Rebellion against Victorianism - Stanley Coben

This volume discusses social change in the USA by focusing on the 1920s, when the Victorian values under which America had lived were seriously challenged by a number of groups and new factors. Victorian America treated the home as society's central institution, emphasizing character and virtuous living as its ideals, but it was a smug, self-satisfied society which was convinced of its own superiority and looked down on or ignored such groups as women, blacks and lower-class immigrants.;Beginning with the intellectual revolt against Victorian standards, this study discusses three specific areas in which Victorian values and practices were challenged. Jazz music alarmed mainstream Americans and made them aware of blacks in a new and disturbing way. Women led a protest - ultimately unsuccessful - in support of an Equal Rights Amendment. Thirdly, the political base of Victorian society was challenged by a national coalition of the economically underprivileged, which found its strongest expression in Robert LaFollette's unsuccessful bid for the Presidency in 1924. There is also an account of the Ku Klux Klan, which was revived strongly in the 1920s and attempted to "guard" Victorian values by opposing Catholics, blacks, Jews and recent immigrants, denying them prominent places in American society and politics.