Boom and Crash Flashcards
USA emerged from WW1
Wealthiest country on earth
1922-1929 = Production of industrial goods rose by 50%
Unemployment = Never higher than 3.7%
1920 Ford + Mass Production
1920 = Ford producing 1,250,000 cars per year
1920 = Ford producing 1 car every 60 seconds
Price of Model T in 1914 before mass production = $950
Price of Model T in 1925 after mass production = $250
Growth of business schools - 1920’s
1928 = 89 specialist business schools educating 67,000 students
Advertising - 1920’s
Companies - psychologists to design campaign + target specific groups - ‘Lucky Strike’ labelled ‘Torches of Freedom’
1929 = Companies spending $3 billion annually on advertising
Electrical Goods - 1920’s
1912-1939 - Number of electrical goods sold per year rose from 1.4 million to 160 million
Mass Production of Automobile - 1920’s
1920-1929 = Number of cars rose from 7.5 million to 27 million
Road Building at rate of 10,000 miles per year by 1929
President Calvin Coolidge
1923-1928
Andrew Mellon
Treasury Secretary 1921-1932
Andrew Mellon’s Tax Cuts
Government reduced taxes in 1924, 1926, 1928
Mellon gave out $3.5 billuon of tax reductions to big coorporations
Child Labour
Textile mills of the south - children worked for 56 hour weeks
1922 Fordney-McCumber Tariff
High tariffs
Protectionism
Hire-Purchase
1929 = $7 billion worth of goods brought on credit
Reasons for declining demand in agriculture
Prohibition reduced demand for grain used in manufacture of alcohols
Growth of synthetic fibres reduced demand for textile crops e.g. cotton
Introduction of more machinery + modern methods meant more could be produced on less acreage
1920’s = 13 million acres taken out of production, but overall production increased by 9%
High Tariffs = no foreign market
Result of declining demand in agriculture
Overproduction
66% of farms operated at a loss
1923 Agricultural Credits Act
Government policy was to lend money, placing small farmers in debt
Black Americans in 1920’s
85% of black americans lived in the south
1930 - Black farmers made up 14% of small farmers while accounting for less than 10% of population
Black americans who moved to industrial cities in the north faced discrimination in housing and unemployment
Ghettoes - Harlem in New York - black american population grew from 50,000 in 1914 to 165,000 by 1930
KKK
Unequal distributionn of the economic boom
Prosperity concentrated in Industrial North and West of USA
1929 - per capita incomes of north = $921
per capita income of west = $881
per capita income of south-east = $365
1929 survey found that 60% of families had incomes less than 2,000
Unemployment unstable - sociologists found that 72% of families surveyed in 1924 Muncie, Indiana had been unemployed at some stage
1920’s Immigration
1921 Emergency Immigration Law
1924 Johnson-Reed Act
1921 Emergency Immigration Law
Ceiling of immigration from any European country, limiting it to 3% of nationals living in the USA in 1911
Clearly favoured western European countries e.g. Britain, while discriminating New Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe
1924 Johnson-Reed Act
Banned immigration from Japan
Red Scare
Fears of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, concerning the threat of a Communist revolution in the USA
1919 - 4 million workers on strike
Series of assassination attempts on public figures - Palmer
Threats of violent revolutions blamed on ‘new immigrants’ from southern and eastern Europe
‘Palmer Raids’ = 6000 arrested , no evidence against them
December 1919 = USS Buford. nicknamed ‘Soviet Ark’ used to deport to Russia 249 ‘undesirable’ aliens accused of left wing views
1920’s Extent of Communist Support
Commentators greatly exaggerated extent of Communist support - some placing membership as high as 600,000
Many confused industrial action with political radicalsm of Communists
Cynics = Palmer promoting idea of Red Scare to support attempt to run for President
Palmer warned of huge Communist demonstration to take place on 20th May 1920 = Failed to materialise
Saccho and Vanzetti
Accused in 1920 of armed robbery
Professed to be anarchists, little evidence against them
Massive campaign to have them acquited, executed in 1927`
KKK
1921 = 100,000 followers
Edgar Clark + Elizabeth Tyler = Leaders of the Klan + Fundraisers
Exploited membership = Charging recruits $10 to join, Double the amount for robes + selling printing material at a vast profit
1924 Hiram Wesley Evans - Leader
Klan could control politicians + police
1924 = Helped elect governors in Maine, Ohio, Colarado and Lousiana
Klan had little influence in big cities
Klan maintained national profile = 13 September 1926 over 50,000 marched through Washington DC
Stimulated the migration of black Americans north to industrial cities
Collapse of KKK - corruption -
Revelations of financial corruption by Klan leaders in Pennsylvania
Klan - scandal - charismatic leader David Stevenson of Indiana accused of 2nd degree murder following suicide of lady he was alleged to have raped
1924 = 4 million members
1929 = 20,000 members
Women - Politics - 1920’s
Limited political opportunities
19th Amendment of 1920 gave right to vote for women
1928 = Only 2/435 delegates in House of Representatives were female
1928 = NO female senators
Women - Employment - 1920’s
Small numbers of women found success in film industry + fashion
Plentiful employment as typists or clerical work in offices
Rare for women to move up to managerial positions
1930 = omly 150 women doctors + less than 100 female accountants in USA
Vast majority of women in low paid employment - e.g. shop work, clerical, domestic service
