And now a word from Faisal...

Earlier this winter term I assigned a document-based-question cribbed from an old AP U.S. History exam about the nature and manifestations of tension in the United States in the 1920s. I gave the students about 10 more documents, including a rather dense article about the concept of the "gemeinschaft," a rural society at odds with the new, urban "gesellschaft." Faisal did a bang-up job and so I asked him if I could re-print his essay for the blog audience. Take your time on this, and Faisal's work will reward you.

Faisal Akkawi
20th Century History
Tension DBQ
February 1, 2011

The culture wars that had played a large part in garnering support for World War I in Europe had, after the conclusion of the war, migrated to American soil. However, the war over American culture and values was slightly different than the one fought in Europe, which was between the conservative old order and the forward-looking liberals. In America, it was more complex. William Butler Yeats summarized, unintentionally, the struggle in American society during the 1920’s in his poem “The Second Coming” when he wrote “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Although initially written to describe WWI, it can certainly be applied to post-war America, where the core of “good ol’ American values” was being torn apart by ideas from the cities and Europe. The tensions in American society during the 1920’s were a result of a fear among many Americans that their traditional way of life would be corrupted by the new customs and ideologies infiltrating the country.

America’s metaphorical ‘center’ comprised of those who adhered to Gemeinschaft society. This sector of society was white, usually Protestant, mostly small town or rural, and claimed to represent traditional America, the good prosperous America that existed before and during the war. They claimed to be the defenders of Americanism and branded anything that challenged the premises on which the built society as un-American. However, the exact definition of Americanism shifted depending on the need and the group defending it, whatever it was. The source of the tension can be traced back to the fear that spread amongst this population after the war. This fear naturally led to intolerance, which resulted in tension between this sector of society and those who espoused different views. These views were often depicted as foreign, un-American, and satanic, stemming from corrupt cities or too-liberal Europe. Communists, socialists, anarchists, unions, feminists, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and the American intelligentsia were all at various times labeled as such. The fight for American values was often used as a cover under which other objectives could be achieved. “Business was frequently able to transfer its own fears of Bolshevism both to a broader public and to state legislators who served that public.” (Sources and Nature of Intolerance) The business community was able to sell its fear of a change in the economic system in the guise of fear for the values upon which they believed America was built, values they also believed were being challenged by those like the textile workers in the Loray Mill Strike. This fear was also propagated by politicians, such as Palmer and Hoover, who were all too ready to step in as America’s saviors. (SNI)

The center’s dissatisfaction with the way they perceived America was heading manifested itself in various ways. This tension amongst the people found outlets through various organizations. Hundreds of organizations resurged or were created in the 1920’s with the purpose of reclaiming America, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the American Legion, the Boosters, and the Elks. These groups combatted through various means the forces pulling apart the fabric of the American center. The KKK adopted coercion and violence to achieve its goals; the WCTU operated through education and raising awareness; and the American legion funded publications and operated through the American political system. The Klan’s motto, “Native, White Protestant Supremacy” clearly states its goals, and the statement of their leader, Hiram Wesley Evans, that “We are a movement of the plain people, very weak in the matter of culture, intellectual support…a blend of various peoples of the so-called Nordic race,” (Document D) clearly states the source from which the Klan drew its support. This outlook, the close-minded approach to anything new and foreign and unfamiliar, was a great contributor to the tensions of the 1920’s. A fitting modern-day example is the Tea Party that is working to ‘take back America.’ Who took it is sometimes unclear. The Klan and the other various organizations formed at the time struggled against the tide of urbanization, religion, and the changing face of the American family.

As America became increasingly urbanized, rural America began to fear the changes that accompanied the shift to the Gesellschaft structure and the increasing mechanization of life. Ford, who was one of the greatest proponents for the rural American lifestyle, found himself soaked in the same biases as the average American. “Ford’s intense commitment to the traditional American faith led him to suspect and ultimately to detest whatever was un-American.” (The Nervous Generation: American Thought, 1917-1930) Here, Ford was caught in the same conundrum: how could progress be made if it was considered un-American because it was not part of America’s past? Ford struggled with this and resigned himself to live a hypocritical life, supporting American Gemeinschaft while supplying the means by which American Gesellschaft could progress. But the Klan had no such qualms and openly attacked “the intellectuals and liberals who held the leadership,[and] betrayed Americanism.” They fought this sector of society because they fostered a liberal environment in which ideas could grow, ideas that challenged the views previously held by the American center. This context makes artist Joseph Stella’s “The Bridge” all the more audacious (Document B). In this painting, Stella juxtaposes the sleek, modern skyscrapers with the Goth arch, a symbol of all things holy as a slight reminder that America has built for itself a new sacred mountain. Jazz was another one of these new inventions of the city. Seen as “the Devil’s Music” (New York Times), it was described as barbaric, immoral, and socially unacceptable. The fact that it was created by blacks, played in night clubs and whorehouses, provided for the intermingling between, and allowed for improvisation breaking the strict canon by which all music was written, attracted to it the spite of traditional Americanism. Jazz was viewed as an attack on American culture, and by extension America itself, just as Stella’s futurist-inspired painting could have been.

In addition to the physical changes of demographics affecting America, the internal structure of the family was also shifting. The increase in the number of women who smoke, an activity previously seen appropriate only for men, prompted the WCTU to launch a campaign amongst teachers and Sunday school workers to curb the spread of tobacco use amongst children and women. The women leading this campaign still call upon “the duty of motherhood” which “is till relegated to the women of the nation.” (Document G) The tension in society is still evident within this organization.

