The Roaring Twenties

This is the eighth episode of our review of Modern American History (since 1877). Today we discuss the prosperous period of massive social change in the 1920s, the arrival of mass culture due to radios, chain stores, automobiles, and sales catalogues. The airplane conquers the Atlantic ocean in 1927 when Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of Saint Louis from New York to Paris. The massive migration from rural farm life to urban life continued, especially the move of four million southern blacks out of the south to northern cities where they competed with Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants for jobs. This resulted in increased racial tensions and race riots in northern cities and the rise of the Klu Klux Klan throughout the United States at the peak of its political influence. The Presidential election of 1928 basically became a contest between white Protestant middle class society against working class and Catholic immigrants.