Essays – Discovering the 1920s https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s Introduction to Digital History at Ramapo College Mon, 11 May 2026 16:28:11 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 The Leopold and Loeb Case https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/the-leopold-and-loeb-case/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/the-leopold-and-loeb-case/#respond Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:06:16 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5761 Overview

The 1920s were an era of prosperity, optimism, change, and crime. Mob and gang violence, alcohol smuggling, and robbery were all prevalent in the United States, as well as a much darker, more violent crime: murder. The decade witnessed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, The Osage Indian murders, and several more violent crimes. Out of all the homicide cases and murderers, none came close to the level of audacity that Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold possessed. The ruthless cold blooded murder of 14 year old Bobby Franks on May 21, 1924 shook the country to its core. The case quickly became a nationwide ordeal, changed court sentences, and raised concerns regarding the youth of society.

Bobby Franks (Famous Trials)
Background

The entirety of the Leopold and Loeb case was very bizarre from the very beginning. Two teenage boys, Leopold, 19, and Loeb, 18, brutally murdered their young neighbor, seemingly for no reason at all. All three of the boys came from wealthy Jewish families and resided in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood within a walking distance from one another. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb seemed to have everything in life laid out for them.1 Despite this, the privileged teenage boys threw away their lives through a single act of violence.

The minds of Leopold and Loeb were complex, revealing, and utterly disturbed. Both boys were excellent scholars, but had something darker residing in their minds. Loeb was popular among his peers, and began studying at the University of Chicago at 14. However, he was also involved with drinking and gambling, and desired to become a “master criminal”.2 Additionally, he had always been obsessed with crime. He “read about crime, he planned crimes, and he committed crimes”, but he had never physically harmed someone.3 Leopold had graduated from the University of Chicago and had plans to attend Harvard Law School. Despite excelling academically, he was described as “arrogant” by people he encountered.4 Aside from law, Leopold was fascinated with psychology, especially with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.5 Leopold “believed that legal obligations did not apply to those who approached ‘the superman’”, and brought his lover, Richard Loeb, into this mentality.6 In return, Loeb tied up Leopold in his crime schemes. When these two minds were put together, they became deadly. Historian Paula S. Fass asks the question of “why two rich, gifted boys would commit a murder embedded in the form of a ransom kidnapping”; a question that will likely never be fully answered.7 

Leopold (right) and Loeb in August 1924 (Wikipedia)

Together, the two boys desired to commit the “perfect crime” and the “crime of the century”. The premeditated murder of a random victim fit this criteria. “The two teenagers spent months discussing and refining a plan that included kidnapping the child of a wealthy parents, demanding a ransom, and collecting the ransom after it was thrown off a moving train as it passed a designated point”, and murder was crucial to get away with the crime.8 If murder was not involved, they risked being identified by their victim. Leopold and Loeb started planning this murder in November 1923, 6 months before it actually took place. They ruled against deciding who their victim would be beforehand, and instead opted to make it spontaneous.9 In the days leading up to the murder, they began to get their supplies together, including a chisel, which would be the murder weapon.10 Their last step was to rent a car the morning of the murder. 

Kidnapping and Murder
Map featured in newspaper (Hyde Park Herald)
“Map of the Scene of the Kidnapping and Murder of Bobby Franks” (Famous Trials).

Bobby Franks was walking home from Harvard School for Boys around 5pm on May 21 following a baseball game.11 At the same time, Leopold and Loeb were circling the area hunting for a victim. Leopold, who was driving the rented car, pulled up next to Franks and “asked him to get in the car to discuss a tennis racquet”, to which he complied.12 Loeb, who was in the back seat of the car, grabbed Franks, covered his mouth, and “struck the boy with [sic] several times on his head with a chisel”.13 Loeb then suffocated young Bobby Franks to death.14 Sometime between 5:15 PM and 9:30 PM, the boys drove to the Illinois/Indiana border to dispose of the body.15 Leopold and Loeb shoved Frank’s body into a culvert under a railroad, poured acid on his naked body, and returned to Loeb’s home to burn his clothing.16 

At 9:30 PM, Mrs. Franks received a menacing phone call from a man identifying himself as “George Johnson”.17 “Leopold told Franks that her boy had been kidnapped, but was unharmed, and that she should expect a ransom note soon”; the family received the note the next morning.18 The note reads: 

Dear Sir: 

As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him, provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and to such others as you will receive future communication. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty. 

1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigation, but do not mention this letter.

2. Secure before noon today ten thousand dollars. This money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations:

Two thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills, eight thousand dollars in fifty dollar bills. The money must be old. An attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile. 

3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.

4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o’clock P.M. See that the telephone is not in use.

“Leopold and Loeb Ransom Note: Northwestern Magazine.” Northwestern University. Accessed April 29, 2026. https://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/spring2012/feature/full-of-drama-sidebar/ransom-note.html.
Envelope containing ransom note addressed to Mr. Jacob Franks (Northwestern University).

You will receive a further communication instructing you as to your future course.

As a final word of warning, this is an extremely commercial proposition and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions. 

However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.

Yours truly, 

George Johnson19

A second note was to be placed on the train, but Mr. Franks never received this one. The 2nd note reads:

Dear Sir: 

Proceed immediately to the back platform of the train. Watch the east side of the track. Have your package ready. Look for the first LARGE, RED, BRICK factory situated immediately adjoining the tracks on the east. On top of this factory is a large, black watertower with the word CHAMPION written on it. Wait until you have COMPLETELY passed the south end of the factory – count five very rapidly and then IMMEDIATELY throw the package as far east as you can. Remember that this is your only chance to recover your son.

Yours truly,

George Johnson20

At around 12PM the next day, “Leopold (‘George Johnson’) called Jacob Franks, Bobby’s father, shortly before three o’clock to tell him a taxi cab was about to arrive at his home and that he should take it to a specified drugstore in South Chicago”.21 Mr. Franks, of course, refused to do so. A few hours before this call, unbeknownst to the killers or Mr. Franks, a laborer had discovered Bobby’s body.22 Bobby’s uncle went to confirm the identity of the body as soon as he heard the news.23 It was at the location of the body that a clue to the identity of the killer lay.

Linking Leopold and Loeb to the Crime
Nathan Leopold’s glasses (Famous Trials)

Little did he know, Nathan Leopold had lost a pair of eyeglasses at the site where he and Richard Loeb had dumped the body. This specific style of glasses “could be traced to a single Chicago optometrist, who had written only three such prescriptions, including the one to Leopold”.24 Investigators began meticulously questioning Nathan Leopold on May 23, and soon after, Richard Loeb.25 They confirmed each other’s alibis of driving girls around in Leopold’s car, but “state’s attorney Robert Crowe, heading the investigation, was skeptical”.26 Upon further investigation and leads from classmates, prosecutors got ahold of a set of notes from a typewriter that belonged to Leopold, and the flaws matched those of the ransom note.27 Leopold’s chauffeur attempted to defend him by saying the car “the boys claimed they had spent the night driving around with girls, had not left the garage on the day of the murder”.28 He had unknowingly destroyed both the boys’ alibis. 

