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The Twentieth Century in the United States was a time of much change and controversy. In between the 1920s and 1980s, the United States struggled between new and changing attitudes and going back to traditional values and nostalgia on the other. Many events occurred that brought about change that has and will remain changed in the United States. However, many traditional values still present themselves and survive in a changed United States. Many times, if a change failed or was not approved by society, the people would go back to the tested and true traditional values. Areas that where controversial or where values where tried included public schooling, government, civil rights, and women’s rights.
Notably, one of the wars waging between changing attitudes and traditional values occurred in the 1920s in the public school system. The Scopes Trial was brought to court when a Tennessee teacher started teaching evolution. It was against Tennessee law to teach evolution in a publicly funded school. H. L. Mencken wrote about the Scopes Trial in the Baltimore Evening Sun. Mencken wrote about the defending attorney, Clarence Darrow, and the prosecution that was led by William Jennings Bryan (70). Mencken portrayed Bryan as a controller and the Tennessee people as sheep or ignorant people that will believe anything. Mencken was on the side of Scopes while he disagreed with the fundamentalists (70). Scopes was found guilty and it was an initial win for traditional values (Davidson 505). Today many states allow for teaching of all theories as long as they have equal teaching time, but evolution and creationism in the classroom is still a controversial topic.
During the Great Depression, one of the main changes came to the United States go...
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...1980s, but some have been challenged and overruled by new ideas. Many subjects in society: public schooling, government, civil rights, and women’s rights were debated to determine if they should remain traditional or change. Often, changes in certain issues that did not prove up were reverted to the traditional way. Many of these changes affect the United States today.
Works Cited
Davidson, James West, et al. HIST 202 U.S.: A Narrative History Volume 2: Since 1865 With Additional Materials for McNeese State University. Boston: McGraw Hill Learning Solutions, 2012. Print.
Blackmun, Justice. “Roe vs. Wade.” Davidson 132-133.
Mencken, H. L. “The Scopes Trial.” Davidson 70.
Kennedy, John F. “John F. Kennedy’s Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights.” Davidson 116-118.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. “First Inaugural Address.” Davidson 74-75.
In the Roaring Twenties, people started buying household materials and stocks that they could not pay for in credit. Farmers, textile workers, and miners all got low wages. In 1929, the stock market crashed. All of these events started the Great Depression. During the beginning of the Great Depression, 9000 banks were closed, ending nine million savings accounts. This lead to the closing of eighty-six thousand businesses, a European depression, an overproduction of food, and a lowering of prices. It also led to more people going hungry, more homeless people, and much lower job wages. There was a 28% increase in the amount of homeless people from 1929 to 1933. And in the midst of the beginning of the Great Depression, President Hoover did nothing to improve the condition of the nation. In 1932, people decided that America needed a change. For the first time in twelve years, they elected a democratic president, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Immediately he began to work on fixing the American economy. He closed all banks and began a series of laws called the New Laws. L...
...et al. Vol. 4: Primary Sources. Detroit: UXL, 2006. 146-161. U.S. History in Context. Print. 17 Nov. 2013.
Tindall, George, and David Shi. America: A Narrative History. Ed. 9, Vol. 1. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2013. 185,193. Print.
The Antebellum Era between the years of 1825 to 1850 was abundant with many reform movements that signified great change within the people of the nation. Although many of these changes were good and lasting reforms, extremists’ stark views did the contrary and inhibited change. Luckily, reform movements such as the women’s rights movement, the abolition of slavery, and temperance all led the nation in the right direction towards the expansion of democratic ideals. These ideals encompass the belief that all citizens are equal and are entitled to certain unalienable rights.
While some citizens of the United States, between 1825 and 1850, believed that reform was foolish and that the nation should stick to its old conduct, reformists in this time period still sought to make the United States a more ideally democratic nation. This was an age of nationalism and pride, and where there was pride in one’s country, there was the aspiration to improve one’s country even further. Many new reformist and abolitionist groups began to form, all attempting to change aspects of the United States that the respective groups thought to be unfair or unjust. Some groups, such as lower and middle class women and immigrants, sought to improve rights within the county, while other reformers aspired to change the American education system into a more efficient way of teaching the county’s youth. Still other reform groups, particularly involved in the church and the second great awakening, wanted to change society as a whole. This was a time and age of change, and all these reforms were intended to contribute to the democratic way our country operated.
