Documents from Reading the American Past

Chapter 23

Introduction to the Documents

During the 1920s complacency became an article of faith among many comfortable Americans. Things were as they should be, business was good, America was strong, and God was in his heaven. Republican presidents and their supporters embraced the logic of contentment that appealed to many voters. Beneath the gaze of the satisfied, however, other Americans felt disoriented and dissatisfied by the economic, religious, political, social, racial, and ethnic status quo. For them complacency was a problem, rather than a happy consequence of all problems having been solved.