Although the technology for the automobile existed in the 19th century, it took Henry Ford to make the useful gadget accessible to the American public. Ford used the idea of the assembly line for automobile manufacturing. He paid his workers an unprecedented $5 a day when most laborers were bringing home two, hoping that it would increase their productivity. Furthermore, they might use their higher earnings to purchase a new car.

Saloons were closed, bottles were smashed, and kegs were split wide open. When the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages was outlawed. Protestant ministers and progressive politicians rejoiced and proclaimed a holier and safer America. It was predicted that worker productivity would increase, families would grow closer, and urban slums would disappear. Yet for all its promise, prohibition was repealed fourteen years later, after being deemed a dismal failure.

In the 19th century, the American world consisted of children and adults. Most Americans tried their best to allow their children to enjoy their youth while they were slowly prepared for the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Although child labor practices still existed, more and more states were passing restrictions against such exploitation. The average number of years spent in school for young Americans was also on the rise. Parents were waiting longer to goad their youngsters into marriage rather than pairing them off at the tender age of sixteen or seventeen. In short, it soon became apparent that a new stage of life — the teenage phase — was becoming a reality in America. American adolescents were displaying traits unknown among children and adults. Although the word teenager did not come into use until decades later, the teenage mindset dawned in the 1920s.

The battle for suffrage was finally over. After a 72-year struggle, women had won the precious right to vote. The generations of suffragists that had fought for so long proudly entered the political world. Carrie Chapman Catt carried the struggle into voting awareness with the founding of the League of Women Voters. Alice Paul vowed to fight until an Equal Rights Amendment was added to the Constitution. Margaret Sanger declared that female independence could be accomplished only with proper birth control methods. To their dismay, the daughters of this generation seemed uninterested in these grand causes. As the 1920s roared along, many young women of the age wanted to have fun.

It was time for a cultural celebration. African Americans had endured centuries of slavery and the struggle for abolition. The end of bondage had not brought the promised land many had envisioned. Instead, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South, where ninety percent of African Americans lived. Starting in about 1890, African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers. This Great Migration eventually relocated hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many discovered they had shared common experiences in their past histories and their uncertain present circumstances. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, the recently dispossessed ignited an explosion of cultural pride. Indeed, African American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.

The 1920s was a decade of increasing conveniences for the middle class. New products made household chores easier and led to more leisure time. Products previously too expensive became affordable. New forms of financing allowed every family to spend beyond their current means. Advertising capitalized on people's hopes and fears to sell more and more goods.

Commercial radio in America had humble beginnings. Frank Conrad, an engineer for Westinghouse, set up an amateur radio station above his garage in a Pittsburgh suburb. Since the wireless technology was developed by Guglielmo Marconi in the late 19th century, thousands of enthusiasts across the world experimented with the new toy. After World War I, Conrad began broadcasting a variety of programming from his "station." High school music groups performed, phonograph records were played, and news and baseball scores were reported. Conrad had dramatically improved the transmitter, and soon hundreds of people in the Pittsburgh area were sending requests for air time. The bosses of Westinghouse knew that Conrad was on to something and convinced him to make his hobby commercially profitable.

The Roaring Twenties was a time of great change. As exciting as dynamic times may seem, such turmoil generates uncertainty. Sometimes, in an effort to obscure tensions, people seek outlets of escape. Fads — sometimes entertaining, sometimes senseless — swept the nation. Another coping strategy in a time of great uncertainty is to find role models who embody tried and true values. National heroes heretofore unknown to peacetime America began to dominate American consciousness.

Not all Americans embraced the new way of life. Many saw the United States as a civilization in decline. The original purpose of the Puritan city upon a hill seemed to be slipping away in the pursuit of materialism and self-gratification. The morals of the Victorian Age were forgotten in the age of Freud and the flapper. Immigrants brought new cultures, religions, and languages to the increasingly complex American mosaic. The success of the Bolshevik Revolution brought a widespread suspicion of socialists, radicals, and labor unions. There were those in America who clung tenaciously to the values of the past. They would not give up without a fight.

Progressive and conservative Americans believed that labor activism was a menace to American society and must be squelched. The hatchetman against American radicals was President Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer was determined that no Bolshevik Revolution would happen in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union led the charge of evolution's supporters. It offered to fund the legal defense of any Tennessee teacher willing to fight the law in court. Another showdown between modernity and tradition was unfolding.

Old versus new was not a conscious topic to be discussed calmly at the nation's dinner tables. In an effort to preserve so-called true American values, the forces against change sometimes displayed intolerance ranging from restrictive legislation to outright violence.

They were called the Lost Generation. America's most talented writers of the 1920s were completely disillusioned by the world and alienated by the changes in modern America. The ghastly horrors of trench warfare were a testament to human inhumanity. The ability of the human race to destroy itself had never been more evident. The materialism sparked by the Roaring Twenties left many intellectuals empty. Surely there was more to life than middle-class conformity, they pined.

Despite all the verve of the American social scene in the 1920s, the Presidential leadership of the decade was quite unremarkable. Warren Harding won his bid for the White House in 1920 with the campaign slogan "Return to Normalcy." Republicans believed Americans had grown weary of the turmoil caused by World War I and promised tranquility. Harding found himself mired in scandals unknown in America since the Grant Administration. Although Harding himself was above the graft, his friends were more than willing to dip into the public treasury. Fraud and bribery plagued the Veterans Bureau and the Justice Department. The Teapot Dome Scandal exposed Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall for accepting bribes for allowing private oil companies to lease public lands. Harding fell ill in 1923 and died shortly thereafter.

At the end of the 1920s, the United States boasted the largest economy in the world. With the destruction wrought by World War I, Europeans struggled while Americans flourished. Upon succeeding to the Presidency, Herbert Hoover predicted that the United States would soon see the day when poverty was eliminated. Then, in a moment of apparent triumph, everything fell apart.

It was a boom time for the stockholder. Stock prices soared to record levels. Millionaires were made overnight. Sound like the stock market of the 1990s? Try the New York Stock Exchange on the eve of the Great Crash in 1929.

Despair swept the nation. In addition to the nationwide 25% unemployment rate, many laborers were forced to choose between wage cuts and a pink slip. Most people who retained their jobs saw their incomes shrink by a third. Soup kitchens and charity lines, previously unknown to the middle class, were unable to meet the growing demand for food.

Although the United States had little history of massive social upheaval or coup attempts against the government, hunger has an ominous way of stirring those passions among any population. As bread riots and shantytowns grew in number, many began to seek alternatives to the status quo. Demonstrations in the nation's capital increased, as Americans grew increasingly weary with President Hoover's perceived inaction. The demonstration that drew the most national attention was the Bonus Army march of 1932.

Undoubtedly, the fault of the Great Depression was not Hoover's. But as the years of his Presidency passed and the country slipped deeper and deeper into its quagmire, he would receive great blame. Urban shantytowns were dubbed Hoovervilles. Newspapers used by the destitute as bundling for warmth became known as Hoover blankets. Pockets turned inside out were called Hoover flags. Somebody had to be blamed, and many Americans blamed their President.

No nation could emerge from the cauldron of national crisis without profound social and cultural changes. While many undesirable vices associated with hopelessness were on the rise, many family units were also strengthened through the crisis. Mass migrations reshaped the American mosaic. While many businesses perished during the Great Depression, others actually emerged stronger. And new forms of expression flourished in the culture of despair.