CAPITALISM, LEISURE, AND INTOLERANCE IN THE 1920S
The 1920s saw a significant expansion in personal freedoms for some segments of the U.S. population. At the same time, the decade witnessed widespread retrenchment, oppression, and intolerance. Which force – freedom or intolerance – was more central to the history of the United States in the 1920s?
Sample Solution
CAPITALISM, LEISURE, AND INTOLERANCE IN THE 1920s
The old and the new came into sharp conflict in the 1920s. While many Americans celebrated the emergence of modern technologies and less restrictive social norms, others strongly objected to the social changes of the 1920s. Beginning at the end of the 19th century, immigration into the United States rocketed to never-before-seen heights. Many of these new immigrants were coming from eastern and southern Europe and for many English-speaking, native-born Americans of northern Europe descent the growing diversity of new languages, customs, and religions triggered anxiety and racial animosity. In reaction, some embraced nativism, prizing white Americans with older family trees over more recent immigrants and rejecting outside influences in favor of their own local custom. Nativists also stoked a sense of fear over the perceived foreign threat, pointing to the anarchist assassinations of the Spanish prime minister in 1897, the Italian king in 1900, and even President William Mckinley in 1901 as proof.
