Transcript Ch 7 to 11 Part 1

Fortunes of Feminism
On occasion, war posters
acknowledged women who
crossed conventional gender
barriers when they took jobs in
war work. These images were
usually issued by the Young
Women's Christian Association
(YWCA), which produced its own
posters. During the war, the YWCA
continued its prewar activism on
behalf of young working women
and distributed the poster
depicted here as part of its fundraising campaign. In keeping with
YWCA literature that praised
women factory workers' vital
contribution to defense, this image
emphasizes female strength and
solidarity. Note too the graphic
style of this image.
• Women took on new jobs
during the war, working as
mail carriers, polic
officers, drill-press
operators, and farm
laborers attached to the
Women's Land Army.
These women are riveters
at the Puget Sound Navy
Yard in Washington. Black
women in particular, who
customarily were limited
to employment as
domestic servants or
agricultural laborers,
found that the war
opened up new
opportunities and better
wages in industry. When
the war ended, black and
white women alike usually
lost jobs deemed to be
men's work
• Before the war ended, some
25,000 American women made it
to France, all as volunteers. Expresident Theodore Roosevelt
proclaimed war the "Great
Adventure,” and some women
were eager to share in it. About
half became nurses, where as
one said, they dealt with "a sea
of stretchers, a human carpet.”
Women also drove ambulances,
acted as social workers, and ran
canteens for the Red Cross and
the YMCA. One YMCA worker,
Mary Baldwin, hoped that a few
hours in her canteen would
"make life, and even death,
easier ‘out there.'” A handful of
female physicians worked as
contract surgeons for the U.S.
army. Dr. Loy McAfee wore this
uniform in France.
Women
• Changing attitudes toward marriage and
sexuality
– Greater openness in attitudes toward sex
– Push for compatibility and companionship in
marriage
– Flapper culture among young women
• Popularity of celebrities
– First appearance of large sporting events and
professional athletes
– Depended on journalists and radio promoters
• Women workers
– Earned less than male workers, even for same
jobs
– Drawn to white collar work for better
opportunities
• Concentrated in “female” professions
– Female college enrollment increased 50 percent
during decade
Sanger
• Comstock Law
• Sheppard-Towner
ERA/NWP
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Cult of Beauty
Hollywood
Cosmetics Industry
Cult of Youthfulness
– Helena Rubenstein
– Elizabeth Arden
Settlement House-Homemaking
• Liberal Arts Education
Freud
• Vulgar Freudianism
– Misinterpretation of Freud
– Advertising
– Sanger: Happiness in marriage
– Berry Publishing: How I Kept my Husband’s Love
– Margaret Mead: Coming of Age in Samoa
Cult of Personalities
• Popularity of celebrities
– First appearance of large sporting events and
professional athletes
– Depended on journalists and radio promoters
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Huey Long
Charlie Chaplin
Valentino
Arbuckle
Fairbanks
Coleman
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Babe Ruth
Lou Gehrig
Red Grange
Knut Rockne
Jack Dempsey
James “Gene” Tunney
William Tilden
Lone Eagle
• Lindbergh – 1927
solo flight to Paris
• These Border Patrol officers in Laredo, Texas, in 1926
were deputized to stop illegal immigration from Mexico.
Their guns, military uniforms, and stern expressions did
not present a warm welcome to immigrants arriving
from south of the border.
The “Lost Generation”
and Disillusioned Intellectuals
• World War I created generation of
disaffected, alienated writers and artists
– Lost Generation
– Many settled in Paris
• Focused on psychological toll of living in
postwar period
• Many came to question democracy itself
– Spurred debate over proper role of government
in economy and life in general
– John Dewey
• American psychologist, philosopher,
educator, social critic and political
activist
• education should not be the
teaching of mere dead fact
• skills and knowledge which students
learn should be integrated fully into
their lives as persons, citizens and
human beings.
• Racial conflict and the rise of black
nationalism
– War aroused expectations in black soldiers that
were not fulfilled
– Immediate postwar period rife with race riots
– Role of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro
Improvement Association
– Fostered black nationalism, separatism, and selfsufficiency
– Left enduring legacy
Botched Civilization
• Hemingway
– Farewell to Arms
• Langston Hughes
• Willa Cather
Artists
• Mencken
• F Scott Fitzgerald
Langston Hughes, a
determined young black
poet, said of the Harlem
Renaissance. "If white
people are pleased, we
are glad. If they are not,
it doesn't matter. We
know we are beautiful.
