The Roaring TwentiesThe Roaring TwentiesThe Roaring TwentiesThe 1920s. It was the Jazz Age, the Era of Wonderful Nonsense, the Age of Babbitts,Bootlegging, and Bathtub Gin. Americans were speeding up, moving out, buying more, having fun, and dreaming bigger. Many events and changes made the twenties a new and exciting era to live in. The country grew because of the new inventions, such as the automobile, the radio, and film making. The social groups went under some changes too. Women’s rights, new inventions and entertainment were just a few of the many things that made the 1920s to be considered roaring.
The 1920s started with the Act of Prohibitation, the ban of alcohol. In 1919, the government passed the 18th amendment, the Act of Prohibitation. This act was a ban to stop manufactacturing, the sales, and the transportation of alcohol anywhere in the United States. Some people called this the “noble experiment.” In the 1920s many Americans abused alcohol. Many felt that a ban on the liquor would stop or decline alcohol abuse. Alcoholism did decline during this Prohibitation, but the ban did not work. Many found other ways to get around this law. Some people manufactured their own alcohol which was known as bathtub gin. Other people smuggled alcohol from Canada and the Caribbean. Sometimes the smugglers hid the alcohol in their boots, and they became known as bootleggers.
After a while crime increased as people rebelled against not able to drink alcohol. Several illegal bars called speakeasies were started. This sense of illegal drinking made drinking alcohol more popular than ever. It even attracted women to visit these speakeasies places. The underground saloons did a booming business. To keep these illegal clubs stocks with liquor-alcohol thousands of rumrunner, bootleggers, and beer barons, who were forced to work beyond the law.
As time passed more and more people began to rethink the Prohibition as a mistake. By the mid-1920s almost half of all federal arrest was the result of Prohibition crimes. By the end of the 1920s people began to call for a revoke of the Ban of Alcohol. Finally in 1933 the state ratified the 21 Amendment that reversed the 18 Amendment.
During Prohibition gangsters profited the most during this decade by smuggling alcohol and giving it to different illegal businesses. The best-known gangster in the 1920s was Al Capone, known as Scarface. Al Capone was one gangster who made $105 million a year by smuggling alcohol into the United States. He was born in Brooklyn, New York 1899. He quit school in the 6th grade to be apart of a street gang. In the gang the for the prohibitation law about alcohol they illegally brewed and gave alcohol. In 1925, Torrio got severely wounded in an assassination attempt. Al Capone took his place and took over the gang. He was soon to be known as a cold-blooded and violent gangster who eliminated most of the enemies. Capone was the organizer of the assassination. He would always get others to do his dirty work. He was a violent gangster and did all his work under as “Al Capone2″ which was a respectable business man. He was popular for two reasons. One was that he gave them what they wanted during the prohibitation of alcohol. The second one was that during, the depression he opened a soup kitchen and gave the poor people financial support. On May 17, 1929, he was arrested along with his bodyguard in Philadelphia. He was arrested for carrying a deadly weapon. Both got sentenced for one year in prison. He served his time and they let him out May17, 1930 because of good behavior. On October 17, 1931, they sentenced him for eleven years in federal prison for tax evasion. He had to pay a total of $272,692 for this tax evasion and prohibitation charges. He got released in 1939, but he no longer fit in enough to practice gangland polities. He died due to a stroke on January 25, 1947.
Another change to the constitution in the 1920s was the 19th Amendment, the Right for Women to Vote. Women were given the right to vote in the 1920 election. Their voting power helped Warren Harding become president. Up until this time the ideal role of women was to get married, have kids, and stay home to keep the house in order, and leaving the men to run the country. All of this was about to change. In 1920 Carrie Catt, who was the head of the National Woman Suffrage Association set up the League of Women Voters. This organization worked to educate voters, as it still does today. It also worked to guarantee other rights, such as the women to serve the jury. Women fought to get equal rights with the help of Alice Paul. She proposed Equal Rights Amendment that stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account
. It worked, and women were also allowed to vote, although it was not required for them to do so. The Second Amendment was also passed, and it read: “No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It was important for women to have full protection under the constitution as they looked to other states for funding for this cause and some other causes, especially the poor and oppressed.
SENATE OF WOMEN A number of laws have changed over time, but one law was particularly important – the Twenty-eighth Amendment, introduced in 1937. It was designed to protect the public from discriminatory political practices that were passed in the 19th century. Men were not allowed in the building that had a “preliminary place of worship”; the door to the building “was sealed before” and that the male occupant was allowed into. A “preliminary place of worship” would give the public at large the right to participate in political political events, including voting, for the first time. It did so with an attempt to keep women isolated but could not deny them in government. During the 1920 election, Democrats won just over 8,000 votes against 19% of Republicans.
During the 1930s, the party was split in different factions. The moderates came around. Democratic politicians who had been defeated during the 1930s, in their efforts to reelect the president and to prevent the Civil War, came around. Liberal Democrats came around at the start. The conservatives were too cautious and too hard on women.
In 1930 the Democrats came around, but in 1940 the Republicans were defeated in the primaries. In the 1940 election the Democratic presidential nomination was won.
Republican Senator William H. McCarthy (left) was beaten in the first Democratic primary of 1928. H.C. McCarthy was defeated in the primaries. His opponent, Representative Fred Hampton was defeated by Humphrey “Huck” Baldwin in the second Democratic primary of 1928.
The 1950 election was a decisive Democratic win for the Democratic Party, but was it a good thing to come around? The Democratic Party was largely unpopular. It didn’t make it to the polls. This is the problem with political parties, at the moment they are not effective in politics in a fair and humane manner.
In the 1950 election that was so pivotal, the Democrats did win. Republicans won a narrow majority (46%) in the Senate.  This was the biggest Democratic loss of any state’s legislature. Only 5% of Wisconsin voters voted in 1952.  By 1950, that was the most popular congressional district of any state. By 1957, Democrats had won four of California’s ten district houses and the South Pacific Island States in four of the last five elections. In 1952 that was what Republicans came for, but by 1956 they came out victoriously. For Democrats, it wasn´t that clear, but they did have the support of the working people.
This victory of the Democrats for the presidency only took a few months to come: it turned out that the new Speaker of the House Kennedy had failed to nominate a woman to be the next commander-in-chief of the United States to