A Changing America
The 1920’s, one of the most important era’s in American history. It carried high prestige because of the fact that the 1920’s changed everything, from the way people thought about themselves to the way people had fun and kept themselves entertained. It was an era that had drastic changes in political attitude, economic attitude, and cultural values. The topics addressed in chapter 12 reflect a changing America in that American values and attitudes all changed due to the new wave thinking brought on by the 1920’s.
The first major change in American society was the change that occurred in America’s political attitude. The most major change in political attitude was due to Americans newfound hatred of immigrants. Because the 1920’s instilled a sense of national pride and nationalism many Americans were against immigrants. People did not like immigrants because of the fact that they felt they were un-American and gave America a bad name. Since the 1920’s made people feel important because of new found income and entertainment, it made people believe that any time there was a problem in America it was not because of an American. Therefore a lot of the blame was placed on immigrants. So in order to keep America “American” the government put heavy restrictions on immigrants. One of these restrictions was the Act of 1921, which limited the amount of immigrants entering the United States from Europe. Then in 1924 the American government decided to lower the amount of European immigrants and exclude all Asian immigrants. Another occurrence in the 1920’s that explains the changing political attitude was Prohibition. Prohibition was a law that was passed through a new Amendment that outlawed the consumption and sale of alcohol. This was yet another attempt by the American government to eliminate all things that they felt brought America down. Even though Prohibition decreased domestic abuse and death it also caused the formation of something...