On May 30, 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were arrested for the murder of Bobby Franks.29 The following day, they both confessed to the murder, but neither would own up to actually killing Franks.30 

Trial

For the trial, “The Loeb and Leopold families hired Clarence Darrow and Benjamin Bachrach to represent the two boys”.31 Clarence Darrow was interested in the case due to the opportunity it gave him to “attack the death penalty, which he had called “an abomination”.32 Darrow had persuaded the boys to plead guilty to potentially avoid the death penalty. Professor Douglas O. Linder explains Darrow’s reasoning: 

“It was Darrow’s decision to change the boys’ initial pleas to the charges of murder and kidnapping from “not guilty” (suggesting a traditional insanity defense) to “guilty.” The decision was made primarily to prevent the state from getting two opportunities to get a death sentence. With “not guilty” pleas, the state had planned to try the boys first on one of the two charges, both of which carried the death penalty in Illinois, and if it failed to win a hanging on the first charge, try again on the second. The guilty plea also meant that the sentencing decision would be made by a judge, not by a jury”.33 

“Psychiatrists’ (“alienists”) phrenological assessments of Mr. Nathan Leopold and Mr. Richard Loeb as they appeared in The Chicago Tribune in the summer of 1924” (ResearchGate).

The defense worked around the testimony of 4 psychiatrists who interviewed the boys.34 The issue was that “the prosecution argued that psychiatric testimony was only admissible if the defendants claimed insanity”, to which the psychiatrists said mental diseases should be considered in the sentencing.35 The judge was convinced and allowed the evidence to be used. The entire trial, which Linder defines as a hearing due to the guilty plea, lasted a little longer than a month.36 The defense claimed that Leopold and Loeb suffered from “emotional immaturity, obsessions with crime and Nietzschean philosophy, alcohol abuse, glandular abnormalities, and sexual longings and insecurities”.37 Leopold was described as paranoid, delusional, and obsessed with Loeb; Loeb was called childish and called out for his lack of judgement.38 Psychiatrist Wiliiam White claimed that “Nathan would never on his own initiative have murdered Bobby Franks. . . And I don’t believe Dickie would have ever functioned to this extent all by himself”, so the two came together to commit the murder.39 The prosecution argued that neither boy was mentally ill.40 The Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology highlighted the fact that ”this is probably the first instance of the offer of elaborate psychiatric analyses as the basis for remitting the law’s penalty for a calculated, cold-blooded murder, committed by persons not claimed to be insane or defective in any degree recognized by the law as making them not legally responsible”. This aspect made the case revolutionary when it came to the court becoming less reliant on the death penalty.41 

Over the span of 12 hours on August 22, 1924, “Darrow argued that his clients should not bear full responsibility for their crime” due to several external factors.42 The basis of Darrow’s argument was that this murder happened due to “a series of infinite chances”; he claimed the boys were victims of nature.43 Darrow had also attempted to sway the jury away from a death sentence by expressing that the boys were too young to have to sit in jail awaiting execution.44

Attorney Robert Crowe stated “this was a premeditated crime committed by two remorseless defendants, and the appropriate punishment was obvious”, which he believed to be execution.45 After weeks of debating, Nathan Leopold and RIchard Loeb were sentenced to life in prison, mainly due to their age and the inability of the court to determine responsibility.46 

Aftermath

The two boys were held in Joliet Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois. Richard Loeb was killed here in 1936, and Nathan Leopold was released in 1958 due to his excellent behavior.47 Leopold then moved to Puerto Rico, where “he earned a master’s degree, taught mathematics, and worked in hospitals and church missions”.48 He passed away on August 30, 1971 following a heart attack.49 

Significance

Newspapers were critical to the entire incident, as well as the 1920s as a whole. Several newspapers provided the public with updated stories about a “sensational kidnap-murder”, provided “the prosecuting attorney with material assistance”, and gathered evidence that helped solve the case.50 James Mulroy and Alvin Goldstein, two journalists for the Chicago Daily News, received and “shared some of the reward money as well as the Pulitzer Prize for helping to connect Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb to the abduction and murder of Bobby Franks”.51 Daily papers ”published the confessions, interviewed the families and friends, and speculated about the nature of the “million-dollar defense” to be mounted by Clarence Darrow and his expensive psychiatric witnesses”; this turned into a type of entertainment for some, and turned this into a nationwide phenomenon.52 In addition to keeping the public updated on the case, the newspapers also did some strange things, which are now seen as immoral. “On May 23, 1924, the day the newspapers reported that Bobby had been kidnapped, they also contained a detailed description of his dead body”.53 To expose people, and potentially children, to such a disturbing scene was very odd. Despite this, the case would not have been solved without the contributions of press workers. 

The Leopold and Loeb case related to The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil in terms of psychology, beliefs, and human morality. Dumenil touches on the ideas of several individuals, including psychologist John B. Watson. Watson “described humans as hollow shells, formed by their environment, who responded to external stimuli”.54 Leopold and Loeb’s minds and behavior was shaped by the privileged environment that they grew up in, and this led them to believe they could get away with murder. Fiction writer Sherwood Anderson wrote “fashioned dark, brooding stories dealing with marriage, morality, and individuals destroyed by success”.55 It would be plausible to say that Loepold and Loeb were destroyed by the financial success of their parents and their own intellectual success. 

The murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb would go down in history as “cautionary story about the dangers of modern youth”.56 The profiles of the killers were vastly different from those of a “typical” murderer. Their portrayals “set them apart and represented them as larger than life”, making the case even more sensational.57

Citations

  1. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ↩︎
  2. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ↩︎
  3. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  4. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ↩︎
  5. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  6. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  7. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  8. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  9. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ↩︎
  10. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ↩︎
  11. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.”; Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  12. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  13. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  14. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  15. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  16. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  17. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  18. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  19. Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, University of Minnesota Web Archive ↩︎
  20. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  21. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.”; Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  22. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  23. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  24. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  25. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  26. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  27. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  28. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  29. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  30. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  31. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  32. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  33. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  34. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  35. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  36. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  37. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  38. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  39. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  40. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  41. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ↩︎
  42. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  43. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  44. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  45. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  46. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  47. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  48. Douglas O. Linder ↩︎
  49. “Nathan Leopold – Loeb, Murder & Death.” ↩︎
  50. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  51. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  52. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  53. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  54. Lynn Dumenil, 146 ↩︎
  55. Lynn Dumenil, 153 ↩︎
  56. Paula S. Fass ↩︎
  57. Paula S. Fass ↩︎

More Resources

For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago– Simon Baatz (2008)

The Clarence Darrow Digital Collection

The Leopold and Loeb Trial: A Brief Account– Douglas O. Linder

PBS American Experience: “The Perfect Crime” (2016) (Documentary)

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/the-leopold-and-loeb-case/feed/ 0 Historiography of the 1920s in American Textbooks https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-american-textbooks/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-american-textbooks/#respond Wed, 29 Apr 2026 05:28:15 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5729 The two chapters I looked at are “The Roaring Life of the 1920s” from The Americans (2005) and “Prosperity’s Promise” from The Adventure Of American People (1966), while the article I looked at is “THE 1920s—A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY” by Jennifer Fronc. These three resources give examples of what historiography of the 1920s is like, and how it has changed in American textbooks.

