1. The 1920s can be defined as a critical point in the changes of culture and industry in the United States. The previously enforced ‘roles’ of women in society were being challenged both by individual action and policy change. The boundaries of segregation in society were being blurred or broken in certain parts of the country through music with the emergence of popular jazz musicians. And the US was emerging as the world's greatest manufacturer after the destruction of Europe in World War 1. It wasn’t only positive changes however, the KKK saw a resurgence in opposition to the perceived threat of the inter-mingling of white and black Americans, the seeds of the ‘war on drugs’ were sown with the prohibition of alcohol, and many jobs were lost to increased mechanization of farming and industry. This time period also saw the rise of the eugenics movement based on shaky scientific foundations and the misrepresentation of the ideas of Darwin and ‘Darwinism’. Many of these eugenicists would later go on to work with, or at least correspond and share ideas with German eugenicists during World War 2.
2. The end of Prohibition threatened the political power of the then incumbent head of the bureau of narcotics Harry Anslinger. This forced him to find a new target for the bureau to fight against to keep the department relevant. Luckily for him he had a perfect drug to move on to, one that had been slowly being outlawed or restricted across America for some decades prior - marijuana. Anslinger made a point to frame jazz as being inseparable from drug use and racial mixing, allowing him to pander to two groups at once by attacking it - the anti-drug groups and the anti-race mixing/racist groups which still had a large amount of power at that time. To him, Billie Holiday was the ideal person for him to go after, a black woman jazz musician who had issues with drugs earlier in her life.
3. The Supreme Court’s decision in Buck v Bell was the foundation of the legal justification of forced sterilizations and the eugenics movement. It is framed as protecting the ‘welfare of society’ by removing the ‘feebleminded’ and ‘defective persons’ from society. It also used the case of Jacobson v Massachusetts -in which it was ruled that it is legal to force people to get vaccinations especially against smallpox- to justify their decision saying “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes”.
2. The end of Prohibition threatened the political power of the then incumbent head of the bureau of narcotics Harry Anslinger. This forced him to find a new target for the bureau to fight against to keep the department relevant. Luckily for him he had a perfect drug to move on to, one that had been slowly being outlawed or restricted across America for some decades prior - marijuana. Anslinger made a point to frame jazz as being inseparable from drug use and racial mixing, allowing him to pander to two groups at once by attacking it - the anti-drug groups and the anti-race mixing/racist groups which still had a large amount of power at that time. To him, Billie Holiday was the ideal person for him to go after, a black woman jazz musician who had issues with drugs earlier in her life.
3. The Supreme Court’s decision in Buck v Bell was the foundation of the legal justification of forced sterilizations and the eugenics movement. It is framed as protecting the ‘welfare of society’ by removing the ‘feebleminded’ and ‘defective persons’ from society. It also used the case of Jacobson v Massachusetts -in which it was ruled that it is legal to force people to get vaccinations especially against smallpox- to justify their decision saying “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes”.