1920s Fashion

1920s Fashion

The hallmark of 1920s fashion, at least for women, was the flapper dress. This garment, represented the ideals of the new 1920s woman-someone who was free and independent. The flapper dress was often paired with a stylish hat and some jewelry. After World War I, the standards of fashion changed drastically. The once-conservative styles were thrown out the window as young people embraced new ideals of beauty and freedom. The nightclub, a key Prohibition hotspot, became a place for youth to dress up; to see and be seen. Men wore sharp suits while women wore dresses with ever-climbing hemlines. There truly was no time for fashion that was as bold and personal as the 1920s.

Sources:

http://www.1920s-fashion-and-music.com/1920s-fashion.html

PBS 1920s video

Pollution

Throughout the rise of factories in the early 1900's we have constantly seen the lack of care for the environment and nature. Safety procedures were practically non existent and as a result of  that we saw some of the earlier examples of pollution. When Henry Ford started the movement for car innovation factories about a total of 9 million cars were produced all throughout the 1920's. The amount of factories needed to produce this amount of cars directly affects the pollution of the world and set a precedent to the amount of pollution in the world today. The only president who did anything to prevent this pollution was Roosevelt who was a progressive. Part of his actions were to save forests and create national parks which would preserve American wildlife. Today we see this issue being countered with electric cars like Prius and Tesla. These cars also use energy but do it more efficiently and without pollution.

http://www.globalissues.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties

Belle vs Buck

In 1927 the United States Supreme Court decided to affirm, by a vote of 8 to 1, the constitutionality of Virginia’s law that allowed states to enforce sterilization. Carrie Buck came from a family of young mothers. She was the eldest of three children and her father abandoned her mother not long into their marriage. She was then placed with foster parents as her mother was unable to look after her and was allegedly raped by their nephew, becoming pregnant at the age of 17. During the court case, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said “three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

The Court deemed her to be feebleminded and promiscuous and she was committed to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, later having her sterilization there. The law allowing the procedure had been passed in 1924 after fifty years of scholarly debate over the matter.  It was believed that it would reduce social problems, including poverty and prostitution.

Sources:

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/buck_v_bell_1927#start_entry

Women's Suffrage

By August 26, 1920, Congress had passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. However, it took over 100 years for women to finally achieve this right.

The campaign for women's suffrage was first discussed just before the civil war, when women were had prominent roles in society. Women were fighting against the "Cult of True Womanhood" or "Cult of Domesticity" which was the idea that women were devoted and submissive wives or mothers who committed herself to the home and family. In 1848, a group of women and men gathered at Seneca falls to discuss issues with women's rights. The delegates agreed that women were equals to men and must have access to the same rights.

During and after the civil war, the campaign had lost much of its momentum. However, some women believed that it was an opportunity to fight for truly universal voting rights. In 1869, the National Women's Suffrage Association was formed to advocate these rights. This group was opposed to 15th amendment rights for African Americans because they believed that they were entitled to suffrage as well. Another group of supporters of the 15th Amendment formed, called the American Women Suffrage Association. They fought on a state- by state basis for franchise. The two groups eventually merged and began to advocate that they deserved rights because they were different from men. This would use the status quo to benefit the case for women's voting rights. There were many opposing views on why women deserved the right to vote, however,

Women's suffrage finally became a reality on a state level starting at 1910. NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt organized the "winning plan" or a blitz campaign to mobilize state and local suffrage moments. More radical groups engaged in hunger strikes and white house pickets.

Women's efforts in WWI were also commended by the government as they were able to work on behalf of the nation towards victory. The 19th Amendment was finally ratified in 1920 and women first voted in the 1920 election.

Hickok

Lorena Alice Hickok was born 7^th March 1893 in Wisconsin and grew up there, attending a college there for a year until she dropped out. She then proceeded to go into journalism and quickly became successful in her newfound career path. Hickok worker for the Minneapolis Tribune and the Associate Press, even gaining a few first for women journalists. By 1932 she had become the nations most well known woman’s reporter.

She was assigned by the Associate Press to cover Eleanor Roosevelt during her husband’s Presidential campaign and started a good relationship with the future First Lady that would last many years.

Roosevelt assisted Hickok in becoming the executive secretary of the Women’s Division Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 1940, in which she did groundwork for the election of that same year.

In a letter to Roosevelt she said:

“This job is such fun…It’s the nearest thing to newspaper work I’ve found since I left the AP”

She later co-authored Ladies of Courage with Eleanor Roosevelt in 1954, followed by The Story of Ladies Courage with Eleanor Roosevelt (1956) and several more.

The Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770, where British redcoats fired into a crowd of colonists, killing five. The event was caused by the growing tensions between the redcoats and the colonists, who were upset over the growing presence of British soldiers among them, who had been sent to enforce the Townsend Acts, which imposed duties on glass, lead paint, paper, and teas that were imported to the colonies. By the colonists, these acts were seen as unfair and an abuse of Britain's power .
An angry riot began when a group of fifty citizens attacked a British group of soldiers.  The mob began to throw sticks, snowballs, and stones at the group of soldiers, and one of the officers, Captain Thomas Preston called for more soldiers to arrive at the scene. Those soldiers were also attacked, leading to them firing into the crowd, killing three right away and wounding eight (two of which would later die).
Two of the officers were convicted of manslaughter, while Captain Preston was tried, but not charged for murder.
The Boston massacre was later sensationalized in order to create the appropriate outrage from the American public.  The most famous was the depiction of the event, an engraving made and circulated through newspaper by Paul Revere, who was not even at the massacre himself. The engraving depicted the mob as powerless and the British as angry killers.  The Sons of Liberty used the massacre as a piece of propaganda against the British, and pushed the British and the colonists even closer to a Revolutionary War.  The Paul Revere image can be seen here below.


Sources:
http://www.bostonmassacre.net/
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/massacre.htm
http://www.landofthebrave.info/boston-massacre.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts
http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/paul-revere

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening occurred between the years 1790 and 1840.  With the ideals of Manifest Destiny becoming more popular, more and more people were heading out west, where churches were scare, leading to some losing faith in their previous religious convictions.  During the Great Awakening, Methodist and Baptist churches experienced a large growth in membership, due to preachers who were able to make a lasting impression of their religion's messages to people by being less conservative and more emotional, shocking some.
Many religious revivals were hosted throughout the country, were people from multiple branches of religions preached about the beauty of God, instead of focusing on the strict boundaries between and rules of religions such as Catholicism and Protestantism.  People enjoyed the new found democracy and freedom that one could now find while choosing their religion.  This led to a popularity increase in Evangelical churches which had a more populist, and less strict approach on spirituality.America became much more Protestant, and the Calvinists gained popularity especially through their ideas of free will, and choosing salvation, which was open to all human beings.  During these revivals and camp meetings, preachers often encouraged audience behavior, and it was common to see people sing, praying, and crying ans screaming on the ground, overcome with the emotions of what was going on around them.
This change in religious thinking also made its way to politics.  As people realized that they had a democratic choice of religion, they began to wish for the same things from their government, and became less willing to let elected officials represent them, and instead supported a more government in which citizen's could vote on matters that affected them.


Sources:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/22c.asp
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma95/finseth/evangel.html
https://www.citelighter.com/history/history/knowledgecards/the-second-great-awakening

How Would Roosevelt's Views Hold Up in Today's Modern Day Political Climate?

In my opinion, Franklin D. Roosevelt would definitely hold his ground if he were to run in the 2016 presidential election. His platform of relief and remedy for those in need I feel would really resonate with millennials. We can look at the popularity of Sen. Sanders in among this presidential election's new voters, and it's clear that ideas like free education and greater income taxes of the rich are trademarks of a large percentage of young voters. While members of Congress may have called Roosevelt a communist or socialist based on his belief in government intervention in the economy, the moral implications behind the economic intervention is what would make Roosevelt so successful in a modern day campaign. Besides just his ideology, Roosevelt possesses many characteristics of what makes a successful politician. He's affable and charismatic, something that we've seen can go a long way with voters, like in the case of Martin O' Malley. His speeches have been described as riveting and moving, and Roosevelt truly has a way with publicity. To publicize his New Deal plan, his marketing team produced cartoons, musicals, all in attempts to characterize Roosevelt as this savior of the American economy during the Great Depression, and it worked. While the Democratic and Republican traditional locations have switched, with the South being predominantly Republican now, I do feel that Roosevelt would still run with the Democratic Party. I think in some ways, Roosevelt has the appeal that Hillary Rodham Clinton does in the sense that he is a liberal, but not too radical of a liberal so he still appeals to moderates. Especially after adding in the pathos of Roosevelt directly providing financial relief for starving and struggling families by using traditionally liberal strategies, Roosevelt would have a large audience of people who he appeals too as well as a large possibility for swing votes from the Republican Party.

One aspect that I do feel would be different if FDR were to run modern day is the importance of social issues, like LGBT+ rights, Planned Parenthood Funding, Syrian Refugees, police brutality. It's difficult to know exactly what Roosevelt would have thought on these issues, but based on the quote, "The liberal party insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all of its power and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls- to ensure the average person eh right to his own economic and political liberty, life, and pursuit of happiness". Based on that, I would hope and say that FDR would be a champion for modern day social justice. 

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,

When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,

Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;

Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

In 1932, a young New York City lyricist named E.Y. Yip Harburg, together with composer Jay Gorney, wrote what is considered one of the anthems of the Great Depression.

Pianist and Composer Rob Kapilow said of the song, "Lyrically, it's the entire history of the Depression in a single phrase: 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' Utterly economical,"

It was a courageous song that spoke honestly, even angrily, Kapilow says, about the plight of the average man on the street.

"It's not, 'I've lost my family. I don't have my home.' But in one phrase, 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' I'm talking to you."

Sources:

http://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/history/files/lavender/cherries.html

http://www.npr.org/2008/11/15/96654742/a-depression-era-anthem-for-our-times