American People And The Boom

Question 1

What was the impact of WW1 on America?

Answer 1

They grew in industrial strength
Lent money and sold arms/munitions to allies
Joined war
After war, took advantage of their industrial strength

Question 2

What did Laissez faire mean?

Answer 2

That the government should do as little as possible to interfere in people’s everyday lives

Question 3

What were tariffs?

Answer 3

Putting taxes on imports which made foreign goods more expensive for Americans to buy so many bought home-produced goods = helped US industry to thrive

Question 4

What was low taxation?

Answer 4

Lower taxes meant people had a bigger proportion of their wages/profits for them to spend or invest
This helped industrial growth and benefited rich business men the most

Question 5

How many cars were there in 1919 compared to 1929?

Answer 5

9 million in 1919

26 million in 1929

Question 6

How many radios were there in 1920 - 1929?

Answer 6

60,000 radios in 1920

10million radios in 1929

Question 7

How many telephones in 1915 - 1930?

Answer 7

10m in 1915

20m in 1930

Question 8

What encouraged Americans to spend?

Answer 8

Many people that worked in Propaganda during war used -poster advertisements
Radio advertisements
Travelling salesmen

Question 9

What could people do if they didn’t have any money?

Answer 9

They could borrow it or hire purchase (buy now, pay later)

Question 10

What caused the stock market to boom?

Answer 10

Confidence that prosperity would continue to grow

Many bought shares in a company and gained a percentage of profits

Question 11

How did Henry Ford revolutionise car-manufacturing?

Answer 11

In 1913, he set up the first moving production line in the world

Each worker on the line had one/two jobs to do as the skeleton of the car moved along

Question 12

What was the most famous car made this way?

Answer 12

Model T Ford

More than 15million were made and in 1927, one was produced every ten seconds

Question 13

How many cars were made in 1929?

Answer 13

4.8 million

Question 14

How were cars beneficial?

Answer 14

Helped cities grow as you could drive in and from suburbs
Carry owners to cinemas/baseball games (entertainment)
Or holidays and shopping

Question 16

What industries were thriving?

Answer 16

Motor industry was the biggest industry (employed hundreds of thousands of workers)
Glass, leather steel and rubber were all required to build new vehicles so those industries increased
Oil and petrol production increased
Road construction employed a lot of labourers to build new roads

Question 17

What was the attitude to wealth in the 1920s?

Answer 17

Most American thought they had a right to ‘prosperity’
It was an aim to have a nice house, a good job, plenty to eat and their home to be filled with a lot of new goods(stuff)

Question 18

How were Farmers not affected by the “Boom”?

Answer 18

Farm income dropped from 22billion to 13billion

Their main problem was that overproduction had led to a drop in prices of their produce

Question 19

How did workers in older industries not benefit from the ‘boom’?

Answer 19

Coal suffered from competition from new industries e.g. electricity
Leather and textiles were protected from foreign competition but now from domestic competition - suffered from competition from new man-made materials e.g. nylon and rayon
Many workers had low wages which didn’t rise

Question 20

How did the unemployed and poor not benefit from the ‘boom’?

Answer 20

Unemployment remained a problem as the growth in industry did not necessarily create a big amount of new jobs
Greater proportion of African-American and Hispanic were unemployed than Whites as they’d immigrated
The boom was consumer-led but many families couldn’t afford to but such goods and Republicans stayed strong on Laissez faire

Question 21

How had the entertainment industry blossomed?

Answer 21

The average working week dropped from 47.4 to 44.2 hours a week so more people had leisure time
Average wages rose by 11%
A lot of this extra money and time was channelled into entertainment

Question 22

How did radios increase?

Answer 22

Almost everyone in the USA listened to radio
Many who couldn’t afford one bought one in instalments
In 1921 there was only one listened radio station
In 1922 there were 508
The NBC network were making 150m a year

Question 23

How did Jazz boom?

Answer 23

Jazz became a new obsession among young people
African-Americans that moved from the country to cities brought Jazz and blues music with them
1920s became the Jazz age with new dances e.g. Charleston
However, the older generation saw Jazz as corrupting young people

Question 24

How did sport boom?

