New immigration laws were also introduced which further contributed to American intolerance. The literacy test, the emergency quota act and the national origins act. The literacy test made sure only people who could read and write entered America, and so made sure that no poor people could enter America. The emergency quotas act in 1921set a limit on the number of immigrants entering America to 357,000. And the national origins Act reduced the limit again but was deliberately deigned to penalize immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. By 1929 the number of immigrants allowed to enter the US had fallen to 150,000 people a year
Immigrants were not the only ones to suffer intolerance, blacks too were victims of various forms of and degrees of racism and discrimination. In the south in particular the Ku Klux Klan a white supremacy movement discriminated greatly against blacks. The Klan had died out in America by 1900 but in the 1920s their popularity grew due to a number of factors. The rebirth of a nation film, the influx of immigrants and the increasing fear of communism all combined to increase its popularity amongst all sections of society. The Klan terrorised blacks and sometimes even killed them with the legal system institutionally racist. Furthermore, in these places the Jim Crow laws meant that blacks could not use the same facilities as white people. They had to go to different schools or toilets for example. Faced with this discrimination many blacks moved into cities such as New York or Chicago, but life there was not as good as they thought it would be. And it was not just whites who treated them badly other blacks did as well in the competition for better quality housing and employment.
Life for Native Americans was also tinged with discrimination and intolerance. Their numbers were decreasing greatly and their culture slowly destroyed by industrialisation and urbanisation. In 1920 their numbers went from 1.5 million to 250,000. Those Native Americans who survived and wanted to continue the traditional way of life were forced to live on reservations. A survey in the 1920s found that most Native Americans lived in poverty. They had poor health and education and poorly paid jobs. They suffered extreme poverty and many turned to alcoholism. Mining companies could legally seize large areas of their land and the schools the children attended tried to destroy their culture. This is what earned then the nicknames the vanishing Americans.
The Monkey trial further showed American intolerance, in this case of ideas that were fundamental to the origin of mankind. It was the case between fundamentalists and modernists about whether or not Darwin’s theory of evolution should be taught in schools. The modernists won meaning it could be taught but the number of people on the fundamentalist side shows how many Americans were intolerant to new ideas or theories.
Although there was a significant degree of racism and intolerance in America in the 1920s it would not be right to say there was total intolerance in America to every member of a minority group. Minority groups faced varying degrees of racism and discrimination depending on a whole series of local factors. Some people of course did well despite all the obstacles. Some blacks for example became successful in jobs like boxing baseball and jazz. Paul Robeson a black American became an actor and gained fame in the hit musical Showboat. And even the lives of the vanishing Americans improved. They were granted US citizenship and allowed to vote for he first time during the 1920s. It is also important to realise that intolerance and racism were not geographically located and existed in all levels of society. Even today America is faced with such problems despite its reluctance to accept it.