Received less pay
Women’s Issues - 1920’s
Increasingly concerned with issues of birth control + healthcare
American Birth Control League - government and conservative voices unsympathetic
1921 Sheppard-Towner Act = Gave states federal aid to develop healthacre for pregnant women
Simply reinforced role of women as child bearers and detracted from the need for birth control
Flappers - 1920’s
Hedonistic lifestyle
Many shocked by women attending public places unchaperoned, dancing, smoking and flaunting Prohibition
Liberated social behaviour did not provide more career opportunities or equal treatment
Traditional Views of Women - 1920s
Women remained traditional in views
1929 Muncie survey, 898% of girls would like a job but would leave the job after marriage
Education for girls = remained focused on domestic skills
Prohibition
1918 = 18th Amendment banned the sale, transportation and manufacture of alcohol in order to end consumption of alcoholkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
Reasons for Prohibition
Women’s Groups argued that alcohol consumption was a means by which men oppressed women e.g. Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
Big business owners claimed drunkenness caused danger + inefficieny in workplace
Religious groups believed that alcohol was a cause of immoral behaviour
Why prohibition failed
Impossible to police the 18,700 miles of US coastline = easy to smuggle in alcohol
Bootleggers
Treasury Agents charged with enforcement of Prohibition were poorly resourced + paid
Less than 5% of illegal alcohol intercepted
Profits from illegal alcohol was $2 billion a year
Prohibition - Crime
Huge rise in growth of organised crime + gangsterism
Mobsters controlled territory by force + established monopolies of alcohol in areas
Disputes led to gang wars
Chicago - notorious - crime
Al Capone = leading gangsters in Chicago
He inisisted he did not force anyone to drink alcohol + was only meeting demand
Dealt with competitors ruthlessly
1929 St Valentine’s Day Massacre = members of rival gang killed
Al Capone’s 700 strong gang responsible for 300 murders in Chicago alone
Capone jailed in 1932 = his gang had done $70 milluon worth of business
Success of Prohibition
More successful in rural and small town areas = wide support
Many areas remained ‘dry’
Credited for;
Fall in number of road deaths as a result of drunken driving
Fall in numbers of convictions for convictions for drunken behaviour
Improvements of safety in workplace
Failure of Prohibition
Criminalised millions of people
Some saw it as attack on working class consumption of alcohol
Mainly working class saloons that were shut down
Organised crime
End of Prohibition
1929 Wickersham Committee to investigate the effectiveness of Prohibition, acknowledged it couldn’t be enforced, despite taking 66% of law enforcement budget
President Roosevelt abolished Prohibition in 1933
20th Amendment made it responsibility of states to decide prohibition
Jazz Age 1920’s
Jazz - defining music of US cities in 1920’s
Rooted in black American musical traditions
Jazz mainstream
Louis Armstrong provided rhythms for new dance crazes - Charleston + Black Bottom
Harlem Renaissance
1920’s Harlem = predominantly black neighbourhood
Overcrowding, poor living conditions + crime
Night Clubs = Cotton Club
Artists = Louis Armstrong + Duke Ellington
White Clientele
Centre of black intellectuals;
Jessie Fauset = writer, editor and campaigner for black empowerment
Alain Locke + Langston Hughes = Challenged racial stereotypes through poetry
Zora Neale Hurston = novelist + anthropologist
James Weldon Johnson = black american poet first promoted Harlem Renaissance in 1925 essay ‘The Making of Harlem’
Essay published success stories = ‘Pigfoot Mary’ made a fortune selling fast food on street corners
Other black americans = ‘White tourism’ = animals in a zoo
New Negro
New Negro Movement associated with Harlem Renaissance
Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Society = separatism + migration to Africa
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) opposed by separatism
American Literature 1920’s
Ernes Hemingway + F Scott Fitzgerald at height of influence
Disillusioned with US society, believing it to be more materialistic and too focused on economic growth
The Sun Also Rises + The Great Gatsby
Radio - 1920’s
1922 = 500 local stations
1926 = 1st national network set up = NBC
1927 = 50 million people listened to boxing match between heeavyweights Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey
1923-1929 = Radio sales grew from $60 million to $842 million
Amos n Andy = audience rising to 40 million
Cinema - 1920’s
Charlie Chaplin + Mary Pickford
Hollywood = 4th largest industry - in terms of capitalist investment + employed mroe people than either Ford ir General Motors
In any one day, more than 10 million people watching films at 20,000 cinemas
Moral Corruption over Hollywood = Scandals among stars such as accusations of severe sexual misconduct against the comic actor Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arkbuckle in 1926
Will Hays - censoring - to ensure film content remained ‘clean’ and ‘wholesome’
Sport - 1920’s
Age of mass spectator sport
Boxer Jack Dempsey made $10 million over the course of his career
Baseball Bath Ruth = $800,000 just from playing
Baseball was particularly popular due to emergence of talented players - Babe Ruth + Lou Gehrig
Baseball was severly segregated
1920 Negro National Baseball League = High point of the season, East-West All-star game attracted crowds of over 30,000
Black American Leagues = among most profitable black-American owned businesses