Answer 24

Baseball became a big money sport
New teams raised e.g. New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox
Prominent figures like Al Capone were big baseball fans
Boxing was also v popular

Question 25

How were women supposed to act before WW1?

Answer 25

Wear restrictive clothes and behave politely
Not expected to wear make up
Relationships with men were strictly controlled
Not expected to take part in sport or smoke in public
Most states they couldn’t vote
Expected to be housewives and very few paid jobs were open to women
Many were in low paid jobs e.g. cleaning

Question 26

How did this change when America joined WW1 and after?

Answer 26

Many were taking into war industries and replaced men’s jobs
Gave them experience of skilled factory work for first time
In 1920, women in all states got the right to vote
Domestic work made easier (vacuums)
More films had women as big roles (daring heroines) as well as others showing women in a more traditional role

Question 27

How did a flapper act?

Answer 27

Wore more daring clothes
Smoke and drank with men in public
Went out in cars without chaperones 
Kissed in public
Wore short dresses and make up

Question 28

How many women were in jobs by 1929?

Answer 28

10million

Question 29

How were these changes only partial?

Answer 29

Women were still paid less then men, even in same job
Many still in restricted roles
Most political parties didn’t want women as candidates as they considered them unelectable

Question 30

What was prohibition?

Answer 30

Banning alcohol/saloons

Question 31

What were most movements for prohibition started by?

Answer 31

Devout Christians who saw what damage alcohol did to family life

Question 32

What were some arguments for prohibition?

Answer 32

3,000 infants were smothered by drunken parents each year
Drinkers during WW1 were unpatriotic cowards (many breweries were run by German immigrants)
Alcohol led to lawlessness
Saloons were dens of vice that destroyed family life

Question 33

What happened in 1917 and 1920?

Answer 33

1917 -The eighteenth amendment t the constitution was passed which prohibited the manufacture/sale/transportation of alcohol
1920 - this became a law

Question 34

How long did it last?

Answer 34

From 1920 to 1933
Alcohol consumption fell by 30% and prohibition gained wide spread approval in some states (mainly rural)
However it was a very unpopular act
Maryland never introduced it

Question 35

What were the two most famous agents?

Answer 35

Isadore Einstein and Moe Smith
Made 4,392 arrests and their raids were always low-key
They would enter speakeasies and order a drink (Einstein would preserve the drink/evidence by pouring his drink down a hidden funnel to a flask he had hidden in his watscoat)

Question 36

How was prohibition impossible to enforce effectively?

Answer 36

Agents were poorly paid and each responsible for huge areas where there wasn’t enough of them
Bootleggers made fortunes (suppliers of illegal alcohol)
Al Capone made around 60million a year from his speakeasies

Question 37

What was moonshine?

Answer 37

An illegal whisky that people made themselves

Question 38

Where would people go for illegal alcohol?

Answer 38

Speakeasies which were supplied by bootleggers
About 2/3s of illegal alcohol came from Canada as the border was impossible to patrol
Others like Captain McCoy brought in alcohol by sea

Question 39

How did prohibition lead to massive corruption?

Answer 39

Many law enforcements were involved in the liquor trade
Many breweries stayed in business during prohibition as they bribed local government officials, prohibition agents and police to leave them alone
Some police officers would direct people to speakeasies
It was hard to get convictions because many senior officers and even judges were in the pay of criminals

Question 40

How much money (estimated) did Gangs make on the illegal sale of alcohol?

Answer 40

2 billion

Question 41

How did gangs get messed up in prohibition?

Answer 41

Gangs fought viscously to control the liquor trade and gambling e.t.c which were centred on speakeasies
Many gang murders due to new weapons and technology
Many Gangs bribed law enforcement/ many officers were fearful of gangs so the law enforcement was ineffective

Question 42

Who was Al Capone?

Answer 42

Very notorious and powerful gangster
Built a huge network of corrupt officials among Chicago’s police, local government, judges, lawyers e.t.c and even controlled a Chicago’s mayor
High profile and popular figure in city
Regular attended at baseball and American football matches
He was supported by a ruthless gang who he picked so he knew loyalty

Question 43

What was the St Valentine Massacre?

Answer 43

Capone’s men murdered 7 of rival gang members by using a fake police car and two of capones’ men in police uniforms to buy the rival gang off their guard
It was a turning point as it showed prohibition had failed
Made the police corrupt and gangsters rich and powerful

Question 44

What were arguments for getting rid of prohibition after Wall Street Crash?

