Was America a free society in the 1920s
Was America really a free society in the 1920's?Freedom covers many aspects of life : human rights, religious freedom, economic freedom, freedom of expression and political freedom. In America in the 1920's there was an illusion of freedom - but some people were more free than others and this depended on race, social class and political belief.There was a big divide between rich and poor and this was further exagerrated by the divide between the urban and rural populations.The smaller farmers suffered from low income. The government did nothing to help, as it was Republican and believed in not interfering with American peoples lives. This ties in with the idea of economic freedom - the rural poor were not free because they could not afford to buy what they wanted. They barely had the money to survive, let alone the opportunity to earn the extra money to buy the things that they needed. The mining story was much the same. As the demand for coal dropped, the wages were lowered and the hours for miners were longer. A non-union policy was set up in many mines, which prevented any worker from joining a trade union. This meant that they could pay lower wages and charge less for coal and get a bigger percentage of th
The red scare was also a major factor. The justice system was also very biased. Political freedom was also in serious question. The fact that they were both anarchists and immigrants, were the reasons for their arrest and execution. (Despite this fact, many black people rose to the top and got good jobs such as lawyers). This only allowed in 3 percent of immigrants of the same nationality that were there in 1910. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia had led to an immense phobia of any thing Soviet, especially communism - and anything that hinted at radical left politics . The idea of freedom had a hollow ring for many sectors of American society. All their traditional values were outlawed, and they were put on reservations and made to convert to Christianity. There were to be no Asians at all, and northern and western Europeans were allocated 85% of the space. Native Americans were looked down on the most. The women in the city were not as free as many thought though.
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