A page featuring a section from the 1920s chapter of “The Americans” (2005).

“The Roaring Life of the 1920s” splits its chapter into four parts, detailing the changing mindsets of the time, the women of the 1920s, education and pop culture, and the Harlem Renaissance. When discussing women during the 1920s, they do mention there being a “double standard” and that “many women were pulled back and forth between the old standards and the new.”1 A discussion of struggle happens in the section on the Harlem Renaissance, writing that “Northern cities in general had not welcomed the massive influx of African Americans. Tensions had escalated… culminating… in approximately 25 urban race riots.”2

This is very important, as the struggles for both women and black Americans during the 1920s are clearly stated in the book, and not sugarcoated so children have an idea that, despite the movements during the time, the past is complicated, especially when it comes to oppressed groups.

A page featuring a section from the 1920s chapter of “The Adventure Of American People” (1966).

Despite this, there is no mention of the hardships immigrants faced, with the most being that they “often ached for home.”3 Additionally, under a chart for the causes and effects of prohibition, the authors write that “native-born Americans developed a hostility to German-American brewers and toward other immigrant groups that used alcohol,” which could easily be glossed over if a child isn’t paying close attention.4

On the other hand, “Prosperity’s Promise” has more subtle splits that discuss the presidency and government of the time, the different movements and changes across America, and the economy. 

There is no mention of “flappers” in this textbook, only referring to them as “liberated women” who became less and less modest, with examples such as skirts being “9 inches from the ground! It soon had reached the knee” and “[women cutting] their hair short—and differently, it seemed, every year.”5

Any mention of the Harlem Renaissance is within the economic section, as they had moved to cities such as New York City due to labor shortages due to World War I. Despite this, it is only written as “a period of extraordinary creativity for Negro artists and musicians.”6

A word cloud featuring prominent words from the 1920s chapter of “The Americans” (2005).
A word cloud featuring prominent words from the 1920s chapter of “The Adventure Of American People” (1966).

There are very few similarities between these two chapters. Neither chapter discusses the Stock Market Crash, though I figure that topic is saved for their respective Great Depression chapters. They also discuss the culture of the decade, albeit in varying depths. Overall, “The Roaring Life of the 1920s” is better for a general overview of the culture of the 1920s, while “Prosperity’s Promise” is better for a general overview of the 1920s, before the Great Depression.

Based on what Jennifer Fronc writes in “THE 1920s—A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY,” these chapters fit into the context of what she writes about. “The Roaring Life of the 1920s” doesn’t go into full depth to how women were treated during the 1920s, but does mention how they were trapped between modernity and tradition. In regards to the Harlem Renaissance, it does a does still treat it “as an adjunct to the mainstream narrative of U.S. history,” as they discussed prominent African-Americans, such as James Weldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey and their accomplishments.7

On the contrary, “Prosperity’s Promise” Barely touches upon women and black Americans in the 1920s, but does touch upon immigrants. Unfortunately, there is only mention of Jewish and Catholic immigrants and the discrimination they faced.

Understanding when historians write helps evaluate how one could use a source, and understand how trustworthy it is. The different motives historians have during each decade is a huge driving factor that scholars have to take into account. Older sources are not more trustworthy than more modern sources, and trustworthiness depends on the author’s motives rather than the age of a source. Once this is finally understood scholars can more accurately determine which sources are best to use when writing a paper.

Citations

Footnotes
  1. Gerald A. Danzer et al., The Americans, 647. ↩︎
  2. Danzer et al., 659. ↩︎
  3. Danzer et al., 642. ↩︎
  4. Danzer et al., 643. ↩︎
  5. Henry Graff and John Krout, The Adventure Of American People, 615. ↩︎
  6. Graff and Krout, 623. ↩︎
  7. Jennifer Fronc, “THE 1920s—A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY,” 20. ↩︎
Bibliography

Danzer, Gerald A., J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Larry S. Krieger, Louis E. Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. The Americans. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2005.

Fronc, Jennifer. “THE 1920s—A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY.” Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Graff, Henry and John Krout. The Adventure Of American People. Rand McNally, 1966.

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/29/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-american-textbooks/feed/ 0 Historiography of the 1920s in American History Textbooks https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/28/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-textbooks/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/28/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-textbooks/#respond Tue, 28 Apr 2026 18:53:36 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5692 Between 1947 and 2004, the processes of documenting and analyzing American history underwent drastic changes in terms of which topics were covered, and the tone used to address different issues. This is particularly obvious in regards to the 1920s, as the decade was a transitional period in politics, culture, and social structure.

The textbook From Colony to World Power was written less than two decades after the end of the 1920s, and almost exclusively focuses on political history. In the aftermath of World War II, the isolationist and nationalist movements that grew exponentially during the 1920s were relevant to public discourse once again. This is reflected in how frequently the textbook discusses the League of Nations, and the chaos of European politics after World War I. From an educational perspective in 1947, it would have seemed exceptionally important to teach students of American history that the country had been entangled in international war once before, and had come out the other side without the economic or physical destruction that was wrought upon the old world.

Bubbles along two lines signify the presence of certain words in two textbook chapters.
“League” and “war” are clearly mentioned more frequently in the textbook chapter from 1947.
A chart shows the frequency of specific words in two textbooks.
This visualization shows words relating to international politics decreasing in usage in the 2004 textbook.

This focus on drawing a continuous historical line between World War I and World War II allows the textbook to avoid covering cultural and demographic developments during the 1920s, which were not considered important to educational narratives in 1947. It is only in a post-Civil Rights Movement world in which authors began to dedicate space to the activities of minority communities during the early 20th century. As noted by David J. Goldberg, topics such as the Harlem Renaissance and rural-urban migration are thoroughly discussed in books from the 1970s and 1990s, whereas American literature from the 1920s receives historical praise as soon as the 1930s.1

From the perspective of the 2004 edition of The American Pageant, the 1920s is a time period where the very makeup of American society was radically changed. Regardless of the geopolitical storm that was brewing in the interwar era, new patterns of migration and evolving concepts of the government’s role in the daily lives of citizens fundamentally redefined the nation’s identity. The book also covers negative aspects of this time period with more earnestness. The KKK, anti-radicalism, and religious intolerance all have their own section within the chapter on the 1920s, and are directly juxtaposed with discussions of economic prosperity.2 Also, concepts such as the rise of consumerism and the modern corporation are placed in the larger political and economic context of the decade. In the textbook from 1947 these aspects of 1920s American society are mentioned, but are not treated with as much historical significance as in 2004. These broader cultural trends had not yet been thoroughly analyzed in 1947, and in many ways were still developing.

A chart shows the frequency of specific words in two textbooks.
This chart shows the shifting focus between the two textbooks.

By the 21st century, historians and textbook authors had constructed a new canon of what aspects of society were integral to American history, and this new ideological framework rebalanced political and cultural topics. Goldberg notes this shifting focus to more holistic representations of the United States during the 1920s, and writes that the new framework creates “a fuller and more well-rounded portrait of a society where class, ethnic, racial, regional, political, and cultural divisions remained quite sharp.”3 As the function and focus of American history is reshaped by subsequent social climates, the significance of the 1920s will undoubtedly fluctuate accordingly in textbooks.

