America: Opportunity and Inequality - The 'Boom'

Question 1

how was the USA created?

Answer 1

• when British people first settled in America in the 1600s, they established 13 different colonies along America’s East Coast
• The settlers were mostly farmers and grew crops such as tobacco and cotton
• over many years, the British settlers began to see themselves as Americans and got fed up with British control and taxation
• On 4th July 1776, the 13 colonies decided they no longer wanted to be part of the British Empire and declared their own independence

Question 2

what happened after the battle of york?

Answer 2

• the Americans joined their 13 colonies together to form the United States of America

Question 3

who was the first president?

Answer 3

• George Washington was their first president and the capital city was named after him

Question 4

how is the first flag in 1777 different from the US flag today?

Answer 4

• the first-ever flag of the USA (Betsy Ross Flag) was made up of 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the original 13 states
• today, the number of stripes remains the same but there are now 50 stars representing the 50 states

Question 5

what is a constitution?

Answer 5

a set of fundamental rules

Question 6

how does the American political system work?

Answer 6

• American government is a Federal system. That means there are two types of government:
• the Federal government is based in the Capital Washington D.C. and oversees matters that affect the entire country e.g. foreign affairs and the army
• A local state government also operates in each state and make laws applied to that state only

Question 7

what possible issues might a Federal system create?

Answer 7

• American people could vote for their state government, with each state having its own laws, police and court system and its own governor in charge
• this means that convicted murderers may have received the death penalty in some states but be sentenced to life imprisonment in others.
• Further, the police of one state could not chase a criminal across ‘state lines’ into another state. Only the FBI could cross state borders while attempting to solve very serious ‘federal crimes’ or catch criminals who had committed crimes in more than one state

Question 8

what does the Bill of rights protect?

Answer 8

• freedom of speech
• freedom of belief
• freedom of assembly
• freedom of information
• freedom of protection
• freedom in law
• however, by 1919, many states refused to recognise the right to vote of women, African-Americans and Native Americans

Question 9

who were the first Americans?

Answer 9

• sometimes known as Native Americans or ‘Red Indians’, the first Americans lived in tribes across America for thousands of years before white men settled there
• gradually, white European settlers took their land and forced them to live in special areas called ‘reservations’.
• when Europeans first began to settle in North America, there were as many as 5 million Native Americans. By 1900, there were only about 250,000

Question 10

who were the ‘Early Immigrants’?

Answer 10

• large groups of white settlers who began to arrive from Europe in the 1600s, particularly from Britain, the Netherlands and Germany
• these settlers fought many wars between themselves and the Native Americans
• By the 1900s, white English speakers had become the most powerful group in America
• they were commonly known as WASPs (white anglo-saxon protestants) due to the racial and religious backgrounds of this high-status and influential group

Question 11

who were ‘African-Americans’?

Answer 11

• between 1600-1800, millions of African men, women and children were taken to work as slaves on huge cotton and tobacco farms in the South of America
• slavery ended in 1865, and the slaves were set free but many continued to work on farms
• by 1920, there were about 10 million African-Americans, the vast majority of whom lived in the Southern states
• most had limited freedom, including no right to vote and were denied access to good jobs, decent housing and proper education
• in early 1920s, African-Americans were among the poorest people in the country

Question 12

who were ‘New Immigrants’?

Answer 12

• a wave of new immigrants flooded into America from about 1850 onwards
• they crowded into large industrial towns and cities looking for work
• over a million people left Ireland for America after major famines between 1845 and 1848
• some people saw the new immigrants as a threat to their new way of life

Question 13

what happened to the US economy during the 1920s?

Answer 13

• In the 1920s, many ordinary Americans earned more money and worked shorter hours than ever before
• the latest goods - such as cars, radios, vacuum cleaners and washing machines - rolled off the production lines of America’s factories and many believed America to be the world’s richest country

Question 14

what is ‘isolationism’?

Answer 14

a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries

Question 15

what is an economic boom?

Answer 15

a period of rapid economic growth resulting in higher GDP and lower unemployment

Question 16

what is ‘cycle of prosperity’?

