depth study: the USA (1919-1945)

Question 1

On what factors was the economic boom based?(8)

Answer 1

-Resources
-Impact of the First World War
-Technological change
-Mass-production
-Mass-marketing
-Credit
-Confidence
-The policies of the Republican Presidents

Question 2

Resources:

Answer 2

-US had a great store of natural resources: wood, iron, coal, minerals, oil and land
-helped America to become a great industrial power by the beginning of the 20th century + provided a sound basis for further expansion in the 1920s

Question 3

Impact of First World War:

Answer 3

-US had come out the war well, it had supplied Europe with many goods during the war + had taken over European overseas markets
-in some areas, US industry was now the world leader, e.g: chemicals
-there was hastened technological change which US industry seized on

Question 4

Technological change:

Answer 4

-plastics like Bakelite were developed effectively for the first time and were used in new household products
-automatic swicthboards, glass tubing, conveyor belts, and concrete mixers
-helped modernise existing industries + develop new ones
-the most important change was the introducing of electricity
-electricity provided a cheaper, more efficient source of power for factories + led the production of new consumer goods such as refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and radios

Question 5

Mass-production:

Answer 5

-new technique meant that goods could be produced much more cheaply on a large scale
-Henry Ford had developed mass-production in the car industry by introducing an assembly line before the war
-he made cars so cheaply that thousands of ordinary Americans could afford them
-in the 1920s, his ideas were applied throughout industry, particularly to the new consumers products

Question 6

Mass-marketing:

Answer 6

-mass-produced good have to be sold to a mass market: if enough people do not know about or buy the goods, the system will collapse
-so companies spent huge amounts on advertising
-this new industry developed sophisticated techniques to persuade people to buy
-the expansion of the mail-order companies gave consumers in the countryside access to the wide range of goods on offer

Question 7

Credit:

Answer 7

-the growth of credit made it much easier for people to buy goods even though they did not have enough cash to pay for them on the spot
-firms arranged for customers to pay by instalment or hire purchase

Question 8

Confidence:

Answer 8

-confidence amongst americans was sky high
-this meant confidence to buy goods, invest in companies, and to try out new ideas
-confidence is a vital ingredient in any economic boom

Question 9

The republican policies:

Answer 9

republican pro-business policies encouraged the boom:
-they lowered taxes on income and company profts, giving the wealthy more money to invest in American industry and buildings, and people more money to spend on american goods
-they put tariffs on imported goods, this made imports more expensive compared with american-made goods and thereby helped american producers
-laissez faire -> they didn’t interfere in buisness or put any controls on financial institutions
-rugged individualism, with Republicans resisting the call to intervene too much in society’s problems.

Question 10

New industries:

Answer 10

-these were industries that could use electricity and often produced the new consumer goods such as radios, cookers…
-the assembly line was adapted for use in all of the new industries and reduced costs
-most products were labour-saving deviced which made life easier, they sold very well

Question 11

Declining industries:

Answer 11

-cotton:polyester taking over
-coal: oil, gas and electricity taking over, mines closing, 600 000 miners on strike (1922)
-overproducction
-prices dropped, wages fell

Question 12

Why did agriculture not share in the prosperity?

Answer 12

-Farming did not do well in the 1920s. US agriculture had expanded during the First World War to send food to Europe, but afterwards countries returned to growing their own again
-Foreigners could not buy US food because the high tariffs meant that they did not have dollars to spend
-There was also competition from Canada. Prohibition hit the production of barley
-US famers were over-producing food, and prices got very low

Question 13

Did all Americans benefit from the boom?

Answer 13

YES
W hite
A nglo
S axon
P rotestants
NO
- Black Americans + Farmers + Industry workers + complications in the South

Question 14

Black Americans:

Answer 14

-3/4 of US black population lived in the South, where they sufferes from racism in all its forms
-although they had been freed from slavery, they were still desperately poor, especially the sharecroppers, who were exploited by white landowners
-many lived in wodden shacks with no amenities. They had seperate cinemas, restaurants, buses and parks
-During the first ww, many black americans had moved to the industrial cities of the north to find work, but when the war ended, they faced hostility + even race riots

Question 15

Industrial workers:

