Transcript 18. US Chapter 12 and 13 - The New Era of the 1920s

The 1920s
Chapters 12/13
Republican
Administrations
 Warren G. Harding (1920)
“Return to normalcy”
“Ohio Gang”
Teapot Dome Scandal
– involved the leasing of government-owned oil deposits to private
companies
Dies in 1923 from food poisoning
Death spared him from public disgrace (corruption &
affairs/booze)
 Calvin Coolidge
Congress should lead the direction of the country
Friend of business / Reelected in 1924
 Herbert Hoover wins in 1928
Social Changes
in 1920s
 The decade of the 1920s was one of
prosperity and optimism for some
Americans, doubt and despair for some
Americans, and frivolity and loosening of
morals for others.
 Youth Culture
Majority of teenagers in high school for the first time
Teenagers start to work less, spend more time with
peers, college enrollment increases
 Known as “the Roaring Twenties” the “Jazz
Age” – a revolution in manners and morals
The New Morality:
the “flapper”
 Revolution in the way
women live, dress,
and act. (Against
Victorian morality)
 Ex. Smoking
cigarettes, drinking
beer, profanity, heavy
makeup, short skirts,
driving cars, sexually
active, sensuous
dancing (Charleston),
Entertainment:
Radio & Movies
 Impact rises greatly
 Radio becomes commercial (National
radio networks: ABC, CBS, etc.)
 Birth of a Nation (1915) 3 ½ hours, silent,
different camera angles
 Movies are in full gear by 1920s (sound in
1927)
 Weekly movie attendance 100 million / 120
City
 Becomes focal point of America
 The Booming Construction
Economy
 Mass Culture (national culture)
Nationally circulated magazines,
chain stores, syndicated news
features, motion pictures, brand
names, and radio programs.
 City culture shaped by Prohibition
(1920)
speakeasys, bootlegging, broad
disrespect for the law (Al Capone)
The
Empire
State
Building
The Roaring Economy
 Revolution in Production
Manufacturing rose 64 percent
The sale of electricity doubled
Consumption of fuel oil doubled
 Between 1922 and 1927 the economy
grew by 7 percent a year– the largest
peacetime rate ever.
 Welfare capitalism
Improved working conditions, increased
pay, softball leagues, cafeterias, etc.
The Roaring Economy
 Technology and Consumer Spending
Steam turbines and shovels, electric
motors, belt and bucket conveyors, and
countless other new machines became
commonplace at work sites.
Machines replaced 200,000 workers each
year; however, demand for consumer
goods kept the labor force growing.
The Roaring Economy:
Spend! Spend!
 More consumer products appeared on
store shelves:
Cigarette lighters, wristwatches, radios, film.
Improvements in productivity helped keep prices
down.
 Goods once available only to the wealthy
were now made accessible to the general
public
washing machines, refrigerators, electric ranges,
vacuum cleaners, cameras.
 The purchasing power of wage earners
jumped by 20 percent.
The Roaring Economy:
A Growing Consumer Culture
 Average Americans went
on a buying spree
Consumption ethic
replaces Protestant work
ethic
Impulse buying was
seen as a positive
Easy Consumer credit
 By the late 1920s,
Americans achieve
highest standard of living
The Roaring Economy:
Warning Signs
 For all the prosperity, a dangerous
imbalance in the economy
developed.
Most Americans were putting very little of
their savings into the bank.
Personal debt was rising two and a half
times faster than personal income.
Business profits double/ workers’ wages
rise 30%
The Roaring Economy
 The Booming Construction Industry
Residential construction doubled as
people moved from cities to suburbs.
Road construction made suburban life
possible and pumped millions of dollars in
the economy.
States began implementing taxes on gasoline.
Construction stimulated other businesses
Steel, concrete, lumber, home mortgages, and
insurance.
