Two features of... (+1 statistic for each point)

Henry Ford and Mass Production

• Henry Ford’s mass production line forever changed how mass produced goods are produced, by decreasing the time and cost / car. (Workshop - 12 hours/ car, mass production - 90 minutes) (1908 - $950, 1925 - $290)

• Working on a production line caused mental health issues for workers as it was very repetitive and monotonous. This was highlighted by Charlie Chaplin in the film Modern Times which was released in February 1936.

Credit / Hire purchase

• Credit allowed people to purchase items that they did not currently have the money for. They put down an initial down payment (commonly 40% in the ‘20s), then paid the rest back in monthly/weekly installments. This allowed mass consumerism to become possible across the USA.

• There were no credit ratings. This meant that when the Great Depression hit, millions of Americans could not complete their payments, leading to companies losing money, having to lay off workers, and potentially going bust.

Problems in agriculture

• During WW1, there was a high demand for US crops as European farms had been destroyed by war. However by 1920, European agriculture had recovered, leading to a crisis of overproduction as US exports fell. This plummeted prices and left farmers struggling to pay their mortgages.

• Boom in technology → mechanisation → overproduction. Tractors, combine harvesters. Small farms could not afford this technology - fell behind. Large farms overproduced even further → lowered prices.

Cinema

• Majors studios moved to/developed in Hollywood as there was all year round sunshine and surrounded by mountains, deserts, beaches (anywhere needed to film). This lead to massive property development for people involved in the film industry. (Population of LA doubled from 1920 - 1930. 580,000 - 1,200,000).

• The ‘studio system’ and ‘star system’ were developed. The studio system allowed for mass production of films, with a producer appointed to oversee the film production. Everyone involved in making a film in the same place. The ‘Big Five’ studios had their own cinemas, allowing them to charge high ticket prices. The star system tied film stars to specific studios in long term contracts, with studios working to promote the appearance and publicity of individual stars.

Advertising

• Advertising was greatly influenced by the development of radio. The number of radios in the USA grew from 60,000 in 1920 to 10 million in 1929. The majority of radio stations were sponsored by big brands, which put adverts in between broadcasts. In addition to this, the NBC (National Broadcasting Corporation) was set up in 1926, unifying radio stations, meaning people heard the same adverts repeatedly.

• The rise in advertising changed how people spent their free time. Women were encouraged to buy makeup to look like film stars, people were encouraged to take up hobbies such as photography with their new Kodak cameras, or improve their old hobbies, such as brushing your teeth with Colgate toothpaste before going dancing.

Women’s Lifestyle

• In 1918, Women were still expected to do household jobs, behave respectably and follow their husband’s instructions. They were expected to spend their time cooking, cleaning and raising children. If they did leave the house, they were to be accompanied by a male chaperone to ensure they did not engage in behaviours like drinking or smoking.

• However, there was more freedom for women in the 1920s. Divorce rates rose from 10% to around 17%, and the birth rate fell to 21.3 births per 1,000 people. The introduction of new labour saving devices, e.g. washing machines and vaccum cleaners gave women more leisure time.

Women’s dress/appearance

• Flappers. Given this name as the flaps on their galoshes (type of shoe) were not fastened, so could flap freely. Symbolic of their carefree attitude to convention, and defiance of social expectations. As part of this, they worse shorter, more colourful dresses made of the newly invented rayon, and cut their hair into short ‘boyish’ bobs inspired by Clara Bow, who was known as the original ‘It Girl’.

• However, this had its limitations. Flappers were generally only white, middle-class, young, single women in the North of the USA. As some flappers aged, they decided to abandon their freedoms and live a more traditional married life. For any other group of women, they were still expected to wear modest, practical clothing such as long dresses and high collared blouses for work.

The Red Scare

• The ‘Red Scare’ was a fear of communism and Anarchism sparked by the Russian Revolution of 1917. This made the idea of a communist government into a reality as it provided a model that communists in other countries could follow to bring about their own revolution. The government was scared that it would be overthrown and replaced by communist leadership, or no governance at all (Anarchy), whereas middle and upper-class Americans feared it would take away their individual wealth and power.

