The Harlem Renaissance Weekly asks that we consider the largely overlooked newspaper serial fiction of the 1920s in relation to, and sometimes in direct response to, events of daily interest to Black people, and especially Black women, who likely constituted its primary readers. By recentering Black newspapers and by reading them as part of a reader-generated weekly montage, I show how this broad-based popular form helped readers renegotiate the cultural work of New Negroes, refiguring civil rights protest as they navigated the pleasures and dangers of the Jazz Age. At the same time, I demonstrate how the twenties New Negro Woman featured in the Pittsburgh Courier increasingly dominated racial representation and contested patriarchal Black leadership. If the New Negro Man led the race on the editorial page, the New Negro Woman represented the race on the front page. It was not Alain Locke’s implicitly male New Negro who defined the Harlem Renaissance week to week, but rather the New Negro Woman, who, almost invariably in the context of a heterosexual love plot, propelled narratives, spurred sales, and defined a distinctly modern Black sociopolitical consciousness.

The United States, virtually alone in the capitalist world, never used labor courts during the Interwar period; existing accounts incompletely explain why US labor policy design diverged here. In the early 1920s, the weak labor policy and incoherent labor law of the United States was a widely recognized, urgent problem. The US government was newly strong and economically interventionist. There was ideological consensus on the basic features of an acceptable labor policy, but owing in part to political support for several plausible models, and unsettled partisan and intellectual alignments, the US did not make progress on labor policy in these first post-War years. Controversy over the KCIR, founded as a provocation in this debate, helps make sense of these patterns. The intellectual, legal, and political effects of the KCIR’s failure extinguished American interest in labor courts generally. Position-taking, especially reaction against the KCIR, reveals the emerging alignments that were to be crucial to the design and political realization of the unique labor policy of the New Deal.

A lack of technical expertise and an escalating repressive response to labor movement opponents undermined the legal promise of the KCIR. In early KCIR opinions, Judge Huggins endorsed living and fair wage doctrines, and equal pay for women doing the same work as men. He virtually commandeered the milling industry to prevent opportunistic layoffs and price gouging. But the KCIR lacked economic expertise and frequently made serious miscalculations that weakened its wage awards. It also avoided jurisdiction in major disputes. Coal miners, by sustaining a strong campaign of disobedience, divided key figures in the state government and provoked repressive responses that politicized the court’s work. By the time of the 1922 railroad strikes, the KCIR was, to all appearances, Governor Allen’s tool, wielded against strikers, the surging Ku Klux Klan, and his own best friend, William Allen White. After the 1922 gubernatorial election, newly elected Democratic Governor Jonathan Davis, though unable to abolish the Court, was able to divide it, and to weaken the state’s defense of it in the face of growing federal judicial scrutiny.

There was strong national political interest in the KCIR, which established specialized courts as one of a handful of possible labor policy designs for the United States. The KCIR itself came to be regarded as the key test of the model. Owing in part to Allen’s remarkable talents as a publicist, the KCIR was regularly covered in national media. Labor and business publications were guarded or overtly hostile, but the KCIR was given serious coverage in magazines of progressive opinion, and friendly and extensive coverage in major newspapers like The New York Times. By the time of the 1920 Republican National Convention, a firm majority of notable Republicans favored using the KCIR model in at least some industries. In 1921 and 1922, President Harding called upon Congress to create a federal industrial court system. However, the factionalized Republican Congress and the fractious Harding Administration were unable to pursue any coherent model of labor policy reform. Most state legislatures introduced bills modelled on the KCIR; leaders in several states were eager to try the model, but opted to await the resolution of legal questions.

The chapter analyses how the political and economic realities of the aftermath of the First World War gave the term ‘tax justice’ a new meaning in Belgium, occupied during four years by Germany, but also how it was fought over for moral and economic reasons during the 1920s. On the left of the political spectrum, the Socialists brought their own fiscal agenda, entailing new progressive income taxes on the wealthy. On the right, Liberals and Catholics disapproved of such innovations, judging them morally wrong and economically harmful. Compromises were found, with a real shift in the tax system. However, as the 1920s wore on, the Belgian franc suffered from a depreciation like the French and German currencies, with capital fleeing the country. The political debate on progressive income taxes shifted from justice to injustice: the massive level of tax fraud and tax evasion was making the system unfair towards honest taxpayers. Tax policies made in the name of social justice became an achievement to be defended for some and an excessive ideal to be attenuated for others.

This chapter explores the structure of society and the composition of the Jewish communities in the Netherlands, Belgium and France from the late nineteenth century until 1941 (when the ‘Jewish Councils’ were established). It highlights the similarities and differences between the three countries’ social structures in this period. These include the number and outlook of (Eastern European) Jewish immigrants, the presence of official religious Jewish representation and Jewish integration in non-Jewish society in each case. Central themes are the level of integration of Jews into the non-Jewish communities, the position of immigrant Jews vis-à-vis the longstanding Jewish population, the level of religious adherence, the influence of Zionist thinking, the role of religious institutions and the organisational structure of the Jewish communities. This chapter also examines the institution of Jewish refugee organisations in the 1930s, and the position of the later chairmen of the “Jewish Councils” in Western Europe in these pre-war refugee aid organisations. Moreover, it addresses the establishment of so-called Coordinating Committees in 1940, either by German demand, or by initiative of Jewish community members, which aimed to oversee all Jewish philanthropic work and sought to unite the various Jewish communities. It argues that the supposed failures of these committees served as the springboard for establishing the ‘Jewish Councils’.

This chapter explores the structure of society and the composition of the Jewish communities in the Netherlands, Belgium and France from the late nineteenth century until 1941 (when the ‘Jewish Councils’ were established). It highlights the similarities and differences between the three countries’ social structures in this period. These include the number and outlook of (Eastern European) Jewish immigrants, the presence of official religious Jewish representation and Jewish integration in non-Jewish society in each case. Central themes are the level of integration of Jews into the non-Jewish communities, the position of immigrant Jews vis-à-vis the longstanding Jewish population, the level of religious adherence, the influence of Zionist thinking, the role of religious institutions and the organisational structure of the Jewish communities. This chapter also examines the institution of Jewish refugee organisations in the 1930s, and the position of the later chairmen of the “Jewish Councils” in Western Europe in these pre-war refugee aid organisations. Moreover, it addresses the establishment of so-called Coordinating Committees in 1940, either by German demand, or by initiative of Jewish community members, which aimed to oversee all Jewish philanthropic work and sought to unite the various Jewish communities. It argues that the supposed failures of these committees served as the springboard for establishing the ‘Jewish Councils’.

This chapter recounts the breakdown of the international monetary system during the First World War and the subsequent reconstruction of the gold standard in the postwar decade, focusing on Britain's return to gold in 1925. Throughout the 1920s, central bankers cooperated with one another to guide the world back to gold, but fixed exchange rates and gold convertibility did not usher in nirvana. Britain, in particular, suffered from elevated unemployment and struggled to defend sterling's parity. London's decision to suspend gold convertibility in 1931 not only signaled the end of an era, but was to many countries the first salvo in what would become the monetary war.