Answer 15

-although profits rose by 80%, wages rose only by 8%. Recent immigrants got the worst jobs: casual work, on low pay
-wages were low in old indutries facing world competition, like coal and textiles. Mechanisation often replaced workers, especially skilled workers
-there were up to 2,000,000 unemployed throughout the 1920s
-trade unions were able to make little impact, henry Ford would not allow trade unions in his car factories which meant that workers could do little to improve their conditions

Question 16

The South:

Answer 16

-the worst conditions for all, Black Americans, white farm labourers, were in the South, where the main industry was farming
-few farms had electricity or running water and wages were very low
-most farms in the south were dependent upon one crop, such as cotton. In the 1920s the price of cotton crashed, as man-made fibres became available
-also suffered more and more dust storms, which blew away the topsoil and destroyed agricultural land
-in some parts, farm labours were only earning 1/3 of the wage of industrial workers

Question 17

What were the roaring twenties?

Answer 17

-as prices fell, people had more money to spend on enjoying themselves
-for many, the ‘Roaring Twenties’ were a time of fun, parties, prosperity, jazz music and frantic dancing, also called the ‘The Jazz Age’
-new dances and music were all the rage, the ‘Charleston’, the ‘Black Bottom’ and jazz
-jazz evolved black music and became the only way Black Americans could be successful in America
-jazz clubs were especially popular during prohibition, but the biggest craze of all was the cinema

Question 18

the movies:

Answer 18

-the 1920s, was the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, movie companies were founded and the first real fim-stars emerged
-nearly 100,000,000 tickets were sold for movies each week, this was a real sign of prosperity
-it could open up whole new worlds for just a few cents, in 1927 the first talkie was produced, ‘The Jazz Singer’
-there were concerns that the cinema might lead to immorality, and in love scenes in a bedroom, actors always had to keep one foot on the floor
-rules were brought in to cover what could and could not be shown on screen

Question 19

sport:

Answer 19

-baseball, boxing and gold all became very popular and the first great sporting heroes emerged
-this was yet another sign of the new prosperity that many Americans were enjoying; they could afford to attend sporting events regularly

Question 20

radio:

Answer 20

-during the 1920s, sales of radios rose rapidly. At the same time sales of gramophone records fell
-new radio stations opened almost every week, many of them playing music almost non-stop
-radio was widely used for advertising and helped to fuel the economic boom of the 1920s. Yhe US gov. made no attempt to regulate radio advertising

Question 21

Why was prohibition introduced and then repealed?

Answer 21

-it was introduced by the Volstead Act, which became the 18th amendment to the US Constitution
-this banned the production, transporting and sale of acoholic liquor. It did not however, ban its consumption
-many small town and women’s organisations campaigned against alcohol, politiciand agreed with their votes
-the blamed acohol for breaking up families, causing unemployment, ill health and suffering of women and children
-brewing in the USA was traditionally run by German immigrants, campaigners claimed that it would be patriotic to close down their industry

Question 22

What effects did prohibition have?

Answer 22

-speakeasies: illegal bars, moonshine or hooch: illegally made alcohol, bootlegging: smuggling alcohol into the US from Canada
-it made ordinary people into criminals, pocile were reluctant to enforce the law, and were open to bribes
-the gangsters stepped in to supply the demand. The made a fortune- Al Capone is supposed to have made $100,000 a year
-they also fought to control the business + encouraged an atmosphere of lawlessness and direspect for the law
-led to a big increase in prostitution, drugs, protection rackets and gambling

Question 23

Why was prohibition repealed in 1933?

Answer 23

-it was clearly not working, some states repealed their own legislation which meant that the local police would take no action
-the depression meant that there was less money to spare to catch smugglers, and other important priorities
-Roosevelt, who became president in 1933, personally dissaproved of prohibition

Question 24

How far did the roles of women change during the 1920s?

Answer 24

-some young, well-off women, much to the disgust of older generations became ‘flappers’
-dressed flamboyantly and behaved extravagantly and were encourgaed by the Jazz Age
-were now accepeted as fully qualified doctors and lawyers, but did not enjoy quality in wages and working conditions
-had campaigned successfully for the vote in several states where they outnumbered men
-in 1920, 47.3% of college students were women

Question 25

why were the achievement of women limited?

