Course Calendar

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Questions for Debate About Culture in the 1920's

A couple of questions to ponder about the Roaring Twenties over break. Students may comment below and have on online written discussion/debate over ideas on these discussion questions which are focused on our current area of study the Roaring Twenties (also known as the Age of Uncertainty and the Years of Crisis).

Have a wonderful break and I look forward to reading your responses and hearing your ideas upon our return.

QUESTIONS TO RESEARCH, PONDER, AND DISCUSS:
1. Why were many Americans in the early l920s hostile toward immigrants and foreign political ideas?


2. How would you explain the arguments supporting and those in opposition to Prohibition in the 1920's?


3. How did the Scopes Trial effect society in the 1920's? What does this trial represent in the broader context of how society was changing in the 1920's and the challenges they were facing?


4. How did teens rebel from their parent's generation in the 1920's? (How did expectations change for men & women, fashion, and music?) How does this relate to how teens rebelled during your parent's generation from their parents and from how teen's today rebel from their parent's generation?


5. Explain how gangsters like Al Capone and Owney Madden were able to seize control of society in the 1920's. What allowed them to rule the time period? How did they become so powerful? What led to their downfall?
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History Quotes

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
-Gerda Lerner

History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it -- as with these -- life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.
-Henry Steele Commager

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
-Robert F. Kennedy