The Automobile
 Provided market for
 Henry Ford
steel, glass, rubber,
“democratize the
textiles,
oil
automobile” by making
 Automakers change
it affordable.
styles
1903 – Ford Motor
Company founded
 Roadside economy (gas
1916 – 1 million cars
stations, motels)
1920 – 8 million cars
 Break in rural isolation
1925 – Model T ($290)
1929 – 23 million cars  Helps aid this new
freedom of youths
(1 in 5 Americans)
 Revolutionizes dating /
Advertising
 1915 - $1.3 billion spent on
advertising
 1925 - $3.4 billion
 1920s – Advertisers pushed
lifestyle rather than product
 New themes in advertising
 Diversity – new models, new look,
color-coordinated
 Association – new product = new
lifestyle
 Social fear – want to “fit in” consuming
things is good and will improve your life
Tension and Response
 Tension: old rural culture (work ethic) vs.
new city culture (consumer culture
 Responses
Acceptance – (young people and city dwellers)
Opposition
Division (most Americans)
Torn between new lifestyle and traditional
values
This issue will be put on shelf during 1930s
(trying to eat), 1940s (trying to fight WWII), but
Americans come back to this issue in late
1940s
Defenders of
the Faith
 Fundamentalists
Things are getting out of control; want to get back
to basics/ basic values; Bible is without error;
against evolution
 1925 John Scopes Trial in Dayton Tenn.
Defense—Clarence Darrow
Prosecutor --- William Jennings Bryan
Radio carries trial
People lose faith in Fundamentalism even though
they win
Nativism and Immigration
Restriction
 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Two Italian aliens and admitted anarchists
1921, sentenced to death for a shoe company robbery
and murder in Mass. Executed in 1927
World reaction: A symbol of American bigotry and
prejudice.
 National Origins Act (1921 & 1924)
East Asian immigration stopped
Limit on immigrants: 350,000 per year / 150,000
Quota of 3 percent of each nationality already in the U.S.
as of 1910. Later pushed back to 1890. Bias toward “old”
immigrants
Coolidge--- “America must be kept American”
Nativism and Immigration
Restriction
 Ku Klux Klan resurfaces to
preserve old order:
1915 at Stone Mountain, Georgia
Devoted to 100% Americanism
Targets blacks, Roman Catholics,
Jews, and immigrants
Membership:
restricted to “native born, white,
gentile (Protestant) Americans.”
3 million members by the 1920s
Not confined to the South:
Headquarters became
Indianapolis, Indiana by the 1920s
The “Noble Experiment”
 Eighteenth Amendment (1920)
Outlawed the sale of liquor.
Consumption was reduced by half.
 Enforcement was underfunded and
understaffed.
Speakeasys (city) and moonshine (rural stills).
 Consequences of Prohibition
Reversed the prewar trend toward beer and wine.
Helped to line the pockets of gangsters like Al
Capone.
Cities erupted in a mayhem of violence.
 Repealed by the 21st Amendment (1933)
The Election of 1928
 Hoover elected over Al Smith (Dem.)
 A vindication of Republican prosperity.
The Great Bull Market
 The idea grew that American business had
entered a “New Era” of permanent growth.
 Led to get-rich-quick schemes.
Florida real-estate boom
Federal Reserve lowers interest rates – people begin
borrowing money to put in stock market
1925 $27 billion in stock market
1929 $80 billion in stock market (speculative bubble)
Market continues to rise despite economic warnings
(excessive confidence and greed)
The Great Crash
 Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock
market index dropped almost 13
percent.
From 1929 to 1932, Americans’ personal
incomes declined by more than half.
The crash had revealed the economy’s
structural problems. (symptom of larger
problem)
The Causes of the Great
Depression
 Overexpansion and decline in mass
purchasing power
Business had done too well
 Consumer debt and the uneven
distribution of wealth
Wages did not rise fast enough to consume
products
 Banking system (banks crash—U.S. loses
savings)
Funds used for speculative investments
Low money supply because of gold standard
The Causes of the Great
Depression
 Corporate Structure and public policy
No government agency monitored the stock
exchanges
Tax cuts meant that businesses did not have to
borrow money
 “Sick Industries”
Decline of farm prosperity
Textiles, coal mining, lumbering, and railroads
 Economic Ignorance
High Tariffs in U.S. hurt Europe / Europeans could
not buy U.S. goods
“Everyone ought to be rich”
Significant Events
 1903 First feature length film released
 1914 Henry Ford introduces moving assembly
line
 1916 Marcus Garvey brings Universal Negro
Improvement Association to America
 1919 Eighteenth Amendment outlawing alcohol
use ratified
 1920 First commercial radio broadcast
 1921 Congress enacts quotas on immigration
 1923 Time magazine founded
 1925 John T. Scopes convicted of teaching
evolution in Tennessee
 1929 Stock market crashes