Suffrage and Prohibition: Signpost to the Crazy 1920s

Dr. Schmoll/History 232/Winter 2009

Suffrage and Prohibition: Signpost to the Crazy 1920s

I. Suffrage:
Seneca Falls Convention
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
National American Woman Suffrage Association (Florence Kelley)
Building a Coalition=victory

II. Prohibition Law:
A. 18th Amendment (prohibiting manufacture, sale, transport)
B. Volstead Act (making the 18th a “bone dry” amendment)
C. "Five and Ten Law" (1929, 5 year, $10,000 penalty)

III. Prohibition Failure: Why Not More of a Success?
A. Minimal Enforcement:
B. Unrealistic Expectations:
C. Corruption:
D. Policy without Authority:

III. Repeal:
A. 21st Amendment (Dec. 5, 1933)
B. The Constitution and Federal Intervention

IV. Progress and Decline in the 1920s:
A. 1920s as a Decade of Cultural and Economic Flowering:
1. Consumerism:
2. Movies:
3. Harlem Renaissance
4. “Lost Generation” =Great Literature
5. The “New Woman”
B. 1920s as a Decade of Ignorance, Cultural Decay
1. Urban Racial Unrest: Chicago, 1919
2. Nativism:
3. The KKK
4. Scopes Monkey Trial

VII. Significance: