Compare the 1920s and the 1950s.

The 1920s and 1950s were both periods following world wars. Though vaguely disparate in social conventions, political views, and foreign affairs both periods show an intolerant attitude against "outsiders" or radicals, literary developments with a new generation of writers that revealed new perspectives of their societies, and impacts of technology.

In both periods, there was a conservative reaction against communists or any person viewed as "non-American". In the 1920s this took several forms. For one, there was the Red Scare just before the 1920s that persecuted suspected communists, anarchists, socialists, radicals, or IWW member. Many believe that the Bolshevik Revolution energized American Radicals and began the Red Scare. The Sacco Vanzetti trial, where two immigrant anarchists were arrested on murder charges was an example of this prejudice. A flux of nativism and anti-immigrant feelings also appear by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limiting the number of immigrants to 3%. African Americans attempted to fight for equality under the UNIA, which unfortunately failed after being convicted of mail fraud and deportation in 1927 by Marcus Garvey, the union's founder. There was also a reemergence of the KKK that saw Jews, Catholics, communists, and blacks as targets. In the 1950s, anti-communist paranoia resurrected known as McCarthyism led by John McCarthy. McCarthy claimed to have a list of more than 200 communists working for the State Department. Industries created a list of those tainted by the charges and prevented them from working. The Civil Rights saw modest improvement with the passing of the civil Rights Bill of 1957 although the bill was poorly enforced.

In the 1920s the Great Black Migration, which had blacks from the south move up to the North in search of jobs led to the Harlem Renaissance, an emerging of black music, art, and literature. The writings of the black authors like Langston Hughes drew from experience of the blacks and racism in American