iGCSE History - USA 1918-1941

standardisation

Using uniform resources and activities or producing a uniform product
- Ford able to sell cars cheaply (one colour and one engine size available)
- cut production costs
- cut production costs

hire punchase

customers signed agreement and put down loans on product and would pay it back in sums of money over time. When full amount was paid, product would be owned by customer.
-set up by Alfred Sloan
- helped ppl save money
- 75% of cars bought w HP
- helped economy - encouraged ppl to keep going

shareholder (stock market)

a person that invests money in a corporation in exchange for a 'share' of the organisation

advertising

- colourful billboards
- catalogues (goods sold in catalogues were delivered to your door - large colourful pages)
- radios (1929 - 681 radio stations)
- colourful pages in newspaper
- employment - 1929: 600000 people in industry
- 'buy now pay later'

leisure industry

- cinemas (silent films + The Jazz Singer 1927)
- painting
- music
- dancing (the Charleston + dance marathons - also known as 'Death Dance')
- sports (American football, boxing, golf, baseball - Babe Ruth , car racing)

how much did Charlie Chaplin earn?

$10,000 a week

music in the leisure industry

- cotton club in Harlem NY
- dancing

The Jazz Singer - 1927

- first movie with sound
- 2 minutes of speaking
- 5 songs
- 1st line was 'wait a minute, wait a minute'

women's fashion

- bold colours, sharp lines
- hair cut shorter
- were more daring in their dress
- cosmetics worn for the first time
- 'flappers'

women - flappers

young women in the 1920's - they did not depend on men to support them
- helped change western attitude to women
- wore silk stocking and shirt dresses : did not wear traditional layers of underclothes and corsets
- cut hair short in bob
- wore makeup and many smoked and drank
- most workers alongside men
- wine to racecourses, boxing matches + clubs

isolationism drive

'Keep America, America' - passed laws to cut immigration

national origins act : 1924

- 357000 to 164000 immigrants a year (in 1929 further reduced to 15000)
- 3% to 2% of people sent from each country
- mainly aimed at southern and eastern european countries

who were sacco and vanzetti

Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti - Italian immigrants (were anarchists - accused of link to 1919 'Red Scare' bombings

USA after WW1 - socially

- Jazz Age
- benefit of prosperity + higher living standard
- diverse community - yet still had racial tension (divided + unequal)
- reemergence of the KKK
- higher standard if living due to stability

USA after WW1 - economically

- most powerful nation in the world (1920)
- new deal (FDR)
- bankers investing in Europe (made more money when economy recovered in 1920's)
- gave failing Europe economies needed supplies

USA after WW1 - industrially

- most powerful nation in the world (1920)
- leading producer of coal and steel
- 70% of world's oil produced and consumed

isolationism

A policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations

Ford and Henry Ford

- Ford car factory
- in Detroit
- model T car

mass production

production of goods in large numbers through the use of machinery and assembly lines
- lead to increase in car sales
- could make car in 1h 30mins

assembly line

In a factory, an arrangement where a product is moved from worker to worker, with each person performing a single task in the making of the product.
- Ford saw the efficiency of assembly lines from meat packing + slaughter houses
- Ford used and electric conveyor belt to carry the partly assembled car to the workers
- saved time - tools + equipment brought to the workers
- disadvantage : boring

what was the mane of the car made by Ford and Henry Ford?

Model T

Where was the Ford Factory

Detroit

Ford Factory - workforce

- had high turnover of staff - found assembly line boring + monotonous
- 1914 - decided to double wages to $5 a day (attracted workers)
- reduced working day to 3 - 8 hour shifts

Model T Price

1914 : $850
1926 : $295
- price brought down to make more affordable
- resulted in 20% in workers wages as production sales increased

growth in car industry

1920, 1.9 million cars produced
1929 - 4.5 million
biggest industry in USA at the time

What other industries were positively affected by the car industry and how many Jon's did it provide?

roads, oil, diners, motels, gas stations, steel, glass, rubber, leather - provided jobs for 5 million

consumerism

promotion of the interests of consumers
- @ the time - ppl interested in buying : radios, cars, fridges, washing machines, phones
- interest grew as : ppl had money from wages rising (avg 8%) + homes connected to electricity
- 1929 : 1395 diff department stores
- fridges : 1921 - 5000 sold -> 1929 : 1 million sold
- $850 million spent on radio equipment

stock market

- 1.5 millions Americans involved
- shareholders
- 1925 : 500,000 shared available to buy on stock market
- 1929 : 1395 department stores sales increased

what does the term 'buy now pay later' