study - Implications of growing urbanisation and industrialisation and groups - African Americans and tensions - Ethan and William Flashcards
Growth of urbanisation + industrialisation
urbanisation - movement of people (focus
- populate the northern cities)
Domestic markets grew as the US opened up with rail construction and increasing living standards.
Steamships open up foreign markets
The expansion of industry required labour, attracting both immigrants and farmers who had been forced off their land
Implication of growing industrialisation on employment of workers (group)
Ford pioneered moving assembly line to make cars affordable for middle class:
1925 - price had fallen to $290
overall car production
8 million (1920)
23 million (1929)
(1922-1926) with 48% increase in workers.
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Extra
Estimate industry employed 10% of all manufacturing employees by 1929
Wealth disparities amongst the people and the banks were a result of the growing industrialisation of the 1920s. Expand.
1% of nation’s banks controlled 50% of financial resources
40% of Americans estimated to live in poverty (esp. African Americans)
Corporate net profits up 76%, stockholder dividends 108%
How many black southerners migrated to the Northern and western cities between 1915 and 1928 as a result of industrialisation?
urbanisation - movement of people (focus
- populate the northern cities)
urbanisation –> racial riots
- 1.2 million black southerners
(industrialisation) in the north - pursuance of economic opportunities
Also to escape racial violence, pursue educational opportunities, and obtain freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow.
- Rents in Harlem double between 1919-27, but density approaches 336 people/ acre and destitute population 42% higher than rest of New York.
- Black men: mostly menial jobs. Only 2% of whitecollar jobs
- Michael Kurtz: Hiring prejudice: black men face joblessness. Black residents in higher rates of divorce, prostitution, gambling, addiction
Infrastructure
1920: 1% roads fit for cars.
Federal Highway Act (1921). By 1929, highway constructed at 10,000 miles/ yr.
Snowman: allowed middle-class Americans to move from overcrowded cities + rural areas -> suburbs.
Ownership of automobile to some “more important than ownership of a bathtub and adequate food”
1.9 mil trucks 1919
3.5 million trucks by 1929
Impact of growing industrialisation and urbanisation on Women
only 150 women dentists by 1930 - minimal
however, women felt mounting pressure to work as their husbands deserted in search of work or divorced otherwise.
Farmers
Over 1920s: wheat- $2.5 -> $1/ bushels (Prohibition = less grain for alcohol’ mechanisation = oversupply.) 66% farmers operated at loss.
Proposed: McNary-Haugen Bill 1924- buy farmers’ produce at 1914 price and sell overseas. Cool Vetoed, bc bureaucratic, might damage other countries’ agric.
Agricultural businesses grow: large-scale, mechanised, long-term profit. Small-scale farmers bankrupt.
As a result of the depression, farmers were payed money across both the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations.
Workers
Helen & Robert Lynd’s 1924 survey of Muncie, IN: Of 165 working-class families interviewed, 43% lost more than a month of work in the first 9 months of 1924.
What was the reaction/tension between black and White Americans?
Racial implications
- White neighbourhood associations use restrictive covenants to prevent property holders from selling to black people
Conflict
300 white marines and sailor attack African American men and women - causing backlash by the black community.
Ossian Sweet - conflict
Tulsa riots - mass murder
They also faced another kind of white resistance: a fire ordinance intended to prevent Black property owners from rebuilding on their own and insurance companies that refused to pay damage claims.
para
urbanisation: (movement of Black Americans to Northern states) brought black Americans into direct competition with white Americans for housing, jobs, schooling and lifestyle, which historian Briggs identifies as the main cause of racial riots in America during the 1920s.
Racial tensions within America are attributed to the inability of white Americans to deal with the rapidly changing social and economic environment of America’s northern states which became increasingly populated by Black Americans.
The influx of black Americans into white occupations furthered social tensions within society as they worked as strikebreakers whereby black Americans took over jobs whilst white employees went on strike for better working conditions, enabling power to reside in the industrialists. This however resulted in the association of black Americans with the power of industrialists which increased tensions between African Americans and white strikers, where economic competition over pay and work among the lower classes contributed to growing racial tensions of the 1920s - (Briggs 2003).
societal reluctance to accept the prominence of black Americans in Northern white cities. For example, in 1925, Ossian Sweet, a black american was targeted by racially targeted violence against his home along with the 20 race riots across America in 1919 which resulted in the death of 75 black and white Americans and the infamous Tulsa riots in 1921.
Therefore, racial tensions are attributed to the changing social and economic conditions of America, the attempts of White Americans to control black Americans and the consequential reluctance of black Americans to give into white supremacy.
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Deep racial divides within society manifested into racial tensions between black and white Americans. Specifically, policies of segregation under the Jim crow laws and other dividing policies, such as the restriction on sufferage (right to vote), tenant farming and lynchings heightened racism and thus racial tensions in America - (Briggs 2003). Other racially dividing issues were the KKK which was effective in promoting white supremacy, recruiting 4.5 million members by 1925, as well as
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Extra
This, in combination to underlying racially targeted policy that denied African Americans access to trams led to African Americans to attack tram drivers and conductors.
Clearly the perpetuation of racism, the media and policy, which later lead to violence, account for the reasons for racial tensions in America.
bombing the church in which the black Americans used to discuss working conditions. In retaliation, black Americans shot a white rioter. Consequently white Americans killed 200 African Americans and sentenced 12 to death.
Industrialists used black Americans to replace striking workers during the Great Migration. This however resulted in the association of black Americans with the power of industrialists which increased tensions between African Americans and white strikers. Economic competition over pay and work among the lower classes contributed to growing racial tensions of the 1920s.
