Transcript Unit 6x

 Consumerism is a social and economic order based on
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fostering a desire to purchase goods and services in ever
greater amounts.
Americans are influenced by new advertising and
marketing techniques
Americans buy appliances, cosmetics, commercially
processed foods, mass produced autos, and new fashions.
Consumption became a dominant cultural ideal with the
new Installment Buying Plan. “Buy Now - Pay Later.”
Transportation and communication allowed for businesses
to grow and push their products on more customers.
Motion Picture Industry influences popular culture trends in clothing , hair styles, values and attitudes.
Percentage of American Families Owning
Various Appliances, 1920 and 1930
Inside flush toilets
Central heating
Home lighting with electricity
Mechanical refrigerators
Washing machines
Vacuum cleaners
Radios
Automobiles
1920
20%
1%
35%
<1%
8%
9%
<1%
26%
1930
51%
42%
68%
8%
24%
30%
40%
60%
W: 472
 1920’s America saw
a dramatic change
in business and
industry;
including:
 New industries
 Higher wages
 Better working
conditions
 More corporations
 He was one of the first
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industrialists to act on the
realization that each worker
is also a consumer.
In an era where $2 a day was
considered a good pay, Ford
paid his workers $5
Reduced the workweek at his
plant from a 48-hour, 6-day week to a
40-hour, 5-day week.
Ford was able to do this because his
methods of production made
tremendous profits. ($264,000/day)
He was the first to use the assembly line
to mass produce his Model-T cars.
 A method of mass
production in which every
employee has a specific
task.
 With the assembly line,
workers with fewer skills
were able to operate
specialized machines
designated for specific tasks.
 More time and $ = more
innovation…i.e. automobile,
plane, appliances
 GNP steadily grew 4.9% each year between 1920-1929
 Prices fluctuated during this time period
 Overproduction
 speakeasies
 Nativism
 leisure
 Competition
 affluence
 Flapper
 escapism
 Immigration
 Stardom
 Entertainment
 Gangsterism
 prohibition
Problem
Solution
 “But farming did not do well in the 1920s. US
agriculture had expanded during the First World War
to sell food to Europe, but afterwards countries
returned to growing their own grain. The expansion
had led to over-production and now there was too
much food on the market. Farmers found it more and
more difficult to sell their produce.”
 -US History textbook. 20th century
 Publicly traded
 Stocks (shares): small
portions of the company
that can be bought and sold for a given amount
of money.
 When a company does well (makes a profit), the
stock increases in value.
 When a company does poorly (loses money), the
stocks decrease in value.
 The Stock Market: the place where stocks are
bought and sold.
 Uneven Prosperity
 Tax cuts to wealthy
 Rich get richer & poor get poorer
 Personal Debt
 Luxury items seem affordable with credit
 Not everyone could pay it off
 Playing the Stock Market
 Speculation: high risk investments for a big return
 Buying on margin: bought portion of stock & borrowed the
rest
 High interest rates
 Overproduction
 Originally high demand, but now, too much product
 Companies lost a lot of product and money
 All these factors combined
until the Stock Market
crashed
 Worst stock market crash
in US history
 Stock prices began to
fall at a rapid rate.
 12,894,650 shares were
traded (sold at much
lower prices than
purchased) = huge
loss
 Sends economy into a
downfall.
“Prohibition almost became a battle between
American small towns and the countryside against the
big cities. The cities were described as dens of iniquity,
where alcohol and crime had undermined the true
American virtues of hard work and self-reliance. This
was an extreme form of the 'rugged individualism' that
was preached by the Republican presidents of the
1920’s.”
-Source: History Textbook, 2015
 Author:
 Context:
 Audience:
 Purpose:
 Significance:
 to escape religious, racial, political persecution
 relief from economic hardships and famine
 the labor contracts offered to them by companies
 to mine coal or labor in steel mills (Hungarians, Poles,
Slovaks, Bohemians, and Italians)
 to work in textile mills (Greeks)
 to work in the needle trade in New York
(Russians/Jews)
 receive free land in the West
Immigration of the 1920s
During the decade of the 1920s, more than 4.1 million immigrants arrive in the
United States.
Emergency Quota Act - May 19, 1921
Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, establishing an entirely
new, ethnically discriminatory system for determining which immigrants to
allow into the country. The act establishes, for the first time, a specific quota
for the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States each year
from each foreign country. The quota limits annual immigration from any
given country to 3% of the number of people from that country resident in the
United States in 1910. The new system forces a dramatic reduction in
immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, but allows immigration from
Northern and Western Europe to continue virtually unabated.
