Transcript Boom To Bust

Questions:
1. What would you do if you lost everything?
(except house)
2. How would you solve your economic
circumstance?
3. What role should government play in this
factor?
 Social Changes in the 1920s
A. The 18th Amendment was passed in the first month of the new
decade, which outlawed the consumption of alcohol.
1. Passed because of threat of moral decay. Troops experienced
more freedom in WWI and young people will seek more
independence.
2. Organized Crime and speakeasies will prosper.
3. 21st Amendment will reverse 18th in 1933 (Great Depression—
Need a Drink).
B. African-American Rights
1. Jim Crow laws still present.
2. AA will start to see more rights after WWI. (Great Migration)
3. Jazz is created and is the only American musical form.
a. Harlem becomes Capital of Jazz
b. Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington.
4. Harlem Renaissance brings what is known as the “holiday of
the spirit”.
1. Beginning of the Civil Rights movement in 20th Century.
2. Civil Rights will be stopped by Great Depression and
WWII.
5. During this time period the KKK grew to its largest
membership (4 million).
D. Women’s Rights
1. 19th Amendment will be passed in 1920 after 133 years—
since Abigail Adams “Remember the Ladies”.
E. Change in Science
1. Scopes Monkey Trial will take place in 1925 and argue
whether Evolution or Creationism should be taught in science
classes.
F. Heroes
1. Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh
G. Signs of Economic Problems
1. By 1927, 75% of all household goods were bought on credit.
2. Only 1% invested heavily in stock market.
3. Loss of Middle Class during 20s—w/ Coolidge and Hoover
not helping.
H. Indicators and Causes of Great Depression in US—Lags behind
world.
1. Indicators of Stock Market Crash:
a.Housing starts were declining.
b.Business Inventories were up.
c.Stock Market was over valued.
d.People were buying on the margin.
2. Causes of Great Depression:
a.Uneven distribution of income.
b.Unbalanced foreign trade.
c.Industrial mechanization.
d.Overextended personal debts.
I. Great Depression hits US
1. Bonus army veterans from WWI march on Washington to get
paid (bonus was to be paid in 1945).
2. 100,000 people move to Soviet Union to escape G.D.
a. More people leaving US then entering (1st time).
3. Hoovervilles (cities built outside major cities), Hoover
Blankets (newspapers under arm; Hoover Flags (empty
pockets worn inside out).
4. Franklin Roosevelt elected in 1932 w/ New Deal (becomes
President January 20th—10 days before Hitler)
a. 25% unemployment
b. Closed banks and rushed 2 billion dollars in new currency.
c. Double the size of Gov’t w/ alphabet soup (AAA, CCC,
TVA).
d. 20% unemployment in 1936 (Germany out of Great
Depression).
 Cultural and Intellectual Trends Between the Wars
A. The Arts
1. Dadaism: Enshrines the purposelessness of life.
a. Examples
2. Surrealism: Stretched the reality beyond the material, sensible
world and found it in the world of the unconscious through the
portrayal of fantasies, dreams, or nightmares.
a. Examples
B. Psychoanalysis
1. Sigmund Freud creates new study of the unconscious
(unconscious was the seat of repressed desires or appetites).
2. Carl Jung believed unconscious was an opening to deep
spiritual needs and ever-greater vistas for humans.
C. Physics
1. Albert Einstein – Relative Theory
2. Werner Heisenberg – “uncertainty principle”. Said that no one
could determine the path of an electron (before everyone
thought everything could be predicted: even the weather).
 Cultural and Intellectual Trends Between the Wars
D. Music
1. Arnold Schönberg created twelve-tone composition. Used
scale of twelve notes independent of any tonal key.
2. Swing movement takes place in Germany and tries to continue
after Nazis come to power.