Changing Ways of Life Lesson 3 PDF

Module 17 - Lesson 3: Changing Ways of Life 1. What trend in America's cities begins in the years prior to 1920 and accelerates throughout the decade?* Millions of Americans move from rural to urban areas, cities grow. 2. What cultural impact would the change in the prior question have on the pub...

Module 17 - Lesson 3: Changing Ways of Life 1. What trend in America's cities begins in the years prior to 1920 and accelerates throughout the decade?* Millions of Americans move from rural to urban areas, cities grow. 2. What cultural impact would the change in the prior question have on the public?* Small-town, traditional, conservative moral values and close social relationships began to be replaced with more modern and liberal values and practices. 3. What did the 18th Amendment do?* This amendment launched the era known as Prohibition, during which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages were legally prohibited. 4. Who supported and who opposed prohibition?* Support for Prohibition came largely from the rural South and West, areas with large populations of native-born Protestants. Powerful groups supporting it included the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Most immigrant groups did not consider drinking a sin but a natural part of socializing, and they opposed prohibition. 5. What was the Volstead Act and why did it fail? What was allowed under this law?* The Volstead Act was the law that enforced prohibition. It established a Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury Department in 1919, but the agency was underfunded. The job of enforcement fell to approximately 1,500 poorly paid federal agents and local police in charge of far too large an area and way too many other things. Alcohol was allowed for medicinal and religious purposes. 6. How did Americans (those not legally allowed to drink) get alcohol during prohibition?* To obtain liquor illegally, drinkers went underground to hidden saloons and nightclubs known as speakeasies. Inside, one would find a mix of fashionable middle-class and upper-middle-class men and women. Others learned to distill alcohol and built their own stills. People also bought liquor from bootleggers who smuggled alcohol in from Canada, Cuba, and the West Indies. 7. What dangerous unintended consequence did prohibition have?* Prohibition contributed to organized crime in nearly every major city. Chicago became notorious as the home of Al Capone, the most infamous gangster who took control of the Chicago liquor business by killing off his competition (hundreds of people). Gangs / mafias would bootleg alcohol, operate illegal breweries and speakeasies as well as other illicit businesses, while using bribery and violence to keep control of public officials and rivals. 8. What was the ultimate fate of the 18th Amendment and prohibition?* By the mid-1920s, most Americans opposed Prohibition and wanted the amendment changed or repealed. They believed that Prohibition caused worse effects than the initial problem. Rural Protestant Americans, however, defended a law that they felt strengthened moral values. The Eighteenth Amendment remained in force until 1933, when it was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment. 9. What is fundamentalism? What popular theory did most fundamentalists grow to oppose?* Fundamentalism is a Protestant Christian movement grounded in a literal, or nonsymbolic, interpretation of the Bible. Fundamentalists were skeptical of some scientific discoveries and theories as they argued that all important knowledge could be found in the Bible. They believed that the Bible was inspired by God, and that therefore its stories in all their details were true. Their beliefs led them to reject the theory of evolution advanced by Charles Darwin in the 19th century. This theory states that species of plants and animals descended from common ancestors. The implication they found most objectionable was that humans were related to apes. They pointed instead to the Bible’s account of creation, in which God made the world and all life forms, including humans, in six days. 10. What was the "Monkey Trial" about?* In March 1925, Tennessee passed the nation’s first law that made it a crime to teach evolution. Immediately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) promised to defend any teacher who would challenge the law. John T. Scopes, a young biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, accepted the challenge. He was promptly arrested and put on trial. 11. Who represented the prosecution and the defense during the Scopes trial? What was the trial really about?* The ACLU hired Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer of the day, to defend Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for president and a devout fundamentalist, served as a special prosecutor. There was no real question of guilt or innocence: Scopes was honest about his action. The Scopes trial was a fight over evolution and the role of science and religion in public schools and in American society.