Cable Act - 1922
Congress passes the Cable Act, partially repealing the Expatriation Act of
1907. The new law allows American women who marry European men to
retain their U.S. citizenship. However, American women who marry Asians
will still forfeit their American citizenship.
National Origins Act - May 26, 1924
Congress passes the National Origins Act of 1924, refining the national quota
system created in 1921. The new National Origins formula caps annual
immigration from any given nation to 2% of the number of people from that
country resident in the United States in 1890. By choosing 1890—a year that
preceded the bulk of the "new immigration"—as the benchmark for setting
national quotas, the law heavily favors Northwestern and Western Europeans
at the expense of Southern and Eastern Europeans. The discriminatory
National Origins system will remain in effect until 1965.
Oriental Exclusion Act - May 26, 1924
In conjunction with the National Origins Act of 1924, Congress passes the
Oriental Exclusion Act, further tightening restrictions on Asian immigration
by closing the few loopholes that had previously allowed a small number of
Asians to enter the country. The new act blocks the immigration of foreignborn wives of Asians already living in America, and even the children of
American citizens born within the Asiatic Barred Zone.
Border Patrol - 1924
Congress creates the Border Patrol to help police its increasingly stringent
immigration controls.
Reasons to immigrate to
the U.S.
Affects on immigrants by
moving and living in the
U.S.
“But the most important result of prohibition was
that it made ordinary people into criminals. Most
people liked a drink from time to time and this made
the police very reluctant to enforce the law. They also
became more open to bribes from otherwise lawabiding citizens. So began the system of bribery and
corruption that spread all over the USA and reached
the highest levels of society. Worse still, the supply of
illegal alcohol fell into the hands of gangsters, who
then bribed the police and justice system to allow
them to carry on their business.”
-Source: History Textbook, 2015
American
beliefs
in society
American
attitude
because of
belief
American
behaviors that
result from
attitude
 1920 general election
historic because 1st election
with women voters- results
impacted significantly
 Conservative republican
platform in office: return to “normalcy” and signs
immigration laws to limit immigration
 Presidency plagued by scandal of his appointees
 Cut taxes and signed the
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Revenue Act of 1921
Signs Budgeting and
Accounting Act of 1921
Fordney-McCumber Tariff
Act
Federal Highway Act of
1921
Laissez-faire attitude
towards economy
wealthy Americans get
large tax breaks
sets up formal oversight
for govt. spending
increases tariffs to highest
levels in history
expands nation’s highway
system
some of the sharpest
declines in
unemployment and
inflation
 “America First”
 Pardons Eugene V. Debs (jailed during Pullman Strike)
and other political prisoners from the Red Scare
 Meaning what?!?
 Disliked by organized labor (unions)
 Favored an anti-lynching bill – congress shoots it down
 Cuts federal budget (spending) from $6.4 billion to $3.1
billion, between 1921-1923
 Created the Veteran’s Bureau (1921) to avoid paying
soldiers their money and to offer free medical services
 Harding’s VP
 “Business is America’s business”
 Laissez-faire attitude towards
Economy, like Harding
 Silent Cal
 Americans attribute the
successful economy to his
attitude towards business
 “rugged individualism” =
work hard and don’t rely
on the govt. to “save” you
 blamed by Americans
for the crash, 20%
unemployment rise,
and bank closures
 signs Smoot-Hawley
Act in 1930, raised taxes
to record levels on over
20,000 foreign imports
= strained US sales and
profits in the midst of
depression
 With Congress’ passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, the
government of the United States confers citizenship on all Native
Americans born within the territorial limits of the country.
 Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native
Americans of one-half or less Indian blood. In the
Reconstruction period, progressive Republicans in Congress
sought to accelerate the granting of citizenship to friendly tribes,
though state support for these measures was often limited. In
1888, most Native American women married to U.S. citizens
were conferred with citizenship, and in 1919 Native American
veterans of World War I were offered citizenship. In 1924, the
Indian Citizenship Act, an all-inclusive act, was passed by
Congress. The privileges of citizenship, however, were largely
governed by state law, and the right to vote was often denied to
Native Americans in the early 20th century.
 Native Americans
 In 1928 Meriam Report:
struggling with:
concludes assimilation
failed…need to restore
tribal rule
 Report leads to the 1934
Indian Reorganization
Act. This Act returned
some of the surplus land
to Native Americans and
urged tribes to engage in
active self-government.
 Short life expectancy
 Disease
 Diminishing land
 Malnutrition
 Stagnant and unrealistic
schools system
 A cultural shift occurred in the US during the 1920’s
because…
 This example… further proves the shift because…
---------------------------------------------------------- A cultural shift did not occur in the US during the
1920’s because…
 This example… further disproves the shift because…