Limits to 1920s prosperity

Question 1

Where was the wealth concentrated?

Answer 1

Industrial north and far west

Question 2

% of families living on less than $2000 a year

Answer 2

60%

Question 3

Causes of drop in demand for agricultural goods

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Consequences of drop in demand

Answer 4

Overproduction: Farmers produced the same amount, led to huge wastage and drop in prices - farmers made huge income losses.

Question 5

How did wheat prices fall?

Answer 5

From $2.5 to $1 per bushel

Question 6

How did farms get more efficient and why did this cause problems?

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Rate of farms forclosed by 1926

Answer 7

17.4 farms per 1000

Question 8

Agricultural Credits Act - 1923

What did it aim to do?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Percentage of farmers operating at a loss

Answer 9

66%

Question 10

What were agricultural businesses?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Women:

How many women were in high paid skilled careers in the 1920s?

Answer 11

150 dentists
> 100 accountants
> 2% of judges or lawyers

Question 12

Women:

Limits to female political participation?

Answer 12

• 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.

Question 13

Women:

What sorts of jobs did majority of women have?

Answer 13

Low-paid menial jobs - 700,000 domestic servants

Question 14

Women:

What happened to women’s education?

Answer 14

Those receiving college education fell by 5%

Question 15

Women:

What was the reality of women’s liberation during the 1920s?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Black Americans:

What % of the US population were black and where did they live?

Answer 16

10% were black

85% lived in the rural deprived south.

Question 17

Black Americans:

What was northern migration?

Answer 17

Many black Americans moved to North industrial cities for better opportunities.

Question 18

Black Americans:

Reality of northern migration.

Answer 18

Ghettoisation - Many blacks lived in poor and overcrowded conditions, such as Harlem in New York whose population grew to 165,000 in 1930

Question 19

Black Americans:

Role of sharecroppers

Answer 19

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