The1920s American History
Background: When World War I ended in 1918, Americans welcomed what they hoped would be a return to normalcy. The decades that followed, however, are ones which would rarely be described as normal in comparison to what came before or after. After World War I ended and through the 1920s, a struggle ensued within the American nation regarding how best to define the nation's essential character, as groups like the revived Ku Klux Klan fought a rearguard action to define nationhood solely in terms of white skin and Protestant religion against secularists, Catholics, flappers, "New Negroes," and others who challenged the traditional order. Immediately thereafter, the New Deal implemented in response to the Great Depression revolutionized the role of the federal government in lives of the American people, in ways that many Americans believed violated the basic tenets of the Constitution-and others believed were not radical enough. Taken together, the decades from 1920 to 1940 may have transformed the American nation more than any other comparable time period.
1. Why you think the event was important and how it relates to your Final Paper topic.
2. What the primary source you chose tells you about this topic.
3. What it does not tell you.