The Roaring 20s

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The Roaring 20s Overview America’s 1920s epitomize the greatest change in society, politics, and values. The Roaring 20s was a time of excess and overindulgence. Many of the changes wrought in the 1920s to America were irrevocable. From the fashion industry to the dynamics of politics, ideas and values clashed to bring about one of the most vibrant decades in America’s history. Americans have never been sympathetic to radicalism in any form despite how the country. Americans feared Communism because they feared that it would engulf their country and they would lose their sense of identity. Anyone associated with radicalism, legitimately or not, were subject to all sorts of harassment and bias by the populace similar to the witch-hunts centuries earlier. The Red Scare of 1920 was a predecessor of McCarthyism (Baughman, 1996). Society changed in many ways. America developed the concept of a mass society where the focuses were independent women, freer love, standardized culture, urban energy and impersonality, and growing alienation with the rest of the world. Fundamentalism versus Darwinism divided parts of the country. Fundamentalists are defenders of traditional religion. A prime example of Fundamentalism in America was when the state of Tennessee passed a law to make it illegal to teach evolution in public institutions. The star case was the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Mr. Scopes taught at a high school and was arrested for teaching evolution in his class. The trial was one of the first American trials broadcasted live on radio. The judge found Scopes guilty under the Butler Act, and fined $100 (Tennessee State, nd). Women began to have more confidence in themselves. Some women even went against tradition flaunting conventionalism. Society considered the dress of some women scandalous compared to previous decades. Women worked toward equality

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