  1. David J. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives,” OAH Magazine of History 21, no. 3 (July 2007): 10. ↩︎
  2. Thomas A. Bailey, David Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen, The American Pageant (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 783-784. ↩︎
  3. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s,” 7. ↩︎
]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/28/historiography-of-the-1920s-in-textbooks/feed/ 0 The Shanghai Massacre https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/27/the-shanghai-massacre/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/27/the-shanghai-massacre/#respond Mon, 27 Apr 2026 23:25:04 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5638 Overview

The Shanghai Massacre of April 12, 1927, is an event that embodies the sheer chaos of political party rivalries in China during the 1920s and the potency of anti-communist ideologies around the globe. On this day, right-wing forces within the Chinese Nationalist Party gathered up and executed any known members of the Chinese Communist Party and anyone associated with the left-wing faction of the nationalists who supported an alliance with the Communist Party. As part of the much larger conflict between nationalist reformers and radical revolutionaries that consumed China for nearly the entire first half of the 20th century, the massacre marks a crucial turning point. After this violent suppression of Communist leaders and other political dissenters in major cities such as Shanghai, the Chinese Communist Party was fundamentally weakened, and the Chinese Nationalist Party was divided into those who condoned the violence and those who still favored diplomacy.

A prisoner is escorted through the streets of a city by guards.
A Communist is arrested by Nationalist troops during the Shanghai Massacre (Wikimedia Commons)

In a global context, depictions of the Shanghai Massacre in newspapers throughout Europe and the United States (or the mere lack of depictions) reflect how communism as a political concept conjured vastly different fears and anxieties depending on the preexisting cultural climate of a region. Both geographical proximity to the newly formed Soviet Union and an underlying social turmoil in regard to the government’s role in public life shaped the clash between Communists and non-Communists in China into a bloody struggle for political control. Although Western media during the 1920s was in a frenzy about the existential threat posed by the spread of communism, these fears did not take into account the violent oppression that encouraged even the average Chinese citizen to embrace revolution of any kind.

The story of how an internal divide began brewing amongst Chinese nationalists, and how the Chinese Communist Party was initially formed, comprises countless political decisions in both China and the Soviet Union throughout the early 1920s. The first such event that specifically set the stage for the violent spring of 1927 was the contact between Russian Comintern agent Hendrik Sneevliet and Republic of China founder Sun Yat-sen in December of 1921.1 Yat-sen had been instrumental in overthrowing the Qing dynasty a decade earlier, and Sneevliet viewed him as the perfect candidate for helping communism catch on in China. As the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Yat-sen recognized the newly formed Chinese Communist Party as a legitimate political party and pursued a diplomatic alliance. This combination of Communists and those in the nationalist party who supported their political existence became known as the “First United Front.”2

While Sneevliet’s influence upon the formation of the First United Front is obviously impossible to quantify, the Soviet Union’s geopolitical game plan was soon impacted by preexisting rivalries between Chinese nationalist leaders. In June of 1922, one of the most influential military leaders within the Nationalist Party, Chen Jiongming, renounced Yat-sen’s authority and forced him to withdraw from Guangzhou and flee to Shanghai.3 Although Sun Yat-sen ultimately returned to Guangzhou with support from the Communist Party, it had become clear that not everyone shared his willingness to include Communists in contemporary Chinese society. As Yat-sen continued his push towards unifying China under one nationalist government, he faced heavy resistance not just from local warlords but from dissenting officials within his own party. After his death from cancer in 1925 left an empty place at the top of the Nationalist Party, this power struggle intensified dramatically.

A man in military attire salutes from atop a horse.
Chiang Kai-shek during the Northern Campaign in 1926 (Wikimedia Commons)

On the right-wing side of the Nationalist Party and in command of the National Revolutionary Army was Chiang Kai-shek: a hardened military commander with his sights set on political and ideological domination. On the left-wing side of the party was a prominent politician and poet, Wang Jingwei, who embraced collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviets. As these two factions battled for control of their party, Kai-shek was continuing Yat-sen’s military campaign to conquer Northern China. Unable to counter his use of the military, Communist-supported leaders asserted that the Central Executive Committee held ultimate power over the nationalist government. On March 10, 1927, the Committee met without Kai-shek and resolved to strip him of his power, citing his dismissal of their authority and anti-Communist sentiments.4

Infuriated by this move to curtail his power, Chiang Kai-shek redirected his military campaign through Northern China towards Shanghai and planned to take the city as a display of his personal authority. However, in late March Communist-led workers assumed control of Shanghai, and other Nationalist generals were withholding their attacks out of fear of foreign intervention from the Soviet Union. Upon first arriving at the city and observing the strength of assembled Communist forces, Kai-shek did not pursue immediate military action but rather began forging secret alliances with anti-Communist warlords and other Nationalist leaders who favored the right-wing faction.5

Meanwhile, Wang Jingwei of the leftist faction had been reassured by both local Nationalist leaders in Shanghai and Soviet officials that with their support, Kai-shek would be unable to take the city.6 Unaware of the pending threat of Chiang Kai-shek’s secret network of supporters, pro-Communist organizations proceeded with multiple public strikes and demonstrations on April 12. Nationalist forces seized this moment and engaged in a widespread purge of anyone who was visibly associated with leftist ideology. Even unarmed people who were merely seen demonstrating in the streets were arrested, if not killed for suspected Communist ties. Over the next two months, all Communist cells operating within Shanghai and in other cities where Kai-shek was able to encourage allies to assist with the purge were exposed and crushed. Striking workers, many of whom only opposed the practices of singular companies, were either executed or imprisoned for their associations with the Chinese Communist Party.

Political leaders from both the Communist Party and the leftist faction of the Nationalist Party were hunted down and brought to the same fate. This forced politicians who had been actively engaged in diplomatic negotiations with other leaders of the Nationalist government to flee for friendly provinces in the South, where Kai-shek’s Northern Campaign had no local implications. Some of the local warlords who supported the purge were even more violent and aggressive with the individuals they rounded up. In Kwangtung, Governor Li Chi-shen’s forces gathered approximately 2,000 suspected opponents of right-wing nationalism and had many of them shot publicly.7

This violent suppression of Communists across various major cities in China cemented a political divide within the country’s population and leaders. Left-leaning individuals who may have supported some type of alliance between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party were now painfully aware that such collaboration would never be possible, given the standard of confrontation Chiang Kai-shek set in April of 1927. If they chose to relinquish all ties to Chinese nationalism, they would be seen as traitors by the country’s largest military force and would have few other options besides joining the unprepared and under-funded Communist Party. If they chose to ally with the right-wing branch of the Nationalist Party, they would essentially be at the whim of constant scrutiny and suspicion. From within the party, there was no longer any hope of reaching agreements with political minorities, even those that could facilitate an alliance with the Soviet Union.

