Nation of Nations Concise 2/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff
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A prototypical character of the 1920s was evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who successfully blended the old revivalist gospel and techniques of modern mass marketing. In the transforming 1920s modernism and traditionalism existed side by uncomfortable side. But even Americans who resisted on rushing modernity found themselves incorporated by the new mass media into a new mass consumer culture.

The Roaring Economy

If anything roared in the "Roaring Twenties," it was industry and commerce. The economy experienced the greatest peacetime growth rate ever. Several factors accounted for it: technological advances; booming construction and automobile industries; corporate consolidation; new techniques of business and personnel management (called "welfare capitalism"); and especially the spread of advertising and consumer credit. Mass consumption became the key to prosperity; a modern ethic of high spending worked its way into American society.

A Mass Society

New systems of mass distribution and mass marketing led not simply to a higher standard of living but increasingly to a standardized mass society. Traditional community institutions that had bound Americans together found their authority undercut by new tastemakers in Hollywood and New York. A modern mass culture emerged, complete with more independent women, the new mass media of radio and film, a peer-oriented youth culture, spectator sports, jazz music, alienated poets and novelists, and a rising tide of black consciousness.

Defenders of the Faith

Mass society sharpened awareness of the differences between modern and traditional America. Traditionalists felt threatened by the changing values of the New Era. One reflection of their suspicion was nativism: growing fear of foreigners produced the most restrictive immigration laws in history. The National Origins Act specifically reduced the flow of eastern and southern European immigrants.

Another expression of traditionalism was prohibition; best understood as class and cultural legislation, it rested on a similar antiurban and antiforeign bias. A resuscitated Ku Klux Klan fought to revive a lost America, free from "aliens," blacks, and uppity women. And a traditional theological movement within Protestantism, known as fundamentalism, targeted the teaching of modern theories of evolution.

Republicans Ascendant

In government, the administration of Warren G. Harding ushered in a return to "normalcy," which was anything but normal. A single party-the Republicans-controlled Washington-but cautiously. Dedicated to business-oriented policies, Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge, halted the reformist trends of the previous two decades.

Government became the partner of private enterprise. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon focused on encouraging investment. Thus lower taxes, higher tariffs, fewer antitrust suits, and more support for private collaboration and consolidation characterized public policy in the 1920s. Promoted by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, "associationalism" encouraged trade associations and other business organizations to order and stabilize the economy, spreading a gospel of efficiency and cooperation among businesses. Government's role in the economy grew as prosperity soared.

Nevertheless, certain economic distress signals flashed, most notably a sharp drop in farm income. The Republican administration ignored these weaknesses, though they did seek-ineffectively as it turned out-to stabilize the international economy and reduce the arms race.

In the election of 1928 a divided Democratic party swung from its rural to its urban wing and nominated former New York governor Al Smith. The majority Republicans ran Herbert Hoover, an enormously popular cabinet member. Hurt by his urban roots, his Catholicism, and his advocacy of Prohibition repeal, Smith won only eight states. Buried in the returns were the stirrings of a major political realignment. The twelve largest cities, solidly Republican in 1924, went to Smith, moved to the Democratic column by their growing immigrant populations. Urban immigrants would form the tangible nucleus of a powerful coalition that would transform the Democrats into the normal majority party in 1932.

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