Although these women are actively taking a role in public life, their campaign is aimed only at women and it is based on older notions of the role of women. The increase rate of divorce and the decrease in the rate of marriage in the 1920’s suggests that women are taking a more active role in the decision-making processes of their lives. (Document H) As it becomes more socially acceptable for women to marry late or divorce or not marry at all and as their social status becomes less dependent on how well they perform their ‘duties’ as mothers and wives, the entire fabric of the American family begins to unravel and must be re-sown to accommodate changing attitudes. As the role of women changed, so did the role of religion. One challenge to religion was the increasing size of urban areas, which are often more secular or heterogeneous in religious make up. But one of the greater challenges to religion in America was evolution. Because many churches had sought God “in the corners of darkness that have not yet seen the light of understanding,” (Finding Darwin’s God) evolution posed a threat to the religious beliefs of many. The Scopes Trial also questioned the role of religion in public education, an extension of the government. The tension arouse because members from both the religious and the scientific community believed that they contradicted each other. The defense tries to find a middle-ground by stating to the prosecution that “I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.” But an attack on one’s faith only makes one cling even more firmly, even slightly irrationally to it for fear of losing it. And as is evident, fear was the greatest motivator for tension during this decade. Fear of change, progress, all things new and foreign.

Prohibition was one reaction to reclaim America’s morality. But the superimposition of Gemeinschaft values on the entire country proved impractical, and it served as a sign that America as a whole was not too eager to return to the “good ol’ days.”
However, the depiction of the tensions throughout America in the 1920’s as between two forces pulling at each other is slightly inaccurate. The Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft structure developed by Ferdinand Tonnies accurately conveys how many believed the battle was being fought, but the “us vs. them” view oversimplifies the complex scenario. The ideologies opposing the American center were not always working toward the same objective. There were rifts within the USA Communist Party; members of the Intelligentsia feared the militant strikers and their communist supporters; and Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois disagreed on how to best achieve racial equality. Langston Hughes, who benefitted from the programs of Dubois, wrote criticizing the values tacitly encouraged by Washington, “She [Philadelphia clubwoman] wants the artist to flatter her, to make the white world believe that all Negroes are as smug and as near white in soul as she wants to be. But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist to change through the force of his at that old whispering ‘I want to be white.’” (Document E)This attempt at fostering a Negro identity might not have garnered the support of the white establishment while Washington might have. Examples of these divides in the left can be seen in the novel Ragtime written by E. L. Doctorow. Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Coalhouse, Evelyn Nesbit, and Freud, although all working in some way to shatter Victorian paradigms, often disagreed on the best way to shatter them and what should replace them. However, these various groups sometimes did work to achieve the same objective with different motivations. The greatest example of this cooperation of the left is the Sacco-Vanzetti Case. In a letter to his sister, Vanzetti wrote “Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for intolerance, for justice, for man’s understanding of man, as we do by accident…this last moment belongs to us—this last agony is our triumph.”(Selections from the Files on the Sacco and Vanzetti Trial)The Sacco-Vanzetti Case was exactly that, an accident. The conviction of these two men should not have happened, constitutionally, and their rise to fame was as unexpected as Vanzetti thought. But the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti occurred at a time ripe for uproar. Liberal America was looking for a cause, a symbol, and these two men provided the perfect combination of all things un-American: Italian anarchist immigrants accused of militant unionist activities in the struggle against capitalist oppression. These groups “saw in Sacco and Vanzetti an opportunity to protest all the injustices they felt were pervading society.” (Reuniting the Lost Generation: Intellectual Response to the Sacco-Vanzetti Case) These ordinary men had been transformed into symbols by those who wished to further their particular cause. This tactic is similar to what we saw with President Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. A black U.S. senator from Illinois serving his first term is turned into a symbol of hope and change because he fit the criteria for what America needed: a mixed-race minority candidate who was raised by a single mother in underprivileged circumstances. He represented what Americans believed America should be. Sacco and Vanzetti were denied all of that, and so the world rallied behind them. This trial was a manifestation of the tension between the progressive community and the system upheld by the business community and the political elite.

Throughout this time of tension and turmoil, Americans looked for bridges to connect the values of their past with the industrialized, mechanized future. Two of these Ubermenschen were Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. Both were so acclaimed because of not what they did, but how they did it. Charles Lindbergh’s feat was not that he flew across the Atlantic “But because he was as clean in character as he was strong and fine in body; because he put ‘ethics’ above any desire for wealth; because he was a modest as he was courageous; and because these are the things which we honor most in life.” (Document F) Charles Lindbergh brought the core values of ‘Americanism’ and merged them with the technology that stemmed from the cities.

Similarly, Babe Ruth brought personality to an increasingly mechanized and depersonalized game. These characters brought consolation to the American populace caught between these contradictory forces. Ruth and Lindbergh showed that individual identity and morality can withstand the force of industrialization and modernization. Sister Aimee McPherson is another example of how religion and the contemporary world can coexist. Sister Aimee brought religion into the context of the modern world without tainting dogma. She “threw out the dirges and threats of Hell, replacing them with jazz hymns and promises of Glory.” (Document I) Sister Aimee ‘modernized’ Christianity while still safeguarding its integrity.

The 1920’s were a time of changing definitions. The Proun Space and installation art work by El Lissitsky challenged the definition of art. A sculpture-cum-painting that took up three walls, it hung like a painting, looked like a sculpture, but surrounded the viewer instead of allowing the viewer to circumambulate around it. What was art, socially acceptable, family, religion and its role in society, urbanization, and government? Before the 1920’s America had a reached a consensus on these issues with little deviation, but the postwar world opened America to a flood of new ideas that challenged the old ones. Naturally, these new ideas were not welcomed with open arms and tension was the ultimate result. Some of the definitions were changed; others remained in dispute, creating a culture in America where each was left unto his own. The ultimate release from tension was indifference, but the apathy-induced coma only last so long.