People congregate under an arch where the Chinese Nationalist Party flag is being flown.
Nanking Nationalist Government was established with Chiang Kai-shek as leader, April 18, 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)

Chiang Kai-shek’s drastic and destructive action against Communist groups and their allies essentially ensured the length and scope of the subsequent Chinese Civil War. Nationalists were internally divided by the sheer intensity of the anti-Communist violence, and the Communist Party itself now carried with it a story that elicited sympathy from all other political factions. Between the polarization of the Chinese public and the Soviet Union’s obvious support for the Communist Party, the imminent civil war would not be another simple crushing of dissenters. It would be an extenuating violent conflict, lasting from 1927, in the aftermath of the Shanghai Massacre, until the Communist Party’s eventual conquering of nearly the entire country in 1949. Although a 21st-century perspective on history seems to paint the Chinese Communist Party as a massive political and military force with a very blatant agenda, the bloodshed of the April 12th massacre was part of a much larger sequence of events that brought Communists the internal cohesion and popular support needed to amass more power. Perhaps presciently, Kalfred Dip Lum wrote in 1927 that Chinese Nationalist leaders “have started something which they cannot control.”8

Significance

The purging of Communist leaders and supporters by the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1927 serves as a grim reminder of the intensity of anti-communist ideology during the 1920s and the stark discrepancies in how this sentiment impacted different regions of the world. Compared to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which occurred the same year, the Shanghai Massacre represents an entirely different tier of chaos and destruction. Yet due to isolationist attitudes, the violent clash between Communists and Nationalists in China was treated as generally irrelevant throughout the Western world.

In many cases, newspapers in the United States did not even mention that the political factions being suppressed were in fact communist. One Illinois paper referred to the events of April 12th as nationalist troops fighting to disarm “Guerilla gunmen.”9 With most American readers struggling to picture what Shanghai even looked like, media outlets had completely free reign over the context in which they placed the violence of the Shanghai Massacre. During a decade when major business interests in the United States would do anything to bar communist ideology from catching any foothold in the public consciousness, the press naturally hesitated from expressing sympathy for communist communities. Publishing more accurate accounts of the Shanghai Massacre would expose American audiences to a situation in which nationalists were violently attempting to crush all forms of political dissent, with no consideration of the Chinese public’s best interests.

The massacre marked the beginning of a ferocious push by Chinese nationalists to eliminate dissent of any kind and highlighted the dangers of organizing widespread initiatives for governmental reform. In the context of Chinese history, it set the stage for a bloody conflict between the Communist and Nationalist parties, which would last for many decades. Placed in a global context, the violence in China serves as a reminder that Europe was not the only setting of destructive ideological conflict during the early 20th century.

A political cartoon showing a leg labeled "Labor" descending stages of social chaos.
“Step-by-step,” by Sidney Joseph Greene, published in American newspapers, November 1, 1919 (Wikimedia Commons)

Particularly in the United States, changing patterns of immigration and the formation of the Soviet Union sparked a Red Scare during the 1920s. This was largely sustained by wealthy, white Protestants, who were desperate to maintain their political and social authority at a time when American isolationism and the internal culture of the country itself were undergoing fundamental evolutions. While this manifested as an “overwhelming insistence upon conformity,”10 in the United States, there is no comparison to the violent suppression of Communists in China. Therefore, events such as the Shanghai Massacre paint a very different picture of global anti-communist attitudes during the 1920s than the stories constructed by American businessmen who merely feared losing their fortunes to public ownership.

While historian Lynn Dumenil explains that in the U.S., “The agendas of the business community, voluntary associations, politicians, and the press helped persuade a susceptible public that the Bolshevik menace was a serious one,”11 the Communist Party was by no means a media phantom in China. Influenced by the geographical proximity of the Soviet Union combined with countless cultural factors, communism was able to gain traction in China that was simply not achievable in the United States. Therefore, conservatives within the Nationalist Party, such as Chiang Kai-shek, plunged the country into war in an effort to resist the same revolutionary change that Americans feared.

Although the conflict between new ideologies and strict nationalism embodied the decade of the 1920s in both countries, the sheer differences in scope of that conflict created drastically different legacies of anti-communist sentiment. As Dumenil notes, the Red Scare in the United States was fueled by a broader resistance to social change, which ultimately ebbed and flowed in relevance depending on contemporary economic conditions.12 However, for interwar China, the clash between Nationalists and Communists set the stage for an extenuating military conflict that would last until 1949 and shape the course of Asian history throughout the entire century. Ultimately, the Red Scare of the 1920s in the United States was largely minimized in history by later clashes with communism, which developed from the aftermath of events like the Shanghai Massacre in China.

Citations

Footnotes

  1. David P. Barrett, “The Role of Hu Hanmin in the ‘First United Front’: 1922-27,” The China Quarterly, no. 89 (March 1982): 35. ↩︎
  2. Ibid., 34. ↩︎
  3. Ibid., 36. ↩︎
  4. F. Gilbert Chan and Thomas H. Etzold, China in the 1920s: Nationalism and Revolution (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 147-149. ↩︎
  5. Ibid., 150-151. ↩︎
  6. Ibid., 153. ↩︎
  7. Ibid., 157. ↩︎
  8. Kalfred Dip Lum, “Chinese Civil War and Foreign Relations,” News Bulletin (Institute of Pacific Relations) (February 1927): 20. ↩︎
  9. International News Service, “Chinese Nationalists in Frantic Efforts to Strengthen Position; China in a Ferment,” Waukegan News-Sun, April 12, 1927, p. 16. ↩︎
  10. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 218. ↩︎
  11. Ibid., 221. ↩︎
  12. Ibid., 225. ↩︎

Bibliography

  • Featured image: “Communists being rounded up in one of the purges.” April 1927. Accessed May 6, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Communist_purge.jpg.
  • Barrett, David P. “The Role of Hu Hanmin in the ‘First United Front’: 1922-27.” The China Quarterly, no. 89 (1982): 34-64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/653620.
  • Chan, F. Gilbert, and Etzold, Thomas H., eds. China in the 1920s: Nationalism and Revolution. New Viewpoints, 1976.
  • Chang, Kuo-t’ao. The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party. University Press of Kansas, 1971.
  • Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. Hill and Wang, 1995.
  • International News Service. “Chinese Nationalists in Frantic Efforts to Strengthen Position: China in a Ferment.” Waukegan News-Sun, April 12, 1927, p. 16.
  • Lum, Kalfred Dip. “Chinese Civil War and Foreign Relations.” News Bulletin (Institute of Pacific Relations), (1927): 19-22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2485490.
  • Wilbur, C. Martin. The Nationalist Revolution in China: 1923–1928. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

More Resources

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/27/the-shanghai-massacre/feed/ 0 1920s Visualization Blog Post https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/20/1920s-visualization-blog-post/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/20/1920s-visualization-blog-post/#respond Mon, 20 Apr 2026 20:14:35 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5611 The two chapters that I chose to focus on were “Political Problems of the 1920’s” (1964), and “American Life in the ‘Roaring Twenties” (1998). The article that I will referencing these chapters against is titled “Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives” by David J. Goldberg (2007). While the goal of both chapters are to inform people about the 1920s and the importance of it, they focus on different aspects of the decade. 

