Immigration Policy Changes and Restrictions in 1920s America

The changing social climate led to increasingly restrictive immigration policies between 1917-1929. The Immigration Act of 1917 established literacy tests as a requirement for entry, marking the beginning of more systematic restrictions.

Example: The Immigration Act of 1924 (Reed-Johnson Act) had particularly far-reaching effects:

• Reduced quotas to 2% of 1890 population levels
• Limited total annual immigration to 164,000
• Heavily favored Northern and Western Europeans
• Effectively banned Asian immigration

The Immigration Act of 1921 (Emergency Quota Act) represented another significant shift, reducing annual immigration from 1 million to 357,000 people. It introduced national quotas based on 3% of each nationality's presence in the 1910 census, deliberately favoring Western European immigrants who had arrived earlier in American history.

By 1929, these policies had dramatically reshaped American immigration. The final Immigration Act of 1929 further restricted entry to 150,000 people annually, allocated 85% of visas to Northern and Western Europeans, and completely excluded Asian immigrants. These policies reflected and reinforced the period's xenophobic attitudes and racial hierarchies.

Impact: The negative impact of US immigration policies 1917-1929 included:

• Virtual halt of immigration from Southern/Eastern Europe
• Creation of illegal immigration patterns
• Reinforcement of racial discrimination
• Long-lasting demographic effects on American society

Racial Dynamics and Minority Experiences in 1920s America

The 1920s saw complex racial dynamics affecting various minority groups in America. Black Americans, comprising about 10% of the population, faced severe discrimination through Jim Crow laws, particularly in the South. These laws enforced segregation in education, housing, public amenities, and voting rights.

Vocabulary: Jim Crow Laws - Legal framework of racial segregation and discrimination that existed primarily in the Southern United States between the 1870s and 1960s.

The Ku Klux Klan reached its peak influence during this period, with membership reaching 5 million by 1925. The organization terrorized minorities through violence, intimidation, and lynching, with over 400 Black Americans killed during the 1920s. However, this period also saw the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance and growing civil rights activism through organizations like the NAACP.

Native Americans continued to face displacement and cultural destruction through policies like the Allotment Act. These policies reflected the broader pattern of discrimination and marginalization that characterized American society during the 1920s, even as some minority communities found ways to resist and maintain their cultural identities.

The Native American Experience on Reservations (1850s-1934)

The establishment of reservations in the 1850s marked a significant shift in federal policy toward Native Americans. These designated plots of land, often consisting of semi-desert or desert terrain unsuitable for agriculture, were administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Between 1887-1934, Native American land ownership drastically decreased from 138 million acres to just 48 million acres through various government policies.

The 1887 Dawes Act fundamentally transformed Native American life by dividing communal reservation lands into individual allotments. This legislation aimed to force assimilation into American society while simultaneously opening up "surplus" land for white settlement. Native Americans often lacked the resources and agricultural knowledge to successfully farm these plots, leading many to lease or sell their allotments at severely undervalued prices to white settlers and businesses.

Definition: The Dawes Act (also known as the General Allotment Act) was designed to break up tribal lands and promote individual land ownership among Native Americans, ultimately resulting in massive land losses for tribes.

Cultural suppression was another devastating aspect of reservation life. The government established Courts of Indian Offenses to punish traditional practices, including ceremonial dances, religious rituals, and medicine men. Children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to government boarding schools where they were prohibited from speaking their native languages, required to wear Western clothing, given Christian names, and subjected to harsh discipline. By 1920, over 10,000 Native American children were enrolled in these institutions.

Prohibition Era: Implementation and Opposition (1920-1933)

The Immigration Act of 1924 coincided with another significant reform - Prohibition. The 18th Amendment, implemented in January 1920, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States. The Volstead Act defined "intoxicating alcohol" as any liquid containing more than 0.5% alcohol, though exceptions existed for medicinal and industrial uses.

Support for Prohibition came from diverse groups including temperance organizations, women's groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Protestant churches, and social reformers who viewed alcohol as a source of social problems. However, enforcement proved challenging with only 1,500-2,300 Prohibition agents attempting to police a vast nation.

Example: Bootleggers smuggled rum from the West Indies and whiskey from Canada, while others produced dangerous homemade alcohol like "bathtub gin." Speakeasies proliferated, numbering more than pre-Prohibition saloons.

The law's implementation led to unintended consequences including the rise of organized crime, widespread corruption, and increased disrespect for law enforcement. Wealthy industrialists like Pierre DuPont opposed Prohibition as an infringement on personal freedom, while women's groups worried about creating a generation of lawlessness.