24.4 Republican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920s

Republican Presidencies of the 1920s

The 1920s marked a decisive turn toward pro-business conservatism in American politics. Republican presidents Harding and Coolidge championed limited government and laissez-faire economics, producing real economic growth but also deepening inequality. Meanwhile, new technologies like radio and film were forging a shared national culture, even as sharp conflicts over Prohibition, immigration, and social norms revealed how divided the country remained between tradition and modernity.

Harding's Presidency and Scandals

Warren Harding won the 1920 election on a promise of a "Return to Normalcy", appealing to voters exhausted by World War I and the progressive activism of the Wilson years. His administration embraced laissez-faire economics and worked to make the federal government friendlier to business.

Key policies under Harding:

• Signed the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which created the Bureau of the Budget and the General Accounting Office to bring more order to federal spending
• Supported high protective tariffs, most notably the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922, to shield American manufacturers from foreign competition
• Appointed pro-business figures to powerful positions, including Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury, who pushed for lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy

Harding's presidency was badly tarnished by corruption among his appointees:

• Teapot Dome Scandal: Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall secretly leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming (and Elk Hills, California) to private oil companies in exchange for personal loans and gifts. It became one of the biggest government scandals before Watergate.
• Veterans' Bureau Scandal: Director Charles R. Forbes embezzled roughly $200 million$ (in 1920s dollars) and accepted bribes related to the construction of veterans' hospitals.

Harding died suddenly in office in August 1923, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge succeeded him.

Coolidge's Republican Strategies

Coolidge, nicknamed "Silent Cal" for his reserved personality, projected stability and integrity at a time when the public was reeling from Harding's scandals. He doubled down on the pro-business direction Harding had set.

• Championed the Mellon Plan, which cut income tax rates especially for top earners, on the theory that freeing up capital would stimulate investment and growth
• Reduced government spending aggressively, paying off a significant portion of the national debt
• His hands-off governing style appealed to a public tired of progressive-era activism and wartime government expansion

One note on a common point of confusion: Coolidge's reputation as a strong leader was bolstered by his handling of the 1919 Boston Police Strike while he was governor of Massachusetts, not during his presidency. That event helped make him a national figure and contributed to his selection as Harding's running mate.

Coolidge won the 1924 election easily, benefiting from a booming economy and a badly divided Democratic Party (whose convention that year deadlocked for 103 ballots before nominating a compromise candidate).

Impact of 1920s Pro-Business Policies

The pro-business approach produced impressive headline numbers, but the prosperity was unevenly distributed.

Growth indicators:

• Gross National Product (GNP) rose roughly 40% between 1922 and 1929
• Unemployment stayed low, averaging around 3.7% for the decade
• Wages increased, improving the standard of living for many (though not all) Americans

Underlying problems:

• By 1929, the top 1% of the population held about 40% of the nation's wealth. Workers' wages grew, but not nearly as fast as corporate profits.
• The expansion of consumer credit and installment buying let Americans purchase automobiles, radios, and appliances they couldn't afford outright. This fueled growth but also left households financially vulnerable.
• Low interest rates and minimal regulation encouraged speculative investing in the stock market. Excessive optimism and borrowed money inflated a stock market bubble that burst in October 1929, triggering the Great Depression.
• The government's reluctance to regulate banking, securities markets, or monopolistic business practices contributed directly to the instability that made the crash so devastating.

Republican Party Dominance and Political Landscape

The Republican Party held the White House for the entire decade, and its message was straightforward: business-friendly policies produce prosperity, so government should stay out of the way.

• The party took credit for the economic boom and used it to justify continued tax cuts and deregulation
• Isolationism shaped foreign policy. The U.S. had already rejected membership in the League of Nations, and throughout the 1920s the focus stayed on domestic affairs (though the U.S. did participate in some international agreements, like the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928)
• A growing cultural divide between urban and rural America shaped political alignments. Republicans generally appealed to more traditional, rural, and Protestant voters, while Democrats drew support from urban immigrants and ethnic communities

Social and Cultural Changes in the 1920s

Factors Leading to Consumerism and Mass Culture

Several forces converged to create the first true consumer economy in American history.