Answer 16

the self-reinforcing positive spiral that an economic boom can create

Question 17

how were natural resources a factor in the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 17

• the USA had great industrial strength helped by its huge reserves of natural resources
• it was able to exploit its vast range of raw materials to produce chemicals, glass and machinery before, during and after World War I
• it did not need to import many raw materials as it had a large and growing home market to buy the goods it produced

Question 18

how was WWI a factor for the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 18

• when World War I broke out in 1914, the USA stayed neutral as part of the policy of isolationism. They did not join in the actual fighting for another 2 and a half years, until 1917
• between 1914 and 1917, America benefited economically from the war. Its chemical industry was outproducing Germany’s and it went on to lead the world in the production of medicines, dyes and other materials such as rayon, Bakelite and cellophane
• this isolationism allowed America to prosper financially - banks loaned money to Britain and its allies. They used this to buy food, weapons and equipment mainly from the USA. This led to the creation of many jobs and made lots of business people in America very rich.
• although 100,000 American soldiers died fighting, the war had a much smaller impact on America than on most European nations. Furthermore, it was the only major nation not faced with huge wartime debts
• America returned to isolationism after the war. It did not join the League of Nations and stayed out of European political alliances

Question 19

how was the role of Republican governments a factor in the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 19

• Warren G Harding wanted a ‘return to normalcy’ after WWI. he believed people should work for their own success
• Calvin Coolidge famously said ‘the chief business of the American people is business’
• Herbert Hoover believed in ‘rugged individualism’ - the belief that people should work hard and not rely on the government for help

Question 20

how were republican policies a factor for the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 20

• the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act put high taxes on goods entering the USA. This made foreign goods more expensive for American people to buy and home-produced goods cheaper. This helped American industry thrive
• Taxes were cut which meant that the wealthy had more money to start companies and create more jobs. Lower taxes also meant that ordinary people had more money to spend on the new consumer goods on offer
• they believed in a policy of ‘laissez-faire’ - they felt that business should be left alone to get on with the process of creating wealth

Question 21

how were new consumer goods and the ‘Assembly Line’ a factor for the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 21

• American businesses were quick to see the advantages of using the very latest technology to produce goods
• many industries were using assembly lines, where products were built bit-by-bit by different people. This is known as mass production
• cars, telephones, radios, vacuum cleaners and washing machines were amongst the products that were being mass-produced in the 1920s
• as companies got better and quicker at making them, the goods became cheaper

Question 22

how were advertising and hire purchase a factor for the economic boom in the 1920s?

Answer 22

• the desire to own new consumer goods was increased by very effective advertising campaigns. Colourful billboards, newspapers and magazines urged people to buy the latest gadgets and keep up with their neighbours
• for those who didn’t live near a large shopping town, the latest mail order catalogue, full of goods to choose from, could be delivered to your door
• cinemas and radios broadcast advertisements too, encouraging people to take advantage of new ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes, which meant buyers could pay for goods in small instalments over a fixed period. This was sometimes called a hire purchase.
• by the 1920s many Americans believed they had a right to ‘prosperity’ - consuming more was seen as a part of being American

Question 23

who was Henry Ford?

Answer 23

• Ford came from a European immigrant farming family
• the first Henry Ford Motor Company factory was built in 1903 in Detroit, Michigan, and made a profit of $37,000 from Ford’s first car, the model A
• Ford paid his workforce nearly three times the wages paid at other factories in order to keep the skilled mechanics he needed. In turn, many of these men bought a Ford motor car.

Question 24

how did Ford produce cars more cheaply and efficiently?

Answer 24

• Ford introduced a new method of production, based on an idea he had seen some years before at a meat-packing company in Chicago - the assembly line
• Ford’s assembly line used an electric conveyor belt that carried the partly assembled car past workers who stood in the same place and were responsible for one or two small jobs, such as fitting wheels or doors

Question 25

how much did a Motel T cost by 1928 and how many people owned one?

