American Culture In The 1920s Essay

During the 1920s, America went through rapid changes in its culture as part of society surged forward into a new era while others hung back and returned to traditional values. While young women took advantage of their newfound freedom as flappers of the exciting Roaring Twenties, older women of the church shook their heads. Not only did these changes affect societal aspects of American culture, they also had an impact in economical and political aspects.
During the 1920s, economic culture in America became a time of spending and enjoyment with newfound abundances of money, but also a battle between business and religious values. In Document A, entitled Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis, a man of the Lost Generation, described a man as being “a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the
Society became yet another battle, this time, the battle of science vs religious values. The Scopes Trial is one of the best examples of this. The Butler Act made teaching evolution in public schools illegal, following the path of religious fundamentalism that became popular at this time. John Scopes fought for the right to teach evolution in school, and while he lost the case, it was a very important issue for the time. The case drew national attention, and is discussed in Document C, known as The World’s Most Famous Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case. During this trial, Mr. Bryan, the prosecution lawyer, argued in favor of the Bible and fundamentalism, while Mr. Darrow spoke the side of Scopes and modern scientific beliefs. After a long case, fought back and forth over what Bryan claimed to be ‘Mr. Darrow’s slurs at the Bible,’ Darrow closed the document saying that he was “examining [Bryan] on [his] fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth” would believe. This is a crucial example of the social battle of the 1920s, fundamentalism vs modernism and evolution vs the biblical