The New Era: 1920s Flashcards
The 1920s was the Jazz Age, a mix of the Lost Generation with those who perceived a bright new future of American prosperity. This deck describes the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover Administrations, evolving American standards of morality, and the cultural influences of the 1920s.
What is assembly line production?
Assembly line production was a method adopted by Henry Ford and other industrialists to streamline production.
Workers stood in a single spot and performed the same task repetitively. Assembly line production greatly increased the speed of production, and consequently lowered the cost of the goods produced.
_____ _____ _____ was an American mechanical engineer who applied science to business practices.
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Henry Ford and others adopted Taylor’s suggestions in order to achieve improved efficiency on the factory floor.
In 1920, only 34.7% of households had electricity, but by 1930, 67.9% had electric access. How did the growth in access to electricity spur consumer demand?
Many of the new products coming off the assembly lines such as washing machines, refrigerators, and vacuums were powered by electricity. Access to electricity meant that consumers bought these products in large quantities.
In urban areas, increased access to electricity was even more dramatic; 84.8% of urban residences had access to electricity by 1930.
Increased access to electricity during the 1920s required sources of power and led to increased growth and development in what related area?
During the 1920s, oil development experienced an exponential increase. Although many homes continued to be heated with coal, electricity from oil powered the factories, and gasoline powered the increased number of automobiles.
Much of the oil came from the United States, which produced more oil than the rest of the world combined during the 1920s.
Define:
installment plan
An installment plan is a system of credit, whereby a good is purchased for a fixed amount of payments spread over an extended period.
Many of the new products being manufactured in the 1920s were purchased on installment plans.
What segment of the American economy failed to prosper during the economic boom of the 1920s?
Farming
Farm prices and the value of agricultural goods had plummeted at the end of World War I, and continued to be depressed throughout the 1920s (and into the 1930s). Farmers had difficulties paying back their loans, and over 6,000 rural banks closed during the period.
Define:
open shop
An open shop is a labor system in which jobs are not restricted solely to union members.
Define:
closed shop
In a closed shop system, a factory owner agrees only to employ workers who belong to a union.
What happened to union membership in the 1920s?
Union membership declined. Most factory owners continued to have an open-shop policy. Further, many factories offered workers better wages, benefits, and working conditions than in previous eras, removing the impetus for workers to join unions in the first place.
Anti-union efforts were also favored by the courts, who issued injunctions in the event of strikes, which brought them to an end without negotiations.
What was Republican Warren G. Harding’s slogan during the 1920 presidential campaign?
Harding summed up his campaign in one pithy phrase, advocating a “Return to Normalcy.” Harding’s slogan proved popular among those seeking to end the restrictions and regulations that had governed America during World War I.
The Democratic Party nominated James G. Cox for President and Franklin Roosevelt for Vice President, but failed to gain a single electoral vote outside the South. Harding earned 60% of the popular vote, while Cox only managed 34%.
The 1920s saw three Republican Presidential administrations, and Republican majorities in both the House and Senate. How did most Republicans view business?
In the words of Calvin Coolidge, “the business of America is business.” Republicans adopted pro-business policies and preached limited government intervention in the economy. Income taxes were reduced in the Revenue Act of 1926, and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act raised the costs of imports.
Tax cuts were matched by spending reductions and increased direct aid to the states, lessening the cost of the federal government.
What was the Teapot Dome Scandal?
Between 1922-1923, President Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall accepted bribes to grant oil leases on federal lands at Teapot Dome, Wyoming.
Fall wasn’t the only Harding cabinet official to face corruption charges. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty accepted payments not to prosecute suspected criminals, and Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans Bureau, misused $250 million in federal funds.
What was the Ohio Gang?
The Ohio Gang was a group of politicians from President Warren G. Harding’s home state of Ohio, well-known for crooked political deals over midnight games of poker. Historians debate how much Harding knew of the conduct of the Ohio Gang.
When Calvin Coolidge became President in 1923, the Ohio Gang’s influence ended.
Who was Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette?
Robert La Follette was a Republican politician from Wisconsin, who served as the leader of the Progressive wing of the Republican party after Theodore Roosevelt’s death in 1919. La Follette ran for President in 1924 on the Progressive Party ticket, denouncing the influence of corporations in government. He garnered 17% of the national vote.
How did Calvin Coolidge view the shared roles of government and business?
Coolidge shared Harding’s view that the main role of government was to help business prosper. He kept Harding’s Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, who continued to implement fairly conservative economic policies.
Viewing himself as fiscal steward of the nation, Coolidge vetoed any federal spending bill that he felt could not be afforded.
After President Coolidge declined to run, the Republicans nominated Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover for President in 1928. What did Hoover and the Republicans promise Americans?
The Republican campaign centered upon continued prosperity and economic growth, promising a “chicken in every pot, and an automobile in every garage.”
Many Republicans also took advantage of growing nativist sentiment to castigate Alfred E. Smith, Hoover’s opponent and an Irish Roman Catholic.
In 1928, the Democratic Party nominated Alfred E. Smith for President. What was notable about Smith’s candidacy?
Smith, nicknamed The Happy Warrior by Franklin Roosevelt, was an Irish Roman Catholic, the first Catholic to run for the Presidency on a major party ticket. He was also a wet, committed to ending Prohibition.
Smith lost the 1928 campaign, in part because of anti-Catholic sentiment. Millions of ethnic voters, however, turned out to cast their first ballots for him.
Two topics were the focus of international talks at the Washington Conference in 1921. What were they?
The two main issues of contention were arms reduction and competition in Asia.
Representatives from Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, China, Portugal, the United States, and the Netherlands attended.
The Conference resulted in three treaties: the Five Power Treaty, the Four Power Treaty, and the Nine Power Treaty.
What three treaties resulted from the Washington Conference in 1921?
The three Washington Conference treaties were:
- Nine Power Treaty: guaranteed Chinese territorial integrity and ratified the Open Door Policy
- Four Power Treaty: the United States, France, Britain, and Japan agreed to respect each other’s Pacific possessions
- Five Power Treaty: the United States, France, Britain, Japan, and Italy agreed to limit their total number of battleships
The signatories of the _____-____ Pact of 1928 pledged not to use military force as an aggressive means.
Kellogg-Briand
The signatories of the Pact, including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and dozens of other nations, pledged not to use war to resolve disputes with other nations, and pledged collective action to intervene against aggressor nations.
What was the Dawes Plan?
In the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had agreed to pay reparations, but by the early 1920s was suffering from a severe recession in consequence of the Allies’ occupation of the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s industrial heartland. Under the Dawes Plan, the U.S. government lent money to Germany to pay reparations to Britain and France.
The Dawes Plan would tie most of Western Europe to the fate of the American economy, to significant effect during the Great Depression.
What musical style came to symbolize the youth culture of the 1920s?
Jazz
Jazz came to symbolize the dominant free-flowing spirit of the period, so much so that the 1920s is often called “The Jazz Age.”
With roots in the Southern black experience, jazz became widespread through the use of radios and phonographs.
What was the automobile’s impact on American society during the 1920s?
By 1929, half of all American families had automobiles, and its impact was widespread. Suburbanization rose, as people took advantage of increased mobility to move to more bucolic areas.
As they became more reliable, automobiles became an integral part of the vacation experience, as Americans took their first “road trips.” Even romance changed, as dates in cars replaced courting in the family living room.
Who were Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, and Greta Garbo?
They were movie stars during the 1920s.
During the period, moviegoing became a national trend, backed with lavish theaters, celebrity actors and actresses, and gossip magazines.