Answer 25

-medical school allocated only 5% of their places to women and the number of women doctors declined over the period
-women were not generally interested in politics
-american women had different views of their role in society. There was still a strong belieg that their domestic role was of the greatest importance
-women who had worked during the first world war were content to return to the domestic scene after 1918

Question 26

How widespread was racial intolerence in US society:

Answer 26

-‘Jim Crow’ laws existed in many southern states. These prevented black Americans from exercising their legal rights
-literacy tests before somebody could vote made it very difficult for black Americans to live in ‘white’ areas
-were forced to attend seperate and often much poorer schools
-public buildings, transport, restaurants and many other places were segregated
-used seperate park benches, water fountains and bathrooms
-worst of all, they could be ‘lyched’ and very often nothing was done about it, lynchings averaged more thant 50 a years in the 1920s

Question 27

The Red Scare:

Answer 27

-Fear of communism
Due to:
Propaganda
Bolshevik Revolution
Strikes (3600 strikes in 1919)
Bombs
The Palmer Raids:
-industrial workers were under suspicion of leading a communist plot of strikes
-4000 - 6000 arrested under suspicion of being communists
-556 deported

Question 28

What effects did the changing of policies have?

Answer 28

-anyone with left wing ideas became a suspect, trade unions were harassed; membership fell in the 1920s
-Henry Ford refused to allow his employees to join a trade union
-Socialists were harassed, Sacco and Venzetti, two Italian Anarchists, were accused of robber and murder in 1920
-their trial was a farce because the judge was obviously biased
-the case dragged for 7 years before the two were executed in 1927, even though somebody else actually confessed to the murders
-they were scapegoats for the fear and hatred felt by many Americans

Question 29

The Ku Klux Klan:

Answer 29

-was a secret organisation set up in the south of the USA in the 1860s
-in 1915, the KKK was reformed by William Simmons a clergyman. By the 1920s there were 5,000,000 members of the KKK
-worked on the fears of some Americans at the increase of immigration to the USA in the years after the First World War
-used violent methods of dealing with its opponents, thousands of blacks were shipped, branded or hanged without trial (lynching)

Question 30

What happened to the KKK?

Answer 30

-for a while, they were very powerful, attacked Blacks, Jews, Catholics and anyone who was not fully American (aliens)
-True Americans were WASPs
-1925: a leading member of the KKK, David Stephenson, was convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of a young woman
-he was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison 31 years later
-within a year, the KKK membership fell from 5,000,000 to 300,000

Question 31

The Black Renaissance:

Answer 31

-black culture and pride flourished in the cities, Harlem (NY) became the centre of these
-talented black artists and writers collected there
-their work expressed the social and economic grievances of blacks and made whites aware of the ‘black experience’ of rootlessness and alienation
-black theatre attracted big audiences and black perfominf artists- comedians, singer and dances like Josephine Barker-were successful in musical shows, clubs and black revues.
-music, whether jazz, or blues, became the most influential art forms of the 20th century

Question 32

NAACP:

Answer 32

-led by W.E.B DuBois, it was dedicated to ‘equal rights and opportunities for all.’
-it grew rapidlyin stregnth and support, with nearly 90,000 members
-it was determined to challenge white supremacy, end of the segregation laws and make blacks aware of their civil rights, including the right to vote
-DuBois was also the father of the pan-african movement, recognising cultural links between black people in Africa and the USA
-it carried out investigations which revealed the extent of lynching and proved that it was unjustified and sadistic
-it failed to get a law against lynching passed but caused public outcry and the number fell dramatically

Question 33

UNIA:

Answer 33

-founded by Marcus Garvey, he said that blacks should have pride in their colours, culture and history
-he blamed their problems on white racism and offered disillusioned black hope of a better future
-wanted to establish close contacts with Africa, and introduced a repatriation ‘back to Africa’ movement where he ecnouraged black to return to their original homeland to help develop it and escape white racism
-set up the Black Star steamship line where he pressed the League of Nations to hand over former colonies to a new African republic where he would be president
-1925 Garvey was arrested on fraud charges, and later deported to Jamaica

Question 34

The ‘Monkey Trial’:

Answer 34

-in some states it was illegal to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, this led to the ‘Monkey Trial’ in Dayton Tennessee in 1925
-a schoolteacher (John Scopes) was prosecuted for teaching the evolution in a biology lesson, which was illegal in Tennessee
-the case became famous all over the world and although the teacher was found guilty, the outcome was generally regarded as a vicotry for Darrow (criminal lawyer) and the modernists, and a blow to the fundamentalists (W. Jennings Bryan) who were trying to censor what was taught in schools
-the decision was overtuned on appeal by the Tennessee Supreme Court the following year