• The ‘Red Scare’ lead to a fear of immigration and unlawful deportation of radicals. Three policies were put in place in 1921,1924 and 1927 to reduce the amount of immigration from Southern and Eastern European countries, which were believed to hold more communists and anarchists. This was the end of the USA’s previous ‘open door’ policy to immigration. In addition the Red Scare led to the Palmer raids, which involved unfounded arrests of thousands of innocent people, and the deportation of 600 suspected radicals.

The Palmer Raids

• The Palmer Raids were a series of unlawful raids on any group suspected by Attorney General Alexander Palmer and John Edgar Hoover to be radical. After Palmer’s house was bombed in April 1919, he created the General Intelligence division to spy on, secretly join, and arrest members of radical groups. This resulted in the arrest of thousands of people, and the deportation of 600 radicals from the USA. Those who were arrested were kept under terrible conditions including extreme cold, and such strong desperation that one prisoner committed suicide.

• The Palmer raids had long term effects on the attitudes of Americans towards immigration, as Palmer deliberately tried to stir up fear as part of his campaign for presidency. The Palmer raids increased support for restrictions on immigration, as it was believed that immigrants brought radical ideas. The Palmer raids also weakened the trade union movement as some of the members were communists, and had organised the strikes of 1919.

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Deeply unfair trial. From the very beginning, Sacco and Vanzetti were highly unlikely to get a fair trial as they were Italian anarchists, and many Americans were both anti-anarchist and anti-immigrant. In addition to this, they believed that they had been arrested in connection with the 1919 ‘Red Scare’ bombings, so lied to the police about their whereabouts and beliefs, which were quickly uncovered anyway. The evidence against them was very unsubstantial, and despite the USA’s principle of being innocent until proven guilty, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty and sentenced to death by electrocution.

• The unfair trial led some people to challenge the US’s anti-immigration policies. There were workers protest in 60 cities in Italy, as well as in other places worldwide, and a mail bomb was sent to the American embassy in Paris in 1921. The Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was set up on May 9th1920, uniting immigrants and raising $300,000 to defend Sacco and Vanzetti.

The Monkey Trial

• The Monkey Trial was intentionally set up by modernists in the town of Dayton, Tennessee to try and challenge the Butler Act which banned the teaching of evolution in the state of Tennessee. The modernists convinced a high school teacher named John Scopes to intentionally break the law and get arrested, to test if it was enforceable. Although the trial was officially to decide whether or not Scopes broke the law, it became a battle between the defence lawyer (Darrow) and the prosecutor Bryan on whether or not the Butler Act and ideas of fundamentalism should be enforced. The trial ended with Scopes being found guilty of breaking the law, and being fined $100.

• Although the trial, on the surface, achieved little, it did have a greater impact despite the Butler Act remaining in place until 1967. As both Bryan and Darrow were very well known lawyers, the trial attracted national attention and helped the religious debate achieve nationwide discussion. For example, the trial was the first to be reported word-for-word on national radio. It also damaged the reputation of fundamentalism, with Bryan being mocked in many national newspapers.

The KKK

• Revived by William Simmons with new structure and methods of recruitment. Inspired by the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which glorified Klansmen, Simmons restarted the organisation, and implemented new levels of structure to the existing KKK values to enable its rapid spread. Simmons recruited two public relations experts (Clarke and Tyler), who invented new ways to attract new members, such as letting the Kleagles (local group leaders) keep $4 or the $10 joining fee, to incentivise them to recruit more members.

• Held power through important people politically. One of the reasons that the Klan was not shut down by the police or government was that many of the members held important roles politically, such as senators in Texas and Indiana, the governor of Alabama and the mayor of Portland in Oregon, giving them a major influence over the legal system at their height in the md-1920s.

Prohibition

• Prohibition was enforced by the 18th Amendment (1919) and the Volstead Act (1920), following over 40 years of temperance campaigns form groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (1874), and later the Anti-Saloon League (1893). They believed that alcohol damaged society, with a key argument being that it affected family life as it lead to unemployment, domestic violence, and wages being wasted on drinking. It was also believed to be sinful, weakening the economy, and wasting grain for food production during WW1. The 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol, and the Volstead Act set up a system to enforce this.

