Limits to 1920s prosperity Flashcards
Where was the wealth concentrated?
Industrial north and far west
% of families living on less than $2000 a year
60%
Causes of drop in demand for agricultural goods
Prohibition: less need for grains to make alcohol
End of WW1 brought a drop in need of goods
Increase use of synthetic fibres instead of cotton
Consequences of drop in demand
Overproduction: Farmers produced the same amount, led to huge wastage and drop in prices - farmers made huge income losses.
How did wheat prices fall?
From $2.5 to $1 per bushel
How did farms get more efficient and why did this cause problems?
Machanisation: More crops could be produced on fewer acres - 13 million acres taken out of production; many lost their jobs cos there was less need for farmers and sharecroppers.
Less need for animals - horses - so less need for animal food to be grown.
Rate of farms forclosed by 1926
17.4 farms per 1000
Agricultural Credits Act - 1923
What did it aim to do?
Small scale farmers going bankrupt.
Act funded 12 credit banks to fund cooperatives - idea that small farms would join together.
This was a loan - small scale farmers couldn’t pay it back - big farms benefitted instead.
Percentage of farmers operating at a loss
66%
What were agricultural businesses?
Mass production/harvesting of one big crop to make a profit.
Big famrs or enterprises would be well financed and produce cereals and fruit on large scales.
Women:
How many women were in high paid skilled careers in the 1920s?
150 dentists
> 100 accountants
> 2% of judges or lawyers
Women:
Limits to female political participation?
- 1920 women got the vote - generally voted in line with their husbands.
- 145 women in state legislatures
- Only 2 women out of 435 in House of Representatives.
Women:
What sorts of jobs did majority of women have?
Low-paid menial jobs - 700,000 domestic servants
Women:
What happened to women’s education?
Those receiving college education fell by 5%
Women:
What was the reality of women’s liberation during the 1920s?
Flappers were seen as fun loving liberal women - but enforced the stereotype that women couldn’t be taken seriously in career or politics.
Many women were expected to give up work when they got married and look after their home and family.
Black Americans:
What % of the US population were black and where did they live?
10% were black
85% lived in the rural deprived south.
Black Americans:
What was northern migration?
Many black Americans moved to North industrial cities for better opportunities.
Black Americans:
Reality of northern migration.
Ghettoisation - Many blacks lived in poor and overcrowded conditions, such as Harlem in New York whose population grew to 165,000 in 1930
Black Americans:
Role of sharecroppers
Farmers allow tenant farmers to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop.
Many black American families after the Civil War (1860s) didn’t have enough wealth to own their own famrs so many became sharecroppers for white farmers.
Many were living close to subsistence during the 1920s
