The 1920s is a complex, fascinating decade. It is commonly referred to as the roaring twenties because of the clash and intermingling of old and new. It was during the 1920s that the modern world, which was born in the trenches of WWI, experienced its growing pains. Many welcomed the new, more liberal ideas, the frankness, the liberation, the swift social change that occurred during this time period, while others (such as the KKK) were repelled by the new permissiveness and reacted by trying to restore society to the simpler values of earlier eras, where people knew their place and deviants were not tolerated. Therefore, during the 1920s the new and modern ideas that represented the more liberal, open-minded outlook of urban, industrial America clashed with the older, conservative, provincial views of rural America. One way to examine this period is to divide the two sides of the debate into old vs. new America.