• Despite this, Prohibition was not widely abided by, and led to gangsters and violence. As the law was not effectively enforced, it gave an opportunity for growth in organised crime, as it was obvious that a lot of money could be made be illegally providing alcohol to ordinary people. For example, one of the most successful gang bosses was Al Capone, who capitalised on Prohibition, earning around $105 million/year at the height of his power. As there were many competing gangs, they went to extremely violent levels to preserve their wealth, with a most notable example being the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929.

Hoovervilles

• Hoovervilles were types of shanty towns set up by collections of people left homeless by the Great Depression. Scrap material accommodation. NYC, Washington DC, St Louis : running water & basic facilities. Named ‘Hoovervilles’ after President Herbet Hoover (they blamed him for their problems)

• The government tried to shut down Hoovervilles, but relented when they realised the homeless had nowhere else to go. One example of this was in Seattle. Jesse Jackson declared himself mayor and took control of 9 acres of land. After previously attempting to burn down the settlement, the city government officially acknowledged the Hooverville in 1932. People with various racial backgrounds. No income. Difficult life, small donations & hope of moving back to the city.

Hoover as the ‘do something’ president

• Voluntarism. As a Republican President, Hoover help a ‘laissez-faire’ belief that government should not interfere in business or economy, and that market forces should fix their own problems. This meant that he relied on voluntary action from people like business leaders, who he advised to not cut wages, but he did not enforce this.

• Hoover implemented a number of policies to attempt to recover from the Great Depression but he, nor any Republican president was willing to do enough. For example, Hoover started the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932 to allow the federal government to loan $300 million to states for relief. However, Hoover set many strict requirements that states had to adhere to in order to borrow the money. As a result of this, only $30 million had been borrowed by the end of 1932.

Roosevelt and the New Deal : Action to help the banks

• Roosevelt’s main strategy in helping the banks was to restore people’s confidence in them. The first way he did this was by passing the Emergency Banking Act, which closed all banks for 4 days. This gave time for the federal government to carry out checks and only reopen financially sound banks. In addition to this, Roosevelt discussed banks in his fireside chat on the 12th of March 1933, and asked Americans to deposit their savings once again.

• This initial measure was successful, and by the end of March 1933, Americans had deposited $1 million back into banks, whereas before Roosevelt’s measures, people were rushing to withdraw savings. After this, Roosevelt aimed to increase people’s confidence by passing a law that insured bank deposits up to $2,500. This meant that if a bank failed, people would get $2,500 back from the Federal government. These two measures helped to tackle the banking crisis and to start the process of recovery.

Alphabet Agencies

• One factor of the Alphabet Agencies is that they aimed to provide immediate relief. This meant short-term support to individuals who had suffered the most from the Great Depression. This included the homeless, people starving, and people made newly unemployed. For example, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which provided $500 million for states to spend on relief as a grant, meaning it did not need to be repaid, unlike Hoover’s loans. This helped unemployed people in the short term with basic needs such as feeding their families.

• Another factor of the Alphabet Agencies is they aimed to help the economy and country recover. This meant medium-term changes to help businesses, factories and farms. One example of this was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which aimed to raise the price of agricultural goods. It offered money to farmers who agreed to limit their production. For example, for each acre of land a farmer kept empty, he earned around $11 for the lost income. As demand stayed the same, but production subsided, the prices were raised.

TVA

• The TVA had three main goals, which were providing work for Southerners, generating hydro-electric power and controlling flooding and improving productivity of the land. It was incredibly successful in these three goals, as the twenty dams being built provided many jobs and generate electricity, which attracted business and therefore created more jobs in the south. In addition to this, the dams controlled flooding, which improved the quality of living and productivity of the land.

• Despite these successes, the TVA faced a lot of opposition, both from Republicans and some farmers. Many Republicans opposed it as they believed that the Federally subsidized electricity from the dam was providing unfair competition with private power companies who had to pay tax to the government. In addition to this, the dams built by the TVA occupied a lot of space, and displaced many farmers who had to abandon their homes and sometimes where their ancestors had been buried.

