ss-2018:AMERICAN_HISTORY:16
ss-2018:AMERICAN_HISTORY:16 Racial intolerance, anti-immigrant attitudes and the Red Scare contributed to social unrest after World War I.
Learning goal: Explain how racial intolerance, anti-immigrant attitudes and the first Red Scare each contributed to social unrest in the United States in the years after World War I, and show how the three reinforced one another.
The fighting in World War I ended with the armistice of November 11, 1918. Peace did not bring calm at home. Within two years the United States saw a wave of strikes, a series of bombings, mass arrests of suspected radicals and deadly attacks on Black communities; over the next several years a revived Ku Klux Klan grew into a national force and new laws, in 1921 and 1924, sharply limited immigration. Historians call the period one of social unrest: widespread conflict between groups, expressed in strikes, riots, violence and repressive laws. The standard names three contributing forces. The word contributed matters. None of the three alone explains the unrest, and each had causes of its own, but together they made the postwar years among the most turbulent in the nation's history.
Why the end of the war produced tension. Wartime demand had kept factories running and wages rising, while prices rose even faster. When war contracts ended and about four million soldiers came home, workers competed for jobs, and employers who had tolerated unions during the war tried to roll back gains. In 1919 more than four million workers took part in strikes, more than in any earlier year. Major examples include the Seattle general strike in February 1919, the Boston police strike in September 1919 and a nationwide steel strike beginning the same month. Many Americans read these strikes not as disputes over wages and hours but as signs of revolution, because the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia in 1917 and communist uprisings had broken out in parts of Europe.
The first Red Scare. A Red Scare is a period of intense public fear that communists or other radicals are about to overthrow the government. The first one peaked in 1919 and 1920. In April and June 1919, anarchists mailed and planted bombs aimed at public officials; one damaged the Washington home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer's Justice Department then organized the Palmer Raids in November 1919 and January 1920, arresting thousands of people, many of them immigrants, often without warrants, and holding them without access to lawyers. In December 1919 the government deported about 250 people, including the anarchist Emma Goldman, to Soviet Russia on a ship the press called the "Soviet Ark." The scare faded in 1920 when a May Day uprising Palmer had predicted never happened, and when Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis F. Post canceled many deportation orders for lack of evidence. The Red Scare contributed to unrest by treating ordinary labor activity as treason and by teaching the public to see immigrants as dangerous.
Anti-immigrant attitudes (nativism). Nativism is hostility toward immigrants and a preference for people born in the country. Before the war most new immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe; many were Catholic or Jewish. Nativists claimed these newcomers could not become loyal Americans and linked them to radicalism. The case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchists arrested in 1920 for a robbery and murder in South Braintree, Massachusetts, became a national argument. They were convicted in 1921 and executed in August 1927 despite worldwide protests. Many observers then and since have argued that their politics and origin shaped the trial; historians still debate their guilt, so that claim is interpretation, not settled fact. Congress turned nativism into law. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limited yearly arrivals from each European nationality to 3 percent of that group's foreign-born population in the 1910 census. The Immigration Act of 1924 cut the figure to 2 percent and moved the base year back to 1890, before most southern and eastern Europeans had arrived, and it barred immigration by people ineligible for citizenship, which in practice excluded Japanese immigrants. The quotas did not apply to immigrants from the Western Hemisphere.
Racial intolerance. Black Americans had moved north in large numbers during the war, and about 380,000 had served in the armed forces. Many returning veterans expected equal treatment. White mobs answered with violence. The summer of 1919 is called the Red Summer because of the bloodshed in more than two dozen cities. In Chicago in July 1919, a Black teenager, Eugene Williams, drowned after being attacked with stones for drifting toward a beach area white swimmers claimed; about a week of rioting followed, and 38 people died. In May and June 1921, a white mob destroyed the prosperous Black Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Ku Klux Klan, refounded in 1915 in Georgia, grew in the early 1920s into a national organization with millions of members, strong in the Midwest, including Indiana and Ohio. The new Klan targeted Black Americans, Catholics, Jews and immigrants at once, which shows how racial intolerance and nativism fed each other.
A fully worked model. Question: how did these three forces combine in one event? Take the steel strike of 1919. Workers struck for union recognition and shorter hours. Employers portrayed the strike as a radical plot and hired thousands of Black workers, many recruited from the South, as strikebreakers. The Red Scare supplied the charge (radical plot), nativism supplied the target (foreign-born strikers), and racial division kept workers apart. The strike collapsed in early 1920. The model shows mechanism: each force made the others more effective.
The misconception. Students sometimes assume the Red Scare was a response to a real, large communist movement ready to take power. There were small communist parties and a few violent anarchists, and the 1919 bombings were real. But the response far exceeded the threat: thousands of people with no link to violence were arrested, and the predicted uprising never came. Saying the fear was disproportionate is an interpretation, and it is the one most historians support from the evidence of the arrests and deportations.
Worked example 1 — sorting causes: Event: the Palmer Raids. Red Scare: the direct cause, a campaign against supposed revolutionaries after the 1919 bombings. Nativism: most people arrested were immigrants, and deportation was possible only for non-citizens. Racial intolerance: a minor part in this event. Conclusion: the Red Scare and nativism worked together; the raids targeted people who were both suspected radicals and foreign-born.
Worked example 2 — reading a law as evidence: The 1924 act set quotas at 2 percent of each nationality's foreign-born population in the 1890 census. Why 1890 rather than 1910? Because in 1890 relatively few people from southern and eastern Europe lived in the United States, so an 1890 base produced small quotas for Italians, Poles, Russians and Greeks and large ones for British, Irish and German immigrants. The choice of year is evidence of the law's purpose; you do not need a speech to infer it, though debates in Congress confirm it.
Worked example 3 — the Red Summer: Claim: racial violence in 1919 was an example of postwar unrest. Evidence: the Chicago riot of July 1919, in which 38 people died, and violence in more than two dozen other cities. Causes: competition for jobs and housing as Black migrants arrived, white resentment of returning Black veterans who claimed equal rights, and a press that inflamed fear. Limit: each riot had a local trigger, so a full explanation names both the local spark and the national conditions.
Cause-and-effect organizer: Make a three-column chart headed Racial intolerance, Anti-immigrant attitudes and Red Scare. Under each, list two dated events from 1919 to 1927 and one way that event increased social unrest (strikes broken, violence, arrests, laws). Draw arrows between cells where one force strengthened another, and write one sentence on each arrow explaining the link.
Independent performance: Write a five-paragraph essay answering: "Which of the three forces did the most to create social unrest after World War I?" Success criteria: a clear thesis naming one force; at least four dated pieces of evidence, correctly stated; an explanation of how the chosen force interacted with the other two; one counterargument answered with evidence; and a clear line between evidence (what happened) and interpretation (why it mattered most). Do not invent statistics; if you use a number, name where it comes from.
An adult may read the prompts aloud. Answer independently with words, objects, drawings or a demonstration before opening the answer guide. Award 1 point for a correct result or claim and 1 point for a matching explanation or demonstration; where a question asks only for a result (a corrected sentence, a spelling, a count), a fully correct result earns both points, and the answer guide shows what a complete response contains. Record prompting separately. The total (two points per question) is local practice feedback, not an Ohio proficiency level.
Define "Red Scare" and explain what triggered the first one in 1919.
A Red Scare is a period of intense public fear that communists or radicals are about to overthrow the government. The first was triggered by the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, a wave of strikes in 1919 that many read as revolutionary, and bombings in April and June 1919, including one at Attorney General Palmer's home.
How did the Palmer Raids connect the Red Scare to anti-immigrant attitudes?
The raids of November 1919 and January 1920 arrested thousands of suspected radicals, most of them immigrants, because non-citizens could be deported. Fear of radicals and fear of foreigners were merged: being foreign-born was treated as evidence of being dangerous.
Explain why Congress chose the 1890 census as the base for the 1924 quotas.
In 1890 few southern and eastern Europeans lived in the United States, so quotas of 2 percent of each group's 1890 foreign-born population gave small numbers to Italians, Poles, Jews from Russia and Greeks and larger ones to northern and western Europeans. The choice shows the law was designed to reduce immigration from the groups nativists opposed.
Why is 1919 called the "Red Summer," and how did it show racial intolerance contributing to unrest?
Because of the bloodshed: white mobs attacked Black communities in more than two dozen cities, including Chicago, where 38 people died in July 1919. Competition for jobs and housing and resentment of Black veterans demanding equal rights fueled violence that deepened social conflict.
How was the Klan of the 1920s different in its targets from a purely anti-Black organization, and what does that show?
It attacked Black Americans, Catholics, Jews and immigrants together, and it was strong in Northern and Midwestern states such as Indiana and Ohio, not only in the South. This shows racial intolerance and nativism combining in one movement.
A student says the Red Scare proves there was a large communist threat in 1919. Evaluate the claim.
Partly wrong. The 1919 bombings were real and small radical parties existed, but thousands of people with no link to violence were arrested, the predicted May Day 1920 uprising never happened, and a Labor Department official canceled many deportations for lack of evidence. The evidence supports the interpretation that the fear was out of proportion to the threat.
Why do historians describe the Sacco and Vanzetti case as evidence of the era's attitudes rather than as proof of the men's innocence?
Because their guilt is still debated. What the case clearly shows is that their immigrant origin and anarchist politics dominated public argument about the trial, which is evidence of nativism and Red Scare fears, whatever the verdict's accuracy.