Question

What is the modern temper and why did some Americans reacted against it .

Answer 1

The modern temper in American history refers to the cultural, social, and economic shifts during the 1920s, which some Americans resisted due to a preference for traditional norms. Nativism and fundamentalist movements arose in reaction to immigration and urbanization, while the Temperance Movement sought to address the social issues caused by alcohol consumption.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Modern Temper and Reactions Against It

In the context of American history, the modern temper refers to the societal shifts towards urbanization, industrialization, and cultural changes following World War I, particularly noticeable during the 1920s. This period was marked by a rise in consumerism, a quest for leisure, and a proliferation of new ideas about social norms and values. However, not all Americans were receptive to these transformations. Many, especially in rural areas, pushed back against what they perceived as threats to traditional ways of life. This pushback took various forms, from the emergence of nativism, which was fueled by high levels of immigration leading to feelings of racial animosity and anxiety among native-born Americans, to the criticisms by authors like Edward Bellamy and Thorstein Veblen, who felt the country was losing its moral compass in the face of industrial expansion.

The clash between the old and new was particularly vivid during the 1920s when the erosion of traditional norms led to the rise of fundamentalist philosophies and terror groups like the Second Ku Klux Klan. Highlighted by events such as the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and the Scopes trial, these reactions showcased Americans' fear of immigrants, radical politics, and the impact of scientific theories on Christian beliefs. Amidst all these social upheavals, the Temperance Movement gained momentum as a means to reform societal ills associated with the consumption of alcohol—which was seen as a cause of immorality and economic loss.

Answer 2

The Modern Temper

• World War I unleashed forces that caused severe social strains in the United States. In 1920 the American economy suffered a brief but sharp recession as factories and businesses shifted back to peacetime production. At the same time, returning soldiers and sailors swamped the labor market. Prices soared as consumers sought to buy the goods and services they had sacrificed during the war. Frustration over scarce jobs and high prices led to violent labor disputes fanned by socialist and communist agitators. In 1919 a flurry of bombs addressed to government officials led many Americans to fear that something akin to Russia's Bolshevik Revolution was erupting in the United States.

• This "Red Scare" prompted Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose front porch was destroyed by a mail bomb, to launch a series of raids directed at labor radicals and alien activists across the country. Over 5,000 people were arrested, some 250 of whom were convicted without the benefit of a court hearing, loaded onto a ship, and deported to the Soviet Union. These "witch hunts" were conducted by the FBI under the direction of a young official named J. Edgar Hoover.

• These powerful anti-immigrant and anti-radical sentiments surfaced in the most sensational criminal trial of the decade. In 1920 robbers shot and killed the paymaster and guard at a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts. The police later arrested two Italian immigrants who were avowed anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and charged them with the murders. A jury found them guilty in 1921, and numerous appeals supported by prominent liberals kept the case in court until 1927, when they both were executed.

• During the summer of 1919 the same social tensions that ignited the Red Scare fueled a new round of race riots. The war had disrupted the patterns of race relations. Blacks from the rural South who served in the military were less willing to tolerate racial abuse and "Jim Crow" segregation laws once they returned home. Thousands of southern blacks also migrated north and west in search of higher wages and racial equality, only to discover that racism was not limited to the deep South. White mobs in communities across the nation assaulted blacks for various reasons or for no reason at all. In a Chicago riot thirty-eight people were killed and hundreds injured; troops had to be called in to restore order.

• By the end of 1920 the race riots and the Red Scare had dissipated, but they left in their wake an atmosphere of venomous racism and xenophobia and a latent tension that repeatedly erupted in violence over the next two decades. During the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan witnessed a dramatic revival, and anti-immigration sentiment culminated in new laws intended specifically to restrict the number of newcomers from southern and eastern Europe.

• The nativism and racism that surfaced after World War I revealed fissures that repeatedly sent tremors through American society and culture during the 1920s. The social fault lines tended to occur between rural and urban values. Large cities increasingly represented centers of modernism. The residents were more affluent, more secular, and more "liberated" about mores and manners than their rural counterparts. Many young adults—especially affluent college students—discarded old prohibitions. They engaged in sensual dancing, public kissing and swimming, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption that shocked and angered moral guardians. Drawing upon manipulated theories of the Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, young rebels engaged in what amounted to a sexual revolution during the 1920s. In the face of such cosmopolitan challenges, many rural traditionalists countered with an aggressive conservatism that coupled religious and cultural fundamentalism.

• Traditionalists focused much of their energy on an old crusade: the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Throughout the nineteenth century, moral reformers had tried to outlaw the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, but not until 1919 did they succeed on the national level. With the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the federal government prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transport of all intoxicating liquors, and the Volstead Act, enacted the same year, defined as "intoxicating" any beverage that had 0.5 percent or more of alcohol.

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