Using Voyant to create visualizations of the chapters are very revealing of their content and focus. The top 5 most frequently used words in “Political Problems of the 1920’s” (1964) are “new”, “states”, “united”, “American”, and “president”. The 5 most frequently used words in “American Life in the ‘Roaring Twenties” (1998) are “new”, “American”, “1920s”, “war”, and “life”. The 3 phrases that stand out the most between these two chapters are “president”, “war”, and “life”. These words, along with the titles, make the focus of the chapters clear: the government during the 1920s, and the experiences and effects of war on the average American citizen during the 1920s. “Political Problems of the 1920s” (1964) speaks a lot about the president, mentioning “president” 55 times, and “American Life in the ‘Roaring Twenties” (1998) only mentions “president” 4 times. The earlier focuses on the elite and the later focuses on the majority of the population. 

“American Life in the ‘Roaring Twenties’”
“Political Problems of the 1920s”

These two chapters can fit into the context of historiography discussed in the article by David J. Goldberg. Goldberg explains that “New works dealing with social and cultural history have supplemented the more traditional focus on political history to provide us with a fuller and more well-rounded portrait of a society where class, ethnic, racial, regional, political, and cultural divisions remained quite sharp”. 1The older of the two articles focuses on political history, and the more recent one focuses on social and cultural history. Newer works are starting to drift away from the traditional study of political history to focus on the lower areas of society. 

Knowing the time period in which historians are writing helps us to evaluate their information and sources more effectively. Being able to place their work in a timeline makes it easier to understand how they were influenced by changing understandings, morals, focuses, and ideas. Older history is not necessarily less professional than more recent history, but it is often outdated or supports older/outdated theories, beliefs, topics, and concepts. There are many works on various topics that are written in a way that our current times can understand in a comprehensible way, such as focusing on the everyday person, so that we can put ourselves in that position. When authors write in outdated styles, such as employing “great men” history in the majority of writings, it only focuses on the upper class people of the time, which can be very hard for readers to understand on a personal level. A very small population of people understand what it is like to be the president, but nearly everybody understands how it is to be a working class individual. 

Citations

Footnotes

  1. David J. Goldberg ↩︎

Bibliography

Chapters: “Political Problems of the 1920’s” (1964); “American Life in the ‘Roaring Twenties’” (1998) 

David J. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives” OAH Magazine of History, (July 2007), pp. 7-10.

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/20/1920s-visualization-blog-post/feed/ 0 The Modern Temper (Chapters 4-6) and The Jazz Singer https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-modern-temper-chapters-4-6-and-the-jazz-singer/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-modern-temper-chapters-4-6-and-the-jazz-singer/#respond Wed, 01 Apr 2026 04:56:54 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5563
A colored lobby card featuring an photo of Al Jolson to the left of the card. The right of the card features eight people: seven women and one man. They are all dressed in 1920s attire and are on a stage. There is a piano to the viewer's left that three women are leaning against, while everyone else stands. The women are all looking at the man.
A lobby card for The Jazz Singer (1927). (Wikimedia Commons/Warner Bros.)

For a second time, The Jazz Singer plays again. There is more to be discussed with this film in terms of the themes of The Modern Temper, as it focuses on secularism. These themes are presented throughout the film, and are important to the message it gives to the audience.

The biggest theme shared with both mediums is the push-and-pull relationship between religion and modernity. Religion became less popular as secularism rose, causing religious groups, like Judaism, attempting to change in order to appeal to the younger generation.

Reform Judaism proposed “Reconstrictionism,” which “[de-emphasized] the belief in the supernatural, the ideas of Jews as a chosen people, and adherence to archaic Jewish law.”1 On the other hand, more traditional sects, “modified the traditional orthodoxy of Southern and Eastern European parents to make it more palatable to modern Americans.”2 As a result, there were people who joined synagogues and contributed to Judaism through donations.

The Modern Temper also discusses how “Jewish identity became for them a semisecularized form of ethnicity,” which does reflect in The Jazz Singer.3 Judaism is a core identity of Jack Robin, the main character, and he does struggle with choosing religion or modernity. In the end, he does choose performing at the synagogue in place of his father over performing on Broadway, reflecting Judaism staying strong in the United States, despite the film ending with him performing on the stage.

A photo of actors Al Jolson (left) and Eugenie Besserer (right) as Jackie "Jack" Rabinowitz and Sara Rabinowitz respectively. Besserer holds Jolson's arm with a saddened look on her face. She is dressed in nice clothing, in conparison to Jolson, who wears a black shirt. He is also wearing blackface.
A still from The Jazz Singer (1927). (Wikimedia Commons/Warner Bros.)

Surprisingly, what the film does not touch upon is the rampant anti-Semitism throughout the period. Even before the 1920s, Jewish people were seen as lesser than due to nativism, and their religion and practices were referred to as “alien” and “outlandish.”4 As a result, hostility against Jewish people rose as they were discriminated against socially and economically. Additionally, conspiracy theories against Jews were rampant, such as claims of “most nation-states [being] strongly influenced if not completely controlled by Jews” and the claims of Jewish people controlling the banking system.5

Despite the rampant anti-Semitism, The Jazz Singer doesn’t feature any commentary on it. While it, arguably, would have made the themes of the film slightly convoluted, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would have made for a more intriguing story if there were a comment or two of distrust made by one of his peers, making his choice more difficult. It would also give more to discuss about the film in terms of its contemporary look on Jewish people rather than simply a divide between secularization and religion.

Overall, while secularism and religion are the driving themes in The Jazz Singer, there’s not much to the film besides that. The relationship between Jack and his Judaism is shallow, and while Jewish people do have a history with vaudeville, it’s not extremely crazy to say that the story would have been drastically different if the main character were a different religion, such as Catholic.

While it holds up as the first ever film with dialogue, there’s not much more past the conflict of religion, and there are stories created after this film that likely do this plotline better.

Footnotes
  1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 175. ↩︎
  2. Dumenil, 176. ↩︎
  3. Dumenil, 176. ↩︎
  4. Dumenil, 214. ↩︎
  5. Dumenil, 216. ↩︎
Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper : American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York, Ny: Hill and Wang, 2007.

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-modern-temper-chapters-4-6-and-the-jazz-singer/feed/ 0 The First Trans-African Flight (and the Modern Temper) https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-first-trans-african-flight-and-the-modern-temper/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-first-trans-african-flight-and-the-modern-temper/#respond Wed, 01 Apr 2026 04:31:18 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5559 The first trans-African flight, which took place between February 4th and March 20th 1920, was one of the many feats aviation innovations during the early 1900s. Advancement in technology form the first World War are one of the reasons a long-distance flight such as this was even possible. This impressive achievement was piloted by aviators General Sir Helperus Andreas van Ryeveld (also known as Pierre van Ryneveld) and by Air Vice Marshal Sir Christopher Jospsh Brand (aka Flossie), the pair were decorated war vets and by the time they retired they earned several medals of honor including The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, The Most Honorable Order, Distinguishable Service Order, The Military Cross, and several others. The flight was planned in part due to a challenge put out by The Times paper, promising a sum of over £10,000, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa quickly set out to put a team together for the journey, and of course he assembled a team of South African men, who were also in excellent standing with the British Military, these men were a shining beacon of hope and representation for South Africa. After a nearly 45-day journey, and three different aircrafts, the duo completed their journey in late March. The reactions from the public demonstrate vast responses.

