Key Concept 7.2 - Innovations in communications and technology contributed to the growth of mass culture, while significant changes occured in internal and international migration patterns.
- How did new popular culture emerge and cause controversies?
- How did America react to international and internal migrants?
How did new popular culture emerge and cause controversies?
In this time period, especially during the 1920s, new forms of media emerged through radios and cinema. Father Charles Coughlin, a Christian, hosted a largely successful radio show and FDR had regularly used radio broadcasts for his fireside chats. Five cent movies had become popular especially during the Great Depression which were called Nickelodeons. Other movies have now been made with audio, the first of which was "Jazz Singer." Besides these American expressions popular culture, Jewish Yiddish Theaters emerged and had influenced America's own development of theatrics.
With the Great Migration towards Northern cities, African Americans were also expressing their unique culture. This phenomenon is called the Harlem Renaissance and featured an African American expression of culture. This can be seen with the poetry by Langston Hughes or the writing of Zora Hurston.
Although culture was blooming, America had experienced restrictions to these newfound expressions during and after WWI. This can be seen in the restriction of freedom of speech in the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 which silenced opposition to the war effort. Due to the Bolshevik Revolution, Americans were scared of radicalism and communism, and so nativist campaigns like the Palmer Raid and the re-emergence of the KKK created what is called the Red Scare. Immigration had been limited in the Emergency Quota Act and the National Origins act harshly, allowing only two percent of a country's immigrants to come in.
In the 1920 census, it reported that for the first time, more people were living in cities than in rural areas. As the breeding ground of culture, cities had also bred controversies concerning traditional values. One such value was the idea of the cult of domesticity or republican motherhood, which sought to lock women away from society. This was challenged by the emergence of flappers, women who wore shorter dresses, smoked, and drank. Furthermore, the growing sense of modernism lessened the autonomy of workers as they were just another machine in the assembly line. Another modern idea clashed with traditional Christian values in the Scopes Trial, a case where a teacher of evolution was charged for teaching evolution. Regarding race, the expression of culture and the Great Migration had caused conflicting cultures, which resulted in Race Riots in cities like Chicago. Immigrant cultures also caused controversy as in the Sacco and Venzetti trial, where two Italian men were given in an unfair trial leading to their death. While this time had brought many new forms and expressions of cultures, they had also had to clash with past cultures.
How did America react to international and internal migrants?
Leading up to WWI, the immigration from Europe had shifted from Irish and German to more Southern and Eastern Europeans like Italians and Polish. After the War, nativism emerged with the KKK, Emergency Quota Act, and National Origins Act, which all opposed immigrants.
However, during the wars, internal migrants had started flooding the cities for job opportunities, like people in central America moving out to the Western cities of California as depicted in "Grapes of Wrath."
African Americans didn't have the share the same welcoming arms in the cities. With the Great Migration to escape segregation, lynchings, the KKK, and for economic opportunity, African Americans found that the North and the West still persistently discriminated against them.
Mexican immigrants had faced both discrimination and support for immigrating to America. During the Great Depression, many Mexicans were deported to create jobs for Anglo-Americans. However, for the full mobilization effort in WWII, the Bracero program had encouraged Mexicans to immigrate and join in the American labor force.