Walens, Susann. A. United States History Since 1877. Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT. September 2007.
... 1925 in the state of Tennessee and it prohibited teachers from teaching their students that anyone other than God created man. Then there became a problem of religion versus evolution. The Scopes Monkey trial affected Americans so much because it happened at a time when people were trying to find themselves and their beliefs. They had to decide whether they wanted to live in the past of accept the future. The trial revealed the conflicting views that were happening in the 1920s. People started to question how much of an influence society how and how much society could control. The 1920s started with the end of a war and evolved into a culture shock. The aftermath of World War I left fear in many Americans but the roaring twenties is a prime example that change can either be good or bad and it’s a person’s decision on whether they want to welcome change or deny it.
The Great Depression was one of the greatest challenges that the United States faced during the twentieth century. It sidelined not only the economy of America, but also that of the entire world. The Depression was unlike anything that had been seen before. It was more prolonged and influential than any economic downturn in the history of the United States. The Depression struck fear in the government and the American people because it was so different. Calvin Coolidge even said, "In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope—nothing of man." People were scared and did not know what to do to address the looming economic crash. As a result of the Depression’s seriousness and severity, it took unconventional methods to fix the economy and get it going again. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration had to think outside the box to fix the economy. The administration changed the role of the government in the lives of the people, the economy, and the world. As a result of the abnormal nature of the Depression, the FDR administration had to experiment with different programs and approaches to the issue, as stated by William Lloyd Garrison when he describes the new deal as both assisting and slowing the recovery. Some of the programs, such as the FDIC and works programs, were successful; however, others like the NIRA did little to address the economic issue. Additionally, the FDR administration also created a role for the federal government in the everyday lives of the American people by providing jobs through the works program and establishing the precedent of Social Security...
... Conference.” Reader’s Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991. Online. Internet. Available at HTTP: http://www.historychannel.com/. 23 Sept 2001.
3. Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, Williams, eds., America Past and Present Volume II: since 1865 sixth edition (New York: Longman 2002).
George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi, America: A Narrative History, Ninth Edition, Volume One, (New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013), 504.
The Scopes trial, writes Edward Larson, to most Americans embodies “the timeless debate over science and religion.” (265) Written by historians, judges, and playwrights, the history of the Scopes trial has caused Americans to perceive “the relationship between science and religion in . . . simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from allover to witness whether science or religion would win the day. Yet below all the hype, the trial had a deeper meaning. In Summer for the Gods, Edward Larson argues that a more significant battle was waged between individual liberty and majoritarian democracy. Even though the rural fundamentalist majority legally banned teaching evolution in 1925, the rise of modernism, started long before the trial, raised a critical question for rural Americans: should they publicly impose their religious beliefs upon individuals who believed more and more in science.
The United States faced the worst economic downfall in history during the Great Depression. A domino effect devastated every aspect of the economy, unemployment rate was at an all time high, banks were declaring bankruptcy and the frustration of the general public led to the highest suicide rates America has ever encountered. In the 1930’s Franklin D Roosevelt introduced the New Deal reforms, which aimed to “reconcile democracy, individual liberty and economic planning” (Liberty 863). The New Deal reforms were effective in the short term but faced criticism as it transformed the role of government and shaped the lives of American citizens.
The 20th century brought a tidal wave of tolerance and equal rights for a diverse variety of people in the United States. When the century opened, women did not have an equal position with their male counter parts either in the public or private sectors of society. Women first received their right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, and the beginnings of an equal footing in the workplace during the obligatory utilization of American women as factory employees during the Second World War. Similarly, African Americans spent the 1950's and 60's fighting for their own basic civil rights that had been denied them, such as going to the school or restaurant of their choice. Or something as simple and unpretentious as where they were allowed to sit on a bus. However, by the end of the 20th Century, women, blacks, and other minorities could be found in the highest echelons of American Society. From the corporate offices of IBM, to the U.S. Supreme Court bench, an obvious ideological revolution bringing ...
"Great Depression in the United States." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001. CD-ROM. 2001 ed. Microsoft Corporation. 2001