• Technological advances like assembly-line production and electrification lowered the cost of goods. Labor-saving appliances (washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators) became affordable for middle-class households.
• Rising incomes: Disposable income grew about 22% between 1923 and 1929, giving more Americans money to spend beyond necessities.
• Credit and installment buying transformed purchasing habits. By 1929, about 60% of automobiles and 80% of radios were bought on credit. This was a new phenomenon, and it meant consumer spending could outpace actual earnings.
• Advertising exploded as an industry. Radio ads, print campaigns, and mass-circulation magazines like Time (founded 1923) and Reader's Digest (founded 1922) shaped public desires and created demand for new products.
• Urbanization concentrated people in cities where they had access to more goods, services, and leisure activities like movies and spectator sports, all of which created new consumer markets.

Impact of Mass Media

Radio became the decade's most transformative technology:

• By 1929, about 40% of American households owned a radio
• Programming mixed news, entertainment, music, and advertising, creating a shared national experience for the first time
• Political leaders recognized radio's power. (Note: Franklin Roosevelt's famous "fireside chats" came in the 1930s, not the 1920s, but politicians in the '20s were already beginning to use radio to reach voters.)

Movies became a dominant cultural force:

• Weekly movie attendance hit roughly 90 million by the late 1920s
• Major studios like MGM and Paramount built the Hollywood star system, turning actors into national celebrities
• Films influenced fashion, slang, and social attitudes, and provided affordable escapism

These media had broader effects:

• They standardized American culture, exposing people across the country to the same entertainment, news, and advertising. Regional differences began to fade.
• They became powerful advertising platforms, accelerating consumerism by reaching millions simultaneously.
• Concerns about morality in media led to the Hays Code (adopted in 1930, strictly enforced from 1934), which set content guidelines for motion pictures. Radio faced similar calls for regulation from groups worried about its cultural influence.

1920s Cultural Conflicts

The decade's prosperity and cultural change provoked sharp backlash, revealing deep tensions between modernism and traditionalism.

Prohibition (18th Amendment, enforced by the Volstead Act of 1919) banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. Rather than eliminating drinking, it drove it underground. Speakeasies, bootlegging, and organized crime flourished. The issue highlighted divides between urban "wets" (often immigrants and Catholics) and rural "drys" (often native-born Protestants).

The Scopes Trial (1925) put the conflict between science and religion on a national stage. Tennessee teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in violation of state law. The trial featured a dramatic courtroom clash between prosecutor William Jennings Bryan and defense attorney Clarence Darrow. Scopes was convicted and fined, but the trial sparked a lasting national debate about science, religion, and education.

Changing roles of women:

• The 19th Amendment (1920) granted women the right to vote
• "Flapper" culture challenged traditional gender norms: shorter hair, shorter skirts, smoking, dancing, and greater social independence
• More women entered the workforce, especially in clerical and service-sector jobs
• A double standard persisted. Women still faced significant discrimination and limited professional opportunities compared to men.

Nativism and immigration restriction reflected widespread fears about cultural and economic competition from immigrants, particularly those from Southern and Eastern Europe:

• The Emergency Quota Act (1921) and the National Origins Act (1924) sharply limited immigration using quotas based on national origin, deliberately favoring Northern and Western Europeans
• The Ku Klux Klan experienced a major resurgence in the 1920s, reaching an estimated 4-5 million members. This iteration targeted not only African Americans but also Catholics, Jews, and immigrants.

The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African American art, literature, music, and intellectual life centered in Harlem, New York City. Writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, musicians like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois challenged racial stereotypes and promoted Black cultural pride, even as African Americans continued to face systemic discrimination and violence.

Modernism in art and literature challenged traditional conventions. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway questioned established values, often clashing with more conservative cultural forces who saw modernism as a threat to American traditions.