"Return to normalcy" was a

campaign slogan The following is a list of notable political slogans. Political slogan (listed alphabetically) A * Abki baar Modi Sarkar – Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign slogan for 2014 Indian Parliamentary Elections * ACT UP, Fight Back, Fight AIDS – ...

used by

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...

during the 1920 United States presidential election. Harding would go on to win the election with 60.4% of the popular vote.

1920 election

In a speech delivered on May 14, 1920, Harding proclaimed that America needed "not nostrums, but normalcy".

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

had upended life, and Harding said that it altered the perspective of humanity. He argued that the solution was to seek normalcy by restoring life to how it was before the war. Harding's conception of normalcy for the 1920s included

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...

civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...

, and

isolationism Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entang ...

. He rejected the

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

and the

activism Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in Social change, social, Political campaign, political, economic or Natural environment, environmental reform with the desire to make Social change, changes i ...

of Roosevelt, favoring the earlier isolationist policy of the United States. Although detractors of the time tried to belittle the word "normalcy" as a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

as well as a

malapropism A malapropism (also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to ...

, saying that it was poorly coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term '' normality''), there was contemporaneous discussion and evidence that ''normalcy'' had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. During the campaign Harding, a newspaper editor, addressed the issue of the word's origin, claiming that ''normalcy'' but not ''normality'' appeared in his dictionary. Harding's position attracted support during the 1920 presidential election, which he won with 60.3% of the popular vote.

Other usage

Chalmers M. Roberts of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' compared the desire for a "return to normalcy" in 1920 to the 1946 midterms following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the 1992 presidential election following the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. The 12th episode of ''

Boardwalk Empire ''Boardwalk Empire'' is an American period crime drama television series created by Terence Winter and broadcast on the premium cable channel HBO. The series is set chiefly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and ...

'' takes place during the 1920 election and is titled "

A Return to Normalcy "A Return to Normalcy" is the 12th episode of the first season of HBO television series '' Boardwalk Empire'' and the season finale, which premiered on HBO December 5, 2010. The episode was written by series creator Terence Winter and directed by ...

". The phrase "return to normalcy" became associated with the 2020 presidential campaign of Joe Biden, specifically referring to Biden's promises to end the "divisiveness of the Trump years," as well as his campaign's focus on tackling the

COVID-19 pandemic in the United States The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the Uni ...

References

External links

"Normalcy"''The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy'', 3rd ed.
edited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. .
"A Time for Normalcy"
by Evan Jenkins, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', January/February 2002. American political catchphrases United States presidential domestic programs Warren G. Harding {{US-history-stub

1920 election

Other usage

See also

References

External links