              The responses from the public made clear that the technological innovations of the time enforced the identity of some, whilst also releasing the identities caused by some innovations. The completion of the flight was an important ideal for white settlers in South Affrica, they saw the flight as an example of the superiority of western technology. However it also revealed many of their racial anxieties, fearing that the natives and black people of the community would rebel against such innovations, thus reinforcing their control over British territories. Native and black people of South Africa were very hesitant of their acceptance of the flight, since it meant it brought them closer to the British Empire. Public fascination with the journey transformed aviation into a spectacle, reinforcing Dumenil’s argument that modern societies increasingly sought meaning and satisfaction not in work itself, but in the prestige, and excitement made possible by modern production. At the same time, the flight reflects the “acids of modernity” discussed in Chapter IV, as it symbolized growing confidence in science, engineering, and human mastery over nature.

Although the completion of the flight was greatly celebrated, it also causes some civil and social unrest due to the racial divides it unintentionally enforced. As rapid technological change deepened the sense that the modern world was breaking irreversibly from the past. In this way, the trans‑African flight encapsulated both the optimism and the anxiety of the 1920s. As  a whole this flight is the perfect example of the negative impacts that incredible technological innovations have had on culture and society. Due to the media sensation that became of the flight the divide that came as a result was blatant. And such divide only emphasizes several negative themes that are so often brushed over when discussing the 1920s.

Citations:

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper. Hill and Wang, 30 June 1995, Chp6.

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/the-first-trans-african-flight-and-the-modern-temper/feed/ 0 Museum of Modern Art Blog Post https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/museum-of-modern-art-blog-post/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/museum-of-modern-art-blog-post/#respond Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:48:46 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5475 The Museum of Modern Art was founded during the end of the 1920s. The origins of the Museum was riddled with themes of the 20’s, while also challenging and or expanding on some of those themes. Women played a huge role in the founding of the Museum of Modern Art and how it ran. Though the Museum was run by Americans, immigrants made their own impacts on the Museum too, like Japanese Americans. These themes help shaped the Museum during its early days to become the Museum that exists today.

The photo is showing the New York Skyline from the perspective of someone in a building. The Heckscher building is being display as the only building that is not small or being look down upon. The roads is not busy and everything looks clean.

The Museum was the idea of three women: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan, who were known as “The Ladies”. These women were daughters and wives of some of America’s famous and powerful families. They had a passion for the arts and were avid art collectors. The idea of the Museum began in 1928, when The Ladies gathered together over lunch to come up with a museum that could house contemporary art.1 The Ladies pooled their incomes and also raised money from wealthy businessmen to open the Museum. The Ladies invited Alfred H. Barr, Jr to be the Museum’s first director and appointed Anson Conger Goodyear, Paul Sachs, Frank Crowninshield, and Josephine Boardman Crane as board of trustees when the Museum opened on November 7, 1929.2

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller is sitting down. She has short curly hair. She is wearing a huge fur coat. She is also wearing a hat with a flower on it.

Perspectives about to role of women changed during the 1920s. As women became more economically independent, they would forego the traditional gender norms and dressed differently from prior generations. One Historian, Lynn Dumenil, called this change the change of the “New Woman”.3 Though all three of the founders would fall under the same notion of the New Woman, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller best encapsulated the New Woman and expanded upon it. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was the Museum’s Treasurer, and over the years gained other job titles like First Vice President, and First Vice Chairman. These positions were typically not given to women during this era. She also advocated for women’s rights. She gave money to the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and served as chairwomen of the organization for 20 years.4 The organization aimed to help advance all women and offer them economic protection. Her appearance also challenged social norms. She wore her hair short, similar to a man’s hair, and Flappers.

Soichi Sunami is sitting sideways on the chair. His back is not against the back of the chair. He is wearing a trenchcoat.

The Museum helped reinforce the modernity of the 1920s. Due to the increase of educated people, culture began to flourish all over the country. Historian Lynn Dumenil believed that American modernity began when the European idea to challenge old Victorian ideals also began to spread in America.5 The Museum’s original exhibit were of three European painters: Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Gauguin. These painter’s works were often considered to have pushed and challenged the norms of the Art World. People in the 1920’s also tried seeking guidance for their problems from the secular world.6 Museums like the Museum of Modern Art housed collections of secular art that could bring this comfort, or caused people to changed their perspective on things. During American Modernity, states in the North tried celebrating pluralism and embracing other people’s cultures.7 The Museum did it best by embracing pluralism. In 1930, the Museum of Modern Art hired a famous Japanese-American photographer named Soichi Sunami who stayed there for almost 40 years .8 Though Soichi was hired in the 30’s, his being hired and work being appreciated was due to the ideas of modernity and pluralism from the 20’s.

The Museum of Modern Art was shaped by the culture of American during the 1920’s. The Museum challenged the traditional role of women, since the Museum’s founders were all women and the huge role they played after its founding. The Museum embraced the ideas of American Modernity, by embracing foreign cultures and being a place of secular enjoyment of art. Thus, the Museum of Modern Art both challenged and embraced the norms of the 1920s.

  1. “MoMA Through Time,” MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, accessed on March 31, 2026. ↩︎
  2. “The Museum of Modern Art History,” MoMA, The Museum of Modern Arts, accessed on March 30, 2026. ↩︎
  3. Lynn Dumenil. Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 99. ↩︎
  4. “Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1874-1948,” Rockefeller Archive Center, accessed on March 31, 2026. ↩︎
  5. Dumenil. Modern Temper,146. ↩︎
  6. Dumenil. Modern Temper, 151. ↩︎
  7. Dumenil. Modern Temper, 149. ↩︎
  8. “Soichi Sunami,” Getty, The Getty Museum, accessed on March 31, 2026. ↩︎

Bibliography

“Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1874-1948.” Rockefeller Archive Center. accessed on March 31, 2026.

Dumenil, Lynn. Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. (New York: Hill and Wang. 1995).

MoMA Through Time.” MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art. accessed on March 31.

“Soichi Sunami.” Getty. The Getty Museum. accessed on March 31, 2026.

“The Museum of Modern Art History.” MoMA. The Museum of Modern Arts. accessed on March 30, 2026.

]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/museum-of-modern-art-blog-post/feed/ 0 Anti-Reform Sentiment and the Columbine Mine Massacre https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/anti-reform-sentiment-and-the-columbine-mine-massacre/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/anti-reform-sentiment-and-the-columbine-mine-massacre/#respond Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:28:49 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5526 The 1927 Columbine Mine Massacre was part of a greater pattern of unsuccessful coal strikes in the 1920s. According to Lynn Dumenil’s book The Modern Temper, strikes were rare during this period. However, she writes that “some industries and areas experienced persistent labor unrest,” and “Strikes punctuated the troubled coal industry.” 1 Dumenil examines how coal miner strikes in other parts of the country, such as Pittsburgh, were met with violence in the form of armed guards. She also writes that although “Many observers decried the brutality and terrorism of the owners…the union was broken, as it was in other coal strikes during the decade.” 2 The aggressive reaction to the strike and the movement’s eventual failure were mirrored in Columbine. There, picketers were fired upon by the Colorado State Police. Three were killed instantaneously and three died from their wounds at a later time. 3 This violent response to labor unrest was very common in the 1920s, as evidenced in Dumenil’s writing.

