18th Annual History Symposium

Looking Back at the 1920s

CEO Welcome

To Members of the NCC Community:

Welcome to the College’s 18^th Annual History Symposium. When Ohio Republican Warren Harding ran for President in 1920, his campaign promised that a Harding victory would result in a “return to normalcy” after the occasionally disruptive Progressive Era. Harding won in a landslide, but the decade that followed was far from normal. In that spirit, the Symposium, which is sponsored by the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, will be titled “Looking Back at the 1920s”, and a collection of faculty and alumna PowerPoint presentations will examine events that took place about 100 years ago, some of which seem intriguingly like our times.

The presenters for this virtual, multi-disciplinary co-curricular Symposium will include:

Historian-lawyer Steve Berizzi, (1) An Overview of United States History, 1920-1932;
(2) Conservatives in Control in the White House and the Supreme Court; (3) The Harlem Renaissance in Context; and (4) The Supreme Court’s notorious decision in Buck v. Bell (1927)

Historical preservationist Jennifer Frazer, A.S. (Architectural Engineering Technology)’06, The Design and Construction of the Supreme Court’s “Marble Palace” in Washington

Economist Steve Glazer, From the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression

Chair of the ESL Department Hannah Moeckel-Rieke, Ph.D., The Revival of the Ku Klux Klan with an Anti-Immigrant Agenda

Criminal Justice instructor Greg Riley, The “Scottsboro Boys” Case, leading to the Supreme Court’s Decision in Powell v. Alabama (1932)

These presentations will cover topics that span the decade and explore some key events, good and bad, that preceded the New Deal-World War II Era. The remarkable challenges of the period from 1932-1945 cannot be fully understood without a broad appreciation of the 1920s.

Before the end of the month, please visit the Symposium’s website and partake of its many teachable moments. Some of the PowerPoints include suggestions for further reading for visitors who want to further explore the fascinating topics. The presentations pose a variety of critical thinking issues that are the essence of the learning process in higher education.

Very truly yours,
Cheryl C. DeVonish, J.D.
Chief Executive Officer

NEXT: Brief & Selective Chronology of United States History, 1920-1932

Brief & Selective Chronology of United States History, 1920-1932

Brief & Selective Chronology of Key Events from the Election of 1920 through the Election of 1932

1920	The Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed voting rights for women, was ratified
	After promising a return to “normalcy”, Republican Warren Harding was elected president in a landslide, effectively ending the Progressive Era
1921	Congress enacted drastic emergency immigration quotas based on national origins
	Conservative Republican William Howard Taft took office as Chief Justice of the United States
1923	President Harding died, and Calvin Coolidge became president
1924	Congress passed the National Origins Quota Act, further restricting immigration
	John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tennessee
	President Coolidge was elected to a full, four-year term
	After decades of dormancy, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan was demonstrated by its success in municipal elections from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon
1925	F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published
	Alain Locke’s The New Negro, a marker for the Harlem Renaissance, was published
1927	President Coolidge announced he would not seek re-election
1928	In a case which had been a cause célèbre since 1921, alleged anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed for murder and robbery in Massachusetts
	Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president in a landslide
1929	Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing Act in an effort to stabilize farm prices
	On October 24, “Black Thursday,” the New York stock market crashed
1930	Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, raising tariffs to protectionist levels
	As the Great Depression deepened, the unemployment rate approached 9%
1931	As the Great Depression further deepened, the unemployment rate reached nearly 16%
1932	Congress created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to make loans to businesses.
	Federal troops violently drove the World War I veterans’ “Bonus Army” out of Washington
	Democrat Franklin Roosevelt won an easy victory in the presidential election, and his party won large majorities in both houses of Congress. The Democrats held the White House until 1953
	The unemployment rate reached nearly 25%

NEXT: Overview, 1920-1932