During World War I, the United States became a global economic leader. The center of world finance shifted from London to New York, and American ships carried goods all over the world. Despite a brief, intense recession in 1921, resulting primarily from the shift back to a peacetime economy, the 1 920s were a period of prosperity for many sectors of society. Republican administrations were in power, and a conservative, probusiness approach dominated the country. American consumer goods, including movies, continued to make inroads in many foreign countries.
In contrast to this fiscal conservatism, society seemed to lose much of its restraint during the Roaring Twenties. The passage of the Volstead Act (1919), outlawing all forms of alcoholic beverages, led to the excesses of the age of Prohibition. Bootleg liquor was readily available, and flouting the law by visiting speakeasies or attending wild drinking parties became common even among the upper classes. Before the war, women had grown their hair long, worn floor-length dresses, and danced sedately. Now they created scandals by bobbing their hair, wearing short skirts, doing the Charleston, and smoking in public.
Many sectors of society, though, were shut off from the general prosperity and sophistication of the 1920s. Racism was rampant, with the Ku Klux Klan growing after its revival in 1915 and the stiffening of immigration quotas to keep certain groups out of the United States. Workers in agriculture and mining fared poorly. The film industry, however, benefited from the high level of capital available during this period, and its films reflected the fast pace of life in the Jazz Age.
World History
