1919

The Eighteenth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, which prohibits the sale of alcohol nationwide, is ratified. The Volstead Act of 1919 provides for its enforcement.

Alice Hamilton appointed assistant professor of industrial medicine at Harvard Medical School; she becomes the first woman on the faculty.

Industry magnates led by John D. Rockefeller launch the “American Plan” to roll back the wartime gains of labor unions.

The first citywide general strike immobilizes Seattle for six days. At the end of the strike, the workers have won none of their demands.

President Wilson unsuccessfully urges U. S. Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which calls for American membership in the League of Nations; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge leads congressional resistance to ratification.

Jack Dempsey becomes heavyweight champion of the world.

Twenty-five race riots break out in American cities, killing and wounding hundreds of people. This period is known as the Red Summer.

U. S. Congress passes the Child Labor Act of 1919 in an attempt to protect children in the workplace.

The American Farm Bureau is founded to lobby for the interests of farmers, who represent 25 percent of voters.

The U. S. Supreme Court upholds the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, asserting that the “clear and present danger” of war makes certain types of free speech subversive.

The “Black Sox” scandal, in which Chicago White Sox players accept bribes in exchange for purposely losing the World Series, damages baseball’s popularity.

Bolsheviks found the Third International (or Comintern) to export revolution around the world; American socialists who support the Russian Revolution form an American communist party.

Steelworkers wage a strike of 365,000 in September, signaling the end of the uneasy truce between industry and labor during World War I; by January, the strike ends in failure and 22 strikers have been killed.

Responding to a wave of strikes after the war, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer counterattacks with a series of raids targeting labor militants and radicals. Thousands of radical activists and writers are arrested or deported in the “Red Scare” raids, including Emma Goldman.