Second New Deal

• One factor of the Second New Deal was that it aimed to reform the USA. This meant long-term, permanent changes to laws and industries in order to prevent another economic depression ever happening again. For example, Roosevelt helped to make the Social Securities Act law in 1935, as there was previously no national pension or unemployment insurance. The Social Security Act included: a federal pension system which employees and employers paid into, federal unemployment insurance which used employer’s tax to provide unemployment pay for up to 16 weeks at half the usual rate, and federal grants for disadvantaged groups of people.

• A second factor of the Second New Deal was the Wagner Act. This replaced the NIRA which had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1925. The Wagner Act aimed to provide fair conditions for workers by strengthening labour unions and offering federal support to unions. They banned unfair practices such as company unions, or fining workers simply because they were members of unions, and a National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) was set up to supervise union negotiations, defend union workers who had been fired, and help unions gain recognition from employers.

Liberty League

• The Liberty League was founded in 1934 by both Republican and Democrat conservatives such as James Wadsworth and Al Smith respectively, who joined with rich businessmen such as the du Pont brothers to oppose the New Deal. They believed that it was anti-business and threatened the power of individual states. They organised dinners, broadcast messages and distributed leaflets spreading their view, demonstrating how ready some people were to spend money to weaken the New Deal.

• Despite the effort, and the $1 million spent by the American Liberty League, they achieved little success. They struggled to recruit; only 150,000 people joined the league, which was a tiny percentage of the voting population. In addition to this, it was very unpopular, with the Republicans asking them not to get involved in the 1936 election as they believed that it would damage their campagne. The final reason that the Liberty League was unsuccessfulw as that the Supreme Court changed it’s attitude and began to support the New Deal after 1937.

Huey Long

• Huey Long was a radical left-wing politician who believed that Roosevelt and the New Deal were not doing enough to help people. Although he originally supported Roosevelt, he began to distance himself throughout the First New Deal as he had his own presidential ambitions. As the governor of Louisiana, he heavily taxed wealthy people and big businesses, and used the money to provide social services and reforms to help people in Louisiana. For example, he set up adult reading and writing programmes, and gave free textbooks to children.

• In addition to this, Huey Long proposed the Share Our Wealth programme as an alternative to the New Deal. One of his main objections to the New Deal was that the Social Security Act did not reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. In early 1934, he set up the Share Our Wealth programme, which involved heavy tax on the wealthy, taking away all their annual income and giving it to the poor, who were supposed to get a minimum income of $2,500 per year. Although there were not enough wealthy Americans to support this plan, Long’s programme still managed to obtain around 8 million American supporters.

Father Coughlin

• Father Coughlin was a Roman Catholic priest from near Detroit, who had a radio show where he delivered weekly sermons called The Golden Hour of the Little Flower on a major radio network, giving him around 30 million listeners across the country. This meant that his opinion was very important to politicians. Coughlin believed that the sole cause of the Great Depression was Wall Street financiers and international bankers. As the New Deal was influenced by them, he believed that it was therefore ineffective. He also held the belief that Roosevelt was being manipulated by communists to achieve their aims through the New Deal.

• Because he disagreed with the New Deal, Coughlin teamed up with Gerald Smith from Share Our Wealth, and Francis Townsend from Old Age Revolving Pensions, Ltd and together formed the National Union Party. They promoted William Lemke for president in 1936, but he only achieved 828,000 compared to Roosevelt’s 27.8 million.

The Supreme Court’s opposition

• The Supreme Court was unable to express a view on the New Deal until a business of individual decided to appeal on a specific agency or act. One famous example of this was the ‘sick chicken’ case, where the Schechter brothers of the Schechter Poultry Corp. claimed that the federal government and NRA had no power over trade within a state, which the Supreme Court agreed to, effectively shutting down the NRA.

• As Roosevelt was upset by this, he attempted a new method known as ‘court packing’. In 1937, he asked Congress for the power to appoint a new judge for every existing Supreme Court judge over the age of 70. As the average age of the judges was 71, he hoped to be able to immediately replace 6 of the judges with those who supported the New Deal. However, he faced severe opposition as the Supreme Court judges were furious, and people, including Congress, started to believe that Roosevelt would do anything to get his policies across.