Paradoxical politics: The 1920s and '30s

We are back with a selection of items from the 1920s and '30s. It was a time of stark contradictions. Prohibition took effect simultaneously with women achieving full suffrage rights. Pro-enforcement Republicans sat in the White House as a younger generation cut loose in speakeasies. The Ku Klux Klan reemerged as a national civic organization, while gangsters formed syndicates, and the first Roman Catholic carried the banner of a major party. Then it all came crashing down, and the country spent a decade mired in depression. Booze was legal again, but consumption went down. Democrats retook power, and a Roosevelt was back in the White House.

A dozen auctions on eBay will end Monday night. As always, low opening bids and no reserves...

We'll be taking the month of August off, so enjoy what remains of summer.

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