1. Revolution in Russia
 1917 Revolutions overthrew Czar
Nicholas II and installed V. I. Lenin’s
Communist Bolshevik Party
 Lenin took the new Soviet Union out
of the war
 Americans and Allies sent troops to
Soviet Union to stabilize government
 Creel Commission made US
suspicious of Communists

2. Postwar US- Decline of Labor
Unions
 Labor strife reestablished due to
workers wanting their wartime
benefits and soaring prices
 1919- 4 million strikers causing
$2 billion in lost sales and wages
 Violence and death results in a
government crackdown on labor
unions

3. Postwar US- Urban Riots
 Increased racial tension
 White on black violence
increased dramatically after the
war
 1919- more than 25 race riots
throughout the nation

4. Postwar US- Anarchists
 Anarchy- the belief in the
absence of government
 Anarchists began to use bombs
to achieve their goals of
eliminating the government

5. Postwar US- Anarchists
 Terrorist bomb threats and
attacks increased
 Seattle mayor received a mail
bomb after he broke up a strike
 Georgia senator received a mail
bomb that blew the hands off of
his maid

6. Postwar US- Anarchists
 36 more mail bombs were found by
the postal service before being
delivered
 Bomb exploded at Attorney General
Palmer’s house killing the person
carrying the bomb
 38 killed by a bomb blast in New
York’s financial district (Wall Street)

7. Postwar US- The Red Scare
 Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
blamed the Bolsheviks (Communists) for
the chaos
 Resulted in the Red Scare
 (Fear of “Reds” aka Communists)
 Thousands were arrested and imprisoned
 Others were loaded on boats and shipped
back to their home countries
 Turned into a general fear of foreigners

8. Postwar US- Fear of Foreigners
 Immigration Restriction League influenced the
federal government to establish stricter
immigration laws
 National quotas were established and
immigration was drastically reduced
 National Origins Act
 Greatly reduced the numbers of Asian and
Southeast European immigrants

9. Postwar US- The “New” Klan
 Reestablishment of the Ku Klux Klan
 Used violence to suppress the rights of
blacks, Jews, Catholics, and foreigners
 Many law enforcement officials joined the
secretive society and their crimes went
unchecked
 Murder case involving a high ranking
Klansman brought the beginning of the end of
the “new” Klan

10. Postwar US- Sacco and Vanzetti
 Italian-born immigrants arrested and tried
for murder
 Anti-foreigner sentiment was at an all-time
high
 Believed to be innocent, but charged
because of anarchist beliefs
 Both men were executed and became
martyrs for all immigrants of the time
period

11. Postwar US- Journalism
 Writers aimed sharp criticism against
their time period in some of the best
American literature ever
 H.L. Mencken, T.S. Eliot, Sinclair
Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and
Ernest Hemingway

12. Postwar US- Prohibition Era
Begins
 Passage of the 18th amendment outlawed
alcohol
 Supported by the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU) among others
 Led to a black market for alcohol and the
rise of gangsters in the US
 Federal Bureau of Investigation was
created to crackdown on alcohol related
crimes

13. Postwar US- Women’s Suffrage
Passage of the 19th
amendment allowed women
to vote in federal elections
Supported by women’s civil
rights movements and
President Wilson