American People + ‘Boom’

Question 1

What is the stock market?

Answer 1

But shares of companies and be given some of the profits

Question 2

What is hire purchase?

Answer 2

Buy goods now and pay later through loans in banks which were poorly regulated

Question 3

What is rugged individualism?

Answer 3

Hoover’s belief that Americans should work hard and not rely on gov help

Question 4

What were tariff’s?

Answer 4

Taxes on foreign goods so only American goods were bought

Question 5

How much did Ford pay his workers?

Answer 5

Nearly 3 times the wages paid to others (skilled workers)

Question 6

By the end of the 1920s how many were employed in the US motor industry?

Answer 6

500,000

Question 7

How many owned cars + bought with loans?

Answer 7

-1 in 5 owned a car, with 1 in 2 owning a ford
-6 out of 10 cars bought with loans

Question 8

Why were Ford’s model T’s built so fast?

Answer 8

•assembly line (£850 to £300)
•1 made in 1h and 10 mins
•all black: no time wasted changing colours
•standardisation: all same engine, design and colour

Question 9

What were the negatives to the car industry? (Ford)

Answer 9

•traffic jams
•road accidents
•pollution
•Ford employed hard men to threaten workers from joining trade union and going on strikes

Question 10

What were sharecroppers?

Answer 10

Farmer rented small land and gave crops in return to landowner

Question 11

What problems were farmers dealing with?

Answer 11

•overproduction
•combine harvest or did job of 10 men so lost jobs
•tariffs on goods from foreign countries
•couldn’t pay back loans

Question 12

What problems were African Americans dealing with in 1920s?

Answer 12

•1 mill lost jobs
•given lowest paid jobs with segregation
•mostly sharecroppers

Question 13

What inequality in wealth was there?

Answer 13

5% wealthy owned 33% of economy while 42% lived in poverty

Question 14

Sports like I’m the roaring 20s?

Answer 14

•many travelled to stadiums e.g Ohio stadium with capacity of 60,000 and low priced
•golden age for American sport

Question 15

Cinema like in roaring 20s?

Answer 15

-In 1919 35 million visitors a week and by 1930 100 million
-warners theatre in California opened in 1924 showing 1st talkie

Question 16

Hollywood in the roaring 20s?

Answer 16

•by 1929 making over 500 films a year
•’star system’ e.g sex symbols through photo shoots, radio interviews, adverts

Question 17

What were changes for women in 1920s?

Answer 17

•by 1929 10.5 mill worked, 25% more than 1920= divorce rate x2
•ww1:replace men in labouring work
•right to vote
•flappers
•inventions: free time

Question 18

What stayed the same for women in the 1920s?

Answer 18

•didn’t get involved in politics
•rural lifestyle of farming and home

Question 19

What is the anti flirt league?

Answer 19

Protest behaviours of flappers

Question 20

Why was prohibition passed on?

Answer 20

•anti saloon league campaigned for ban
•religious groups= alcohol caused violence, poverty and debt
•Rural saw towns as places where alcohol fuelled violence was commonplace

Question 21

How did government impose prohibition?

Answer 21

Initially 1500 prohibition agents which doubled to 3000 in 1930: locate and then confiscate alcohol, arresting sellers/ stop smuggling

Question 22

Why prohibition failed?

Answer 22

•speakeasies sold bootleg alcohol: hidden/ passwords to enter
•moonshine- can cause illness
•criminal gangs made money + bribed, intimidated legal forces

Question 23

How many speakeasies by 1930s?

Answer 23

200,000

Question 24

How much money did Al Capone make from racketeering?

Answer 24

10 million a year

Question 25

Why was Capone sentenced to jail?

Answer 25

St Valentine’s Day massacre (no witness, so charged him with tax evasion)

Question 26

How many people immigrated to America in 19th and 20th century?

Answer 26

10% of population of Europe

Question 27

What did immigrants expect from America?

Answer 27

•lots of cheap farmland + free ‘homesteads’
•jobs (better pay)
•American Dream
•freedom

Question 28

Why was there a racial tension between Americans and immigrants?

Answer 28

•willing to work for low wages= accused of ‘stealing’ work
•blamed for bad wages and conditions
•increased rent
•language barrier
•religions
•more than 1/2 went back to own countries= lack of desire to be ‘American’

Question 29

What was the impact of immigration on society?

Answer 29

•formed own communities e.g little Italy (made it hard for integration into American society)
•by 1920 more than 40% of ppl in NYC, Chicago and SF had been born abroad= foreigners taking over

Question 30

What was the government’s response to immigration?

Answer 30

•literacy test= ban those who couldn’t read sentence of 40 words
•immigration quota law: limit of 350,000 a year
•national origin act reduced it to 150,000 a year

Question 31

What was the experience for the African Americans?

Answer 31

•Jim crow laws=segregation
•states banned interracial marriage
•difficult literacy test t stop voting
•rent houses in bad neighbourhoods
•schools segregated
•public spaces segregated

Question 32

What was lynching?

Answer 32

•61 ppl lynched in 1921
•victims had done nothing wrong, police turned blind eye
•show ‘white supremacy’

Question 33

What improved for African Americans?

Answer 33

•about 2 mill moved north (better than south)
-doubled population between 1900-20 in NYC and Chicago
•NAACP set up to campaign for better rights, housing, votes and fair laws
•’black renaissance’= creativity and black pride

Question 34

What was the KKK and why did people join?

Answer 34

•white supremacist group that targeted AA’s, Jews, Catholics and immigrants
(By 1925= 5 million members)
• south angry as no prosperity unlike north
•less jobs
•defenders of Protestant religion
•claimed it wanted to improve moral standards
•’birth of a nation’ portrayed KKK as saviours against black thugs

Question 35

Why was there a decline in the KKK?

Answer 35

•1924: Klan leader Stephenson, convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering
•sentenced to life and during trial revealed many KKK secrets
•Alabama: wave of violence on AA’s and white
•by 1930 membership fell from 5 million to 30,000

Question 36

What was the impact of the KKK?

Answer 36

•kkk’s secrecy meant anyone= installed fear for AA’s
•activities to intimidate e.g marches, cross burnings, lynchings
•law forces could be members so kkk rarely punished

Question 37

What were anarchists?

Answer 37

People who believe countries shouldn’t be ruled by organised gov, system where everyone rules themselves

Question 38

Why did many fear communism and anarchism?

Answer 38

•un-American: attack on capitalist ideologies
•blamed for strikes
•bomber had communist publications on him, later bomber killed 30 = sus communist
•anarchist shot dead president

Question 39

What was the response to the red scare?

Answer 39

•palmer raids: police head arrested 6000 sus + deported/ predicted terror attacks never came
•trade union membership feel from 6 mill to 3.6 mill
•sacco + Vanzetti= unfair trial/ immigrants were treated as suspected communists

Question 40

Why were Sacco and Vanzetti executed? (Against them)

Answer 40

•61 eye witnesses
•both had guns: same bullets
•’acted guilty’/ couldn’t speak
•Vanzetti had previous robbery conviction
•doubts about evidence but seen as guilty for being anarchists not for alleged actions

Question 41

Why were Sacco and Vanzetti unfairly executed?

Answer 41

•107 ppl said they were elsewhere
•witnesses disagreed on what was worn
•several others confessed
•holding gun= no crime
•hostility + prejudice against immigrants= scapegoats for all problems

Question 42

Why was there a boom?

Answer 42

•11% wage rise
•republican policies= tariffs, low taxes
•mass production= cheaper
•hire purchase
•isolationism= loaned £, more jobs (no debt + less casualties)