Answer 44

Legalising alcohol would create jobs
Raise tax revenue
Free up resources

Question 45

How were black people still discriminated against?

Answer 45

Although slavery had been abolished 1863, many African Americans (southern states mainly) still worked for plantation owners on their land or as servants in their homes
Most were denied access to higher education, good jobs and many couldn’t vote

Question 46

What did this cause them to do?

Answer 46

Many African Americans moved north as there was a lot of discrimination in the South.
As northern states gave them better chances at getting good jobs and good education

Question 47

However , how was there still discrimination in the North?

Answer 47

Many lived in great poverty
Many lived in poorer housing that whites but paid higher rents
They had poorer education and poorer health services than whites
When they moved neighbourhoods, many neighbours treated them poorly
If they attempted to use playgrounds/beaches, many gangs of white people were set upon them
African Americans often became known as isolated ghettos.

Question 48

Who were the KKK?

Answer 48

A white supremacy movement who used violence to intimidate African Americans and became a powerful force

Question 49

What did they do?

Answer 49

They paraded and beat people, lynched people and other violent methods to intimidate African Americans

Question 50

Who did they attack?

Answer 50

African Americans, Jews, Catholics and foreign immigrants

Question 51

Why were the Klan strong?

Answer 51

They were strongest in mid-west and rural south where working class whites competed with African Americans for unskilled jobs 
They were elected into positions of political power inc governor positions 
They were very dominant in Indiana and by 1924, had 4.5 million members across USA

Question 52

How many African Americans were lunches between 1919 and 1925?

Answer 52

300

Question 53

How did America have a lot of immigrants?

Answer 53

Many arrived in large numbers, mainly Jews from Europe/Russia who were fleeing persecution
Many came from Italy who were fleeing poverty and hoped to make some money and bring it back for their families
Some immigrants blended into crowd and lost ethnicity
However, many (in big cities) competed for best jobs and housing available

Question 54

Why was America hit with a wave of riots/strikes to get rid of immigrants?

Answer 54

Fear of communism as they had just watched Russian become a communist country
Economic hardship came as many men were made unemployed because wartime production levels fell
Many saw these disturbances as the work of communists of other radical political groups
Feared many of the immigrates from Europe and Russia were bringing similar radical ideas with them to the USA
This reaction was called the Red Scare

Question 55

How did the Fear of Communism mix with prejudice against immigrants?

Answer 55

Many immigrants did not hold radical believes but Anarchists published pamphlets and distributed them widely in American cities, calling for the overthrow of the government
In April 1919, a bomb was planted in a church which killed 10 people
In May, more bombs were placed
When J Edgar Hoover was appointed by Palmer, he built up files on 60,000 suspects
By 1920, around 10,000 individuals were informed they were to be deported from USA
However, only 556 out of the thousands of cases Hoover brought forward had any fact

Question 56

What was the case on Sacco and Vanzetti?

Answer 56

Many immigrants were deported with very flimsy evidence
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were accused of two murders during an armed robbery
The case against them was shaky and the evidence was very flimsy
After the trial, they judge referred to them as those”anarchist bastards”
They were convicted and executed on very poor evidence
This caused a protest all over the world

Question 57

How do America restrict the number of immigrants entering the USA?

Answer 57

Introduced a literacy test to check if immigrants could read basic English
This reduced the number of immigrants to 150,000 a year
Ensured most immigrants came from north west of Europe as the language and culture was more similar to USA

Question 58

How did immigrants not share in the boom?

Answer 58

Many were disappointed that they didn’t share in the boom
They lived in poor, over crowded areas and many didn’t have a job
If they did, it was low-paid and hard laboured work
For reassurance and security and friendship, many immigrant communities lived close together
Many still refer to immigrants as foreigners

Question 59

How did cinema blossom?

Answer 59

Studios now made large numbers of films all year round
New stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton made audiences roar with laughter
Douglas Fairbanks thrilled audiences in adventure films
However all films had been silent
The Jazz Singer film was the first with talking
Movies were a billion dollar industry and by end of 1920s, 100million cinema tickets were being sold each week