The twentieth-century world, Year 10: Prohibition, immigration, the Klan and the Red Scare (America 1920–1973 option)

1920

提示It happened right at the start of the Roaring Twenties.

为什么The Volstead Act spelled out the ban: it outlawed the making, selling and transporting of alcohol.

Speakeasy

提示Entry often needed a quiet password.

为什么Thousands were set up in cities, from fancy jazz clubs to basement back rooms, and owners often paid police to look the other way.

It created a huge illegal market for alcohol, which gangsters supplied

提示Banning something people still want makes a business for lawbreakers.

为什么In Chicago, Capone led the Outfit, a leading gang of the era, and rival gangs fought over territory.

Few agents, widespread bribery, and many people still wanted to drink

提示Think about who was meant to catch the lawbreakers.

为什么Several federal agencies were tasked with enforcing the Volstead Act, yet bootleggers operated with relative impunity, and local police were often overwhelmed or paid to look away.

The 21st Amendment

提示President Roosevelt had backed repeal.

为什么It was ratified on 5 December 1933 by special state conventions. Roosevelt had campaigned for repeal in 1932.

It set quotas that cut it sharply

提示A limit was set for each nationality.

为什么The law also excluded immigrants from Asia entirely.

Catholics, Jews and immigrants

提示It saw native-born white Protestants as the only true Americans.

为什么Founded again at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915, the second Klan grew into a national movement with millions of members in the mid-1920s, though estimates vary.

The Red Scare

提示The colour stood for revolution.

为什么Strikes in 1919 and news of the Russian Revolution of 1917 made many Americans fear a revolution at home.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

提示He ran the Justice Department.

为什么Many of those seized were immigrants, and hundreds were deported.

Many felt prejudice against immigrants and anarchists, not the evidence, decided the verdict

提示Think about who the two men were and what the public feared at the time.

为什么Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, were convicted of a 1920 payroll robbery and murder in Massachusetts and executed in 1927. In 1977 the state's governor declared that they had not been treated justly.