Immigration: National Origins Acts
1921: Limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of the foreign born persons of that nationality living in the United States in 1910
1924: Further discriminated against Southern and Eastern Europeans by limiting the number of immigrants from any country to 2% of foreign born persons of that nationality living in the United States in 1890.
The reason I picked these two pieces of evidence to help show why immigration was not changing is because these two documents are from two different time frames and it wasn't getting any better three years later. In the Act from 1921 the percentage of people born in foreign countries but residing in the United States was a low number anyways, but they then decided three years later in 1924 to start discriminating even more and decreasing that percentage by another whole percent. This shows that nothing was getting better, so technically it was a change in the wrong direction but they did kind of have this before the war started and things began to change. Before hand the United States government seemed really good at keeping foreigners out and not really allowing them to reside in America. They may have let that slip a little bit while everyone was still caught up with the whole world war that was going on, but once it was over they started making laws to make sure to go back to the way it was before.
Women's Sufferage
"It has often been pointed out that women should not pass laws on matters of war and peace, since no woman can do military duty" -Molly Elliot Seawell
"It is not the proper time to change the whole electoral system"-John D. Moon
I think that these two quotes deal with this whole returning to normalcy idea because like in the past they are refusing to give American women the rights to vote. John D. Moon was a Tennessee representative claimed that because America was in a time of war that it was not the proper time to change women's rights to make them eligible to vote in elections. Basically he was saying that because we are at war we need Americans need to stop paying attention to the things that obviously don't matter and focus on the things that do. And then what I see Molly Elliot Seawell is trying to say in the quote above is that people think that women can't have an opinion on war and stuff like that because they obviously haven't been to war and don't know what it's actually like out there. So, I believe that these two quotes provide a great showing of how the twenties was a return to normalcy because both of these quotes show that nothing was changing.
The Great Migration: KKK
"Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging form the poplar trees" -Billie Holiday
This was a poem/song written by Billie Holiday, a black women that was born in 1915 growing up with the fear of the KKK members. That is honestly what I think that this poem is about, about the KKK hanging African Americans in trees after killing them. The poem starts off saying the word southern, adding to the location that it is taking place at. Moving on through this piece of literature, Billie writes words like, "Strange Fruit", "Blood", and "Black Bodies" leading to my initial thoughts that this piece was about the Ku Klux Klan members hanging African Americans in trees after torturing them.
Political Cartoon
In this political cartoon it shows a women trying to get on her dress that just so happens to have Women's Suffrage written on it, showing that she is having a difficult time completely buttoning up her dress with a stick probably to help button those up with a sign that says ratification. I feel like this properly shows how the roaring twenties were a time of returning to normalcy because women around the country were having trouble improving their rights as citizens of the United States. People in the political career path were obviously not wanting to change so much in the whole women's rights area because we were still dealing with the world war that was taking up most people's attention. As I am looking closely I see the numbers 34, 35, and 36 near the bottom of her buttons on the women's dress, and I started questioning on what those numbers exactly signify. Are those the number of years that they've been fighting for these kinds of rights in Washington D.C.?
Counterclaim: The Harlem Renaissance
In my notes under Harlem Renaissance Video: 3 Most interesting ideas that stood out to you I wrote, "More black artists and musicians became popular, African Americans art is being praised, and there is a change in innovation." So more African Americans started being praised and recognized for the work that they are doing in the art industry. More and more African Americans were joining jazz bands, which were becoming very popular in this specific time frame. And then with the change in innovation, basically with what that is that new ideas where being created and there was a huge change in different areas of like government and cultural differences.