Setting the Scene

Imagine arriving in America in 1920. You'd step off your ship into a country that seemed like the future — skyscrapers piercing the clouds, automobiles everywhere, electric lights blazing. America had just helped win the "war to end all wars" and Europe owed it billions. Yet walk a few blocks in any direction and you'd find a different America: Black Americans denied the vote and terrorised by lynch mobs, recent immigrants crammed into slums and facing hostility, farmers struggling while city folk prospered. The USA in 1920 was like a teenager who'd suddenly inherited enormous wealth — powerful but insecure, full of energy but making some terrible decisions about who counted as a "real American."