A black and white photo featuring hundreds of people waiting outside a doctor's office in the former mining town of Serene, Colorado. The photo was taken in 1927.
Hundreds of people gather outside the local doctor’s office to find out if victims of the Columbine Mine Massacre would survive. (Wikimedia)

The aftermath of the strikes also reflects the anti-reform sentiment of the time. Dumenil argues that part of the reason for this aggression was “the political and economic climate that strangled union and worker initiative. The considerable power of corporations…gave employers a sympathetic government and public.” 4 The state’s involvement in suppressing the strike clearly demonstrates its partnership with corporate powers. The two were so entwined that the government was willing to intervene in order to protect the interests of large companies. Furthermore, Colorado Governor William H. Adams later said that the state police chief had “ordered his men to fire only when it appeared that his own life and those of his deputies where in jeopardy.” 5 This demonstrates the anti-labor stance taken up by the government during this time.

Additionally, the lack of any convictions for the killings shows how the public responded to the Massacre. Just four days after the shooting, a coroner’s jury in Colorado ruled that the strikers that were killed had been “assembled and invading the mine property after having been properly and legally warned not to enter,” meaning that the deaths were “not felonious.” 6 The verdict of this jury, which was made up of regular Colorado citizens, was a demonstration of how public opinion had turned against labor power in the 1920s. These anti-reform beliefs are also evident in newspaper articles published in the wake of the Massacre. One of these, written and distributed by the United Press, characterized the strike as an attack on police that were “protecting the Columbine Mine.” 7 This negative depiction of the strikers and the heroic terms used to describe the police exhibit the widespread anti-labor beliefs discussed by Dumenil.

A newspaper headline from November 21, 1927. It reads "2 Miners Die, 30 Hurt as Police Fire on Mob." It was published in the Brooklyn Daily Times.
This Brooklyn Daily Times article from November 21, 1927 demonstrates the public’s hostile response to the Columbine Mine Massacre. (Newspapers.com)

The 1920s were a time of strong anti-reform sentiment in America. Included in these beliefs were suspicion of and hostility towards unions and pro-labor movements. The Columbine Mine Massacre is one example of a violent reaction to worker strikes. It demonstrates how state governments stepped in to protect large companies and their capital, and also shows the strong anti-labor beliefs held by individual politicians. Additionally, the Massacre’s aftermath, including the lack of a conviction for the killing and the response in the press, illustrates the anti-reform attitude that had taken hold in much of the American populace. Overall, analyzing the Columbine Mine Massacre itself as well as the public and governmental responses to it allows for a deeper understanding of anti-labor beliefs in the 1920s.

1     Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995), 63.
2     Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 63.
3     Charles J. Bayard, “The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike,” Pacific Historical Review 32, no. 3 (1963): 245. Accessed March 31, 2026. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4492179.
4     Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 65.
5     “Four Strikers Killed in Riot in Coal Fields,” The Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, NY), Nov. 21, 1927.
6     “Coroner’s Jury Blames Strikers for Deaths Columbine Mine Battle,” The Fort Collins Coloradoan (Fort Collins, CO), Nov. 25, 1927.
7     “2 Miners Die, 30 Hurt As Police Fire on Mob,” The Brooklyn Daily Times (New York, NY), Nov. 21, 1927.
]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/04/01/anti-reform-sentiment-and-the-columbine-mine-massacre/feed/ 0 China and International Anti-Communism in the 1920s https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/03/31/china-and-international-anti-communism-in-the-1920s/ https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/03/31/china-and-international-anti-communism-in-the-1920s/#respond Tue, 31 Mar 2026 13:44:00 +0000 https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/?p=5509 The purging of communist leaders and supporters by the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1927 serves as a grim reminder of the intensity of anti-communist ideology during the 1920s, and the stark discrepancies in how this sentiment impacted different regions of the world. Compared to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which occurred the same year, the Shanghai Massacre represents an entirely different tier of chaos and destruction. Yet due to isolationist attitudes, the violent clash between communists and nationalists in China was treated as generally irrelevant throughout the Western world.

A group of men bound by rope walk down the street with police officers escorting them.
Communists being rounded up in one of the purges, ca. April 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)

The massacre marked the beginning of a ferocious push by Chinese nationalists to eliminate dissent of any kind, and highlighted the dangers of organizing widespread initiatives for governmental reform. In the context of Chinese history, it set the stage for a bloody conflict between the Communist and Nationalist parties, which would last for many decades. Placed in a global context, the violence in China serves as a reminder that Europe was not the only setting of destructive ideological conflict during the early 20th century.

Particularly in the United States, changing patterns of immigration and the formation of the Soviet Union sparked a Red Scare during the 1920s. This was largely sustained by wealthy, white Protestants, who were desperate to maintain their political and social authority at a time when American isolationism and the internal culture of the country itself were undergoing fundamental evolutions. While this manifested in an “overwhelming insistence upon conformity,”1 in the United States, there is no comparison to the violent suppression of communists in China. Therefore events such as the Shanghai Massacre paint a very different picture of global anti-communist attitudes during the 1920s, than the stories constructed by American businessmen who merely feared losing their fortunes to public ownership.

A political cartoon showing a leg labeled "Labor" descending stages of social chaos.
“Step-by-step,” by Sidney Joseph Greene, November 1, 1919 (Wikimedia Commons)

While Lynn Dumenil explains that in the U.S., “The agendas of the business community, voluntary associations, politicians, and the press helped persuade a susceptible public that the Bolshevik menace was a serious one,”2 the Communist Party was by no means a media phantom in China. Influenced by geographical proximity of the Soviet Union combined with countless cultural factors, communism was able to gain traction in China that was simply not achievable in the United States. Therefore conservatives within the Nationalist Party such as Chiang Kai-shek plunged the country into war in an effort to resist the same revolutionary change that Americans feared.

While the conflict between new ideologies and strict nationalism embodied the decade of the 1920s in both countries, the sheer differences in scope of that conflict created drastically different legacies of anti-communist sentiment. As Dumenil notes, the Red Scare in the United States was fueled by a broader resistance to social change, which ultimately ebbed and flowed in relevance depending on contemporary economic conditions.3 However for interwar China, the clash between nationalists and communists set the stage for an extenuating military conflict that would last until 1949, and shape the course of Asian history throughout the entire century. Ultimately, the Red Scare of the 1920s in the United States was largely minimized in history by later clashes with communism, which developed from the aftermath of events like the Shanghai Massacre in China.

People congregate under an arch where the Chinese Nationalist Party flag is being flown.
Nanking Nationalist Government was established with Chiang Kai-shek as leader, April 18, 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)
  1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 218. ↩︎
  2. Ibid., 221. ↩︎
  3. Ibid., 225. ↩︎
]]> https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2026/03/31/china-and-international-anti-communism-in-the-1920s/feed/ 0