History USA Features Questions

Describe two features of the US economy in the 1920s

• ECONOMIC BOOM due to mass production, manufacturing rose by 40% in the 1920s also caused drop in price for objects and more consumerism

• STOCKS AND SHARES increased popularity in Wall Street, New York. They either used their own money or a method called “buying in the margin” to buy shares in a company. This involved borrowing money from a bank, or broker, to invest in shares. Once they sold the shares, usually at a profit, they could pay back the loan

Describe two features of the economic boom

• HENRY FORD & MASS PRODUCTION: conveyor belt introduced, workers would do one job over again as the car travelled along the belt which increased production time and had a drop in price which caused more cars to be made daily.

  original price: $950

  1925: $290

• ADVERTISING: Listerine popularised the term halitosis for bad breath & radio played a central role in advertising

  618 radio stations

  by 1929, $2 billion was spent on advertising, employing 600k women.

Describe two features of the Leisure Industry in the 1920s

• TELEVISION: Movies grew very popular in the 1920s. In 1924, around 40 million cinema tickets were sold each week. This figure had more than doubled by 1929 because the film industry did everything they could to attract more viewers: They produced films in colour: by 1922, the Technicolor Corporation had come up with a way to produce colour films. They introduced sound: early films were silent and sometimes accompanied by live musicians.

• RADIO: Radio in the 1920s became just as important in people’s homes as television and the internet are today. The number of radios in the USA grew from 60,000 in 1920 to 10 million in 1929. At first, there were hundreds of local stations, but these became part of networks from the late 1920s onwards

Describe two features of the lives of women in the 1920s

• JOBS: Most women had traditionally female jobs, working as secretaries or bookkeepers.  Only 12% of married women had jobs by the end of the 20s. Racial minority women remained in the lowest paid jobs, often as domestic servants 

• RIGHTS: Most women did not use their vote to gain more power by voting as a group, but instead followed their husband's decision. Only two women were in the House of Representatives, part of the centra government, in 1928. Women did not achieve equal pay. In December 1927, the average woman earned around $12 less than a man each week. Women were allowed to own land and had the right to education 

Describe two features of farming in the 20s

• Easy access to CREDIT: the Agricultural Credits Act of 1923 made it easier for farmers to borrow money in order to run and improve their farms.

• MECHANISATION: there were ten times as many tractors in 1920 than there had been in 1915. This speeded up food production and made it possible to farm more land with fewer people

Describe two features of older industries in the 1920s

• COAL MINING: produced fuel to heat homes and power machines, suffered considerably. In 1920, 568 million tonnes of coal had been mined, but this fell to 518 million tonnes in 1930, even though the population grew during this period. This was because oil began to replace coal as a means of heating homes. By 1929, 550,000 homes were heated by oil. Miners also faced competition from electricity and gas as alternative sources of power

• TEXTILES FACTORIES: During the period before the war, the cotton and woollen mills had processed the material needed for clothing Americans. Afterwards, the textiles industry faced a huge drop in the demand for its goods due to changing fashions and competition from silk and the new material, rayon. As a result, textile production began to decline in the mills of New England, the Appalachian regions and the rural South. This was a problem the mill workers shared with the cotton farmers of the southern states of the USA, who struggled to find a market for their crop

Describe two features of attitudes towards immigration in the 1920s

• There was a general suspicion of new immigrants as many were poorly educated. They were blamed for spreading disease and slum housing, as well as rising crime rates, alcoholism and gambling. They were also afraid the immigrants would threaten their WASP way of life.

• Another feature was the EMERGENCY QUOTA ACT, 1921 which limited immigration (357,000 per year) and Chinese people have a quota of 0 

Describe two features of the palmer raids

• SPIES: Palmer set up the Intelligence Division, headed by Hoover which was later known as the FBI where they would join and spy on radical groups and then arrest the members. The raids occurred in 33 cities on any group Palmer thought was radical. This caused 600 radical to be deported

• INCREASED SUPPORT FOR IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS: causing people to believe many immigrants supported radical ideas such as communism.

• Palmer tried to run for president. Palmer claimed there would be many violent communist attacks in May 1920s in order to stir up more fear. By May 1920s, there were no communist attacks, and his reputation was destroyed. The ‘Red Scare’ died out.

Describe two features of the red scare

• FEAR OF COMMUNISM: upper class Americans feared communism as the wealth would be redistributed. The red scare was an outbreak of unrest and anger amongst the working class

• BOMB ATTACKS AND STRIKES: there were 3,600 strikes and a general strike in Seattle with100,000 workers. In April 1919, 40 mail bombs addressed to important politicians were found by the postal service. In June 1919, 8 cities experience bomb attacks including one outside the house of attorney Alexander Palmer, pushing him into action.

Describe two features of the Sacco and Vanzetti Case

• BELIEFS: they both lied to the police about their beliefs but it was later discovered that they were anarchists and connected to the red scare bombings

• SHOWED THE AMERICAN COURT HAD NO SYMPATHY TO IMMIGRANTS: although they had an alibi and the gun didn’t match their DNA, they were executed on an electric chair. This caused a lot of people to show the support of Sacco and Vanzetti as they were Italian immigrants who they believed were wrongfully convicted.

Describe two features of attitudes to black Americans in the South

• KLU KLUX KLAN: a group of white Anglo-Saxon protestants (WASPs) who believed they were a superior race and needed to fight to survive and believed n traditional Christian values and that immigration must stop. Their methods resorted to violence and lynching of black Americans. They would protest and boycott and control education. They were heavily popular in 1923 when they reached 5 million members. However, their popularity heavily declined in 1925 after the Grand Dragon (state leader) David Stephenson was found guilty of murdering and raping a white woman.

• JIM CROW LAWS: the Jim Crow Laws were a set of laws which caused Black Americans to be segregated in churches, hospitals, theatres, schools. This put them in lower positions in society, politics and the economy. The supreme court legalised segregation and believed that black americans were “separate but equal”

Describe two features of the Klu Klux Klan

Describe two features of the Monkey Trial

Describe two features of Prohibition

Describe two features of the Wall Street Crash

Describe two features of the Economic Crisis after 1929

Describe two features of Hoovervilles

Describe two features of Hoovers policy towards the depression

Describe two features of the Election of 1932

Describe two features of the Aims of the New Deal

Describe two features of the first hundred days

Describe two features of the alphabet agencies

Describe two features of the AAA

Describe two features of the NRA

Describe two features of the WPA

Describe two features of help for the poor during the new deal

Describe two features of help for the farmers during the new deal

Describe two features of help for the old and disadvantaged during the new deal

Describe two features of help for workers during the new deal

Describe two features of rural electrification

Describe two features of supreme court challenge to the new deal

Describe two features of Liberty Leagues opposition to the New Deal

Describe two features of Huey Longs opposition to the new deal

Describe two features of Huey Longs opposition to the new deal

Describe two features of father Coughlin’s opposition to the new deal