith 217). Music advanced and flourished as Jazz became increasingly popular (Chudacoff & Smith 218). Radio allowed listeners to hear a wide variety of things from music to the news to advertisements about retail products that convinced them to go out and buy them (Chudacoff & Smith 218). This modernized the city by making it a thriving entertainment center with a wide variety of things to do during peoples free time. These developments brought forth the technologies of entertainment in the future that lead to inventions such as the television.

Picture of Babe Ruth who was an important figure in baseball during the 1920s

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The period between 1880-1920 is known in the history of the US as the Progressive Era. It was a time when urban society was open for changes. During the 1920s, urbanization took place on a wider front than ever before. Manufacturing, industrialization and commercialization boosted the population of many cities creating more jobs for the working class. Increases in population size and high production output by manufacturing methods, such as the assembly line, has led to pollution confounding the issues of sanitation and health. As a result, the urban population was faced with numerous types of infections and fatal diseases that threatened their health and safety. The majority of people were forced to live in crowded tenement apartments, sometimes with a few families sharing a room. When one member of the family became severely ill, the risk of it spreading was exponentially greater and easier due to the confined living space. Therefore, the importance of penicillin in the development of modern cities became crucial.
Invented in Europe in 1928 by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming then refined in Oxford University by Howard Walter Floreyand, penicillin was quickly produced around in the U.K. However, it was taken up by the U.S and by using an American innovation, the assembly line, it was produced in enough quantities that made it available and affordable to most Americans. Its ability to kill infectious bacteria has been a break through in medicine. This was most readily seen by the drop in infant and child mortality rates. Where common infections and illnesses were viewed with fatal fear, the advent of penicillin gave the American people and the world a new weapon in the war against illness. For that reason it was called as the “miracle drug” and would prove to be the discovery that changed the way we view and understand modern medicine and science.

Early penicillin culture facility at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford, England.
© Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

Photograph courtesy of Associated Press
Sir Alexander Fleming, 1952

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In the 1920s, women adopted a new fashion trend where they liberalized themselves from the constricting clothes to more comfortable and sporty clothes. In the early 1920s, there were still alot of those who continued to wear conservative dresses but younger generation women began to wear sported shorter skirts. The main look that many women strived for was the straight-line chemise, a bob hair cut, and a hat to top it off. Fashion back in the 1920s was influenced heavily by a movement called surrealism which features elements of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions. Thus, the smooth, mechanized, and geometric forms were incorporated into clothing instead of the usual curvy look. Coco Chanel, a French fashion designer, brought her modernist philosophy to fashion by designing clothes that were menswear inspired and also comfortable.

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At the beginning of the century the automobile entered the transportation market as a toy for the rich. However, it became increasingly popular among the general population because it gave travelers the freedom to travel when they wanted to and where they wanted. As a result, in North America and Europe the automobile became cheaper and more accessible to the middle class. This was facilitated by Henry Ford who did two important things. First he priced his car to be as affordable as possible and second, he paid his workers enough to be able to purchase the cars they were manufacturing. This helped push wages and auto sales upward. The convenience of the automobile freed people from the need to live near rail lines or stations; they could choose locations almost anywhere in an urban area, as long as roads were available to connect them to other places. Many states in the US established motor fuel taxes that were used only to build and maintain highways helping the auto highway system become self-supporting.
Affecting not only American culture during the 1920s, the automobile also helped American industries. The sharp demand for automobile sparked the creation of a whole new industry in the 20s, the automobile industry. Ford had to provide for his clients somehow, so he expanded his factories, creating more jobs, more revenues, and improving the American economy in virtually every way. Automobiles that drove around a lot found it hard to drive on the poor dirt roads that were common back then, and they required a lot of fuel to run also. So nation wide road construction took place, which created even more jobs, and strengthened the economy even further.As a result of the automobile, Americans and America itself benefited greatly from the advantages it brought to them. Improved transportation and an improved economy made the automobile one of the most important inventions of the 1920s.

This youtube video shows a documentary about the assembly line in Ford’s Company in Detroit. It explains the life of people who worked at this assembly line. Even though the automobile brought many benefits to Ford and the people in America at the end of the video shows somehow an isolation of these workers in society. The workers there, later on, were prohibited to talk to each other, or walk around , or even refrain to go to the bathroom. As one of the people interviewed in this video states: “to see them, they were like marionettes….. human machines.”

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1) Complete reading

2) Write a post that features a video or still image that represents an aspect of modernity (social, cultural, political, technological, etc.) achieved during the 1920s that has not yet been covered on our blog.  Include at least one paragraph explaining how and why this change contributed to modernity.  You may consult the Chudacoff reading for topic ideas.

(I will demonstrate for you in class how to post a video.  You may also consult the “blog support” tab on the site).

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