And ugly, too.” Hughes
published The Weary
Blues, his first book of
poetry, in 1926 at the
age of twenty-four.
Postwar Period: A Society in
Convulsion
• Labor management conflicts
– Paralyzing postwar strikes
• Authorities portrayed as anti-American and
possibly Communist-inspired
• Postwar Red Scare
– Appeal of Socialism
– Ideological affinity with Bolsheviks in Russia
– Government crackdown in dissent and radicalism
• Helped by newly formed American Legion
• Palmer raids against suspected radicals and
subversives
Mitchell Palmer
Changing the Guard
• Hoover vs Smith
Since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, the United States had experienced
recessions or panics at least every twenty
years, but none as severe as the Great
Depression of the 1930s
After 1927, consumer spending declined, and
housing construction slowed. In 1928,
manufacturers cut back on production and
began to lay off workers, and by the summer
of 1929 the economy was clearly in recession.
The stock market crash of 1929 was an
indication of serious, underlying problems in
the United States economy.
• The Crash made the cracks in America's
superficial prosperity more obvious. And,
since the causes of the economic crises
were complex, the solution to the
economic problems facing the United
States would be complicated as well.
• The stock market had become the symbol
of the nation’s prosperity, yet only about 10
percent of the nation’s households owned
stock.
• In 1928 and 1929, stock prices rose an average of
40 percent; market activity, such as margin
buying, was essentially unregulated.
• On “Black Thursday,” October 24, and “Black
Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, overextended
investors began to sell their portfolios; waves of
panic selling ensued.
• Commercial banks and speculators had invested
in stocks; the impact of the Great Crash was felt
across the nation as banks failed and many
middle-class Americans lost their life savings.
Causes of the Depression
• The crash of 1929 destroyed the faith of those
who viewed the stock market as the crowning
symbol of American prosperity, precipitating a
crisis of confidence that prolonged the
depression. So we naturally ask ourselves that
one important question:
• 1. What were the origins and consequences of
the Great Depression?
• As we just noted - the stock market crash of
October 1929 cannot alone account for the
length and severity of the slump.
What then were the causes of the
Great Depression?
• The Great Crash of October 1929 wiped out
the savings of thousands of Americans and
destroyed consumers’ optimism. Many
investors had bought stock on margin while
the prices were inflated and lost money when
they were forced to sell at prices below what
they had paid.
• Structural weaknesses in the economy,
especially in agriculture and “sick industries”
such as coal, textiles, shipping, and railroads,
made the economy vulnerable to a crisis in
the financial markets. These had suffered
setbacks in the 1920s.
• The unequal distribution of wealth made it
impossible to sustain the expansive
economic growth of the late 1920s.
• In the 1920s the share of national income
going to upper- and middle-income families
had increased, so that in 1929 the lowest
40 percent of the population received only
12.5 percent of the national income.
• Once the depression began, not enough
people could afford to spend the money
necessary in order to revive the economy, a
phenomenon known as underconsumption.
• Once the depression began, America’s
unequal income distribution left the
majority of people unable to spend the
amount of money needed to revive the
economy.
• The Great Depression became selfperpetuating. The more the economy
contracted, the more people expected the
depression to last; the longer they expected
it to last, the more afraid they became to
spend or invest their money.
• In 1931, the Federal Reserve System
significantly increased the discount
rate, squeezing the money supply,
forcing prices down, and depriving
businesses of funds for investment.
• Americans kept their dollars stashed
away rather than deposited, further
tightening the money supply.
• Domestic factors far outweighed
international causes of America’s
protracted decline, yet the economic
problems of the rest of the world
affected the United States and vice
versa.
• By the late 1920s, European
economies were staggering under the
weight of huge debts and trade
imbalances with the United States; by
1931, most European economies had
collapsed.
• When U.S. companies cut back
production, they also cut their purchases
of raw materials and supplies abroad.
• When American financiers sharply
reduced their foreign investment and
consumers bought fewer European
goods, debt repayment became even
more difficult, straining the gold
standard.
• The reduced flow of American capital
to world markets after the Great Crash
and the trade war initiated by the
Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 led to a
decline in world trade that made the
depression worse.
• In response to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff
of 1930, foreign governments imposed
their own trade restrictions, further
intensifying the worldwide depression.
• From 1929 to 1933, the U.S. gross
national product fell by almost half,
private investment plummeted 88
percent, and unemployment rose to a
staggering 24.9 percent; those who
had jobs faced wage cuts or layoffs.