Transcript the international debt mess of the 1920s

The United States from 1914 to 1945
Marcus
Garvey
The United States from 1914 to 1945
lynching in the American south
Notice that
this picture is
shaped like a
postcard?
That is
because it was
a postcard.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
lynching in the American south
Lynching in
1930.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
lynching in the American south
The
Lynching of
Leo Frank
in Georgia
in 1915
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The NAACP fights lynching
• 1919: NAACP releases 30 Years
of Lynching in the South
• 30 Years concludes that only 20
percent of lynchings involved
accusations of impropriety with a
white woman
• And the vast majority of those
accusations were false.
• 1922: Congressman Leonidas C.
Dyer proposes a federal antilynching bill
The Dyer bill passes the House
. . . but is blocked in the Senate.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Jim
Europe
and his
band
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The “Lost Generation”
Countee Cullen
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Claude
McKay
Jean
Toomer
Langston
Hughes
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Zora Neale Hurston
Carl Van
Vechten
Walter White
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The Scopes Trial,
Dayton, TN, 1925
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Football transformed
Harold “Red” Grange
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Tennis, USA
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Bobby Jones changes golf
The United States from 1914 to 1945
1920s technology revolution
 750 broadcast radio stations by
1928
 Vastly more powerful electric
power plants
 Redesigned homes make it
easier to accommodate
electrical appliances
 Electric refrigerators, vacuum
cleaners, toasters
 Telephone party lines expand
phone use
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Post World War I assault on labor
• Crackdown on labor
campaigns
• “Open shop” drive
• Corporate welfare
programs
• Company unions
• Textile mills move south
Federal troops occupy union hall in 1919
steel strike; right: John L. Lewis
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Calvin
Coolidge:
“I do not
choose to run
for President
in 1928.”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Election of 1928
• Al Smith: 40.8% (wins
majorities in 12 large
cities)
• Herbert Hoover:
58.2%
"We in America today are nearer to the final
triumph over poverty than ever before in the
history of this land... We shall soon with the
help of God be in sight of the day when
poverty will be banished from this land. “
Herbert Hoover, 1928
The United States from 1914 to 1945
In Ponzi we trust . . .
A confident Charles Ponzi on
his way to Federal trial
A less than confident mob
surrounding one of Ponzi’s
branches as word leaks out
that he’s a fraud.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Why the speculation boom of the
1920s?
• Communication revolution via telephone
and wireless telegraph
• Radio delivered news of stocks quickly
• Rise of disposable income among uppermiddle class
• Absence of any government regulation of
the trading sector
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the great crash . . . 1929
 Number of shares traded
between 1927 and 1929 doubled
...
 . . . to 920 million shares by
1929.
 But in October 1929, stocks
lost 40 percent of their value.
 50 billion dollars in
speculative investment lost
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the international debt mess of the 1920s (revisited). . .
France and England insist on
.
collecting from Germany because
they owe debts to the United States
Germany
owes huge
reparations
to England
and France
What if there was
a stock market
crash in the
United States???
The U.S. won’t ease up
on France and England’s
war debts . . .
. . . but encourages
investors to lend money
to Germany
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the great crash . . . 1929 - 1931
 1930: 1,352 banks failed
with 850 million in
deposits
 1931: almost 2,300
banks failed with 1.7
billion in deposits
U.S. unemployment rate
1928
4.2
1930
8.7
1932
23.6
 . . . People got ten cents
on the dollar of their
savings, if they were
lucky.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Why Great Depression?
• The boom/crash interpretation

Stock market had something to do with it
• The Monetarist camp

Failure of Federal Reserve
• The regulatory interpretation

No real government checks on the markets
• The Keynesian demand-side school

Consumer power wimped out
• The international crisis perspective

Treaty of Versailles and its consequences
John Kenneth
Galbraith; Keynesian
Charles
Kindelberger,
internationalist
Milton
Friedman;
Monetarist