The reality of the 1920s in the US - Essay Example

Advances in communication also signified this decade, as the radio was invented leading to establishment of radio stations and commercial radio networks. Coupled with introduction of long distance telephones, this led to opening up of the rural areas.1 Prior to this boom, there was a dark period at peaking in 1919, in the labor market. This was initiated by a universal strike of the entire workforce in the completely steel industry in America and all workers in Seattle. This crippled the economy as thousands of workers and consumers were affected.

Employers were faced with the challenge of remaining firm against demands from the workers as a warfare based on class threatened to come up. Moreover, just two years earlier, in Russia, there had been a Communist revolution and this made employers threaten violence upon workers if they refused to return to normalcy. Nevertheless, the situation was salvaged by Hubert Hoover, then Commerce Secretary, who was able to talk industrial leaders into voluntarily raising production and wages in order to restore the economy.

It is crucial to note that the strikes moved the American government to react strongly against such radical movements, since the Communist Revolution still lingered in people’s minds causing a certain intrigue, this came to be recognized as the Red Scare phase.2 On the political front, the decade featured three presidents Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Its beginning was marked by elections that brought Harding into power with Coolidge as his running mate.

World War 1 had just ended and people were rearing for a return to normalcy considering the labor problems, rise in immigration and racial strife that were rampant earlier on. The 1920s saw the final participation of U.S in the League of Nations, where President Wilson convened the Council as provided for in the League’s Act that the first assembly be summoned by the President of the United States. Notably also, the 18th Amendment of the U.S Constitution came into effect prohibiting the making, selling and possessing of alcohol.

In 1924, the National Origins Act came into effect, reducing the number of immigrants to U.S to 150,000 per year with the aim of the legislation being to let the more desirable immigrants from western and northern Europe, into America, in larger numbers (“1920s Politics”). In addition, of significance through this decade as well, is the Harlem Renaissance that was the flowering of the African American culture through creative arts. It emerged from Harlem, a district within New York but grew to include other areas, where the blacks attempted to create a different perspective of their race through literary, theatrical, visual arts and musical works.

This awakened a certain consciousness that led to redefinition of the white stereotypes, and rising of civil rights movements aimed at affording blacks new socio-economic opportunities and uplift the race while developing their pride. Avant-garde artists from Europe experimented with African art, further giving esteem to the African Americans. Initially referred to as the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance saw African Americans migrating from the South to the northern areas where things were more prosperous.

3 Within 1920, in August, came the