Answer 25

• $295
• 15 million people bought Motel Ts between 1911 and 1929

Question 26

what were the features of the ‘Model T’?

Answer 26

• despite being slow, ugly and hard to drive, it was sturdy, very reliable and built with easy-to-change parts

Question 27

how did car-making and car-buying benefit other industries?

Answer 27

• jobs were created not only in factories but also in industries that supplies the materials - glass-making, tyre companies, leather-making and steel companies

Question 28

how did American society begin to change as more and more people bought cars?

Answer 28

• some changes were negative - traffic jams, accidents and pollution - but others were better
• car owners felt a new sense of freedom as they could go wherever they wanted, whenever they chose
• people no longer had to live near offices and factories in town and city centres
• they could buy a house out of town and drive into work

Question 29

what is meant by the term ‘inequalities of wealth’?

Answer 29

• wealth inequality refers to the unequal distribution of assets in a group of people

Question 30

how was wealth spread unequally in America in the 1920s?

Answer 30

• the richest 5% of the population earnt 33% of all the money and the poorest 42% of the population earnt 10% of the money in society
• in 1921, there were 21 millionaires in America but by 1927 there were 15,000
• in contrast, 6 million families - 42% of the total - had an income of less than $1000 a year

Question 31

why was there poverty in the countryside during the boom?

Answer 31

• after the first world war, there was less demand in Europe for American imports
• some countries taxed US products, making them expensive and difficult to sell to consumers overseas
• the use of high-tech farming machinery produced more food to sell. Prices fell, and farmers become poorer as a result
• some farmers had borrowed money from the banks to buy the latest machinery and now they could not repay the loans. As a result, many farmers were forced to sell their farms to raise money or were evicted from their land
• around 600,000 farmers lost their farms in 1924 alone. The farm workers also lost their jobs

Question 32

why did traditional/old industries not benefit from the boom?

Answer 32

• coal miners suffered because coal mines closed. Other forms of fuel (oil, gas and electricity) were increasingly used to heat homes and cook food
• cotton and wool factory workers suffered - there was less demand for their products because of the popularity of new man-made fibres such as rayon, and fashions for shorter dresses, which required less material. The price of cotton and woollen cloth fell and many factories shut down

Question 33

why did African-American workers not benefit from the boom?

Answer 33

• many African-Americans worked on farms as labourers or were sharecroppers who rented small areas of farmland from a landowner
• as the farming industry suffered in general African-American farmworkers and sharecroppers were hit particularly hard because they were already desperately poor
• many moved to cities to work but could often only find low-paid jobs

Question 34

why did Native Americans not benefit from the boom?

Answer 34

• large amounts of their land had been seized by mining companies and much of their traditional way of life had been lost
• many American Indians had been forced to move to reservations. Often, the soil there was so poor that it was impossible to grow crops properly
• most American Indians lived in extreme poverty, were poorly educated and had a lower life expectancy than other ethnic groups in US society

Question 35

what was “buying on the margin”

Answer 35

• in the 1920s, many people bought shares with money borrowed from banks or with a small deposit of 10%
• they would then pay the remaining amount with the profits they made when the shares were sold

Question 36

how does the stock market work?

Answer 36

• to set up company you need money - for wages, equipment, land and so on
• most companies get money from investors. In return, investors own a share of the company - they become shareholders
• a share holder makes money by:
  -> receiving a share of the company profits - a dividend - each;
  -> selling their share for a higher price than they paid for their share - this can happen f the company does well and makes good profits, making the share more valuable. However, a shareholder might not be able to sell their share if the company is doing badly - a shareholder could be stuck with a share that no one wants to buy and which pays no dividends
• shares are bought and sold on the stock market. America’s stock market is New York, on Wall Street

Question 37

how popular was ‘playing the stock market’?

Answer 37

• in 1920, there were only 4 million people who owned shares
• by 1929, there were 5 times as many
• Even America’s president Herbert Hoover, pointed to the stock market as a way of helping to end poverty in the USA
• In 1928, he said ‘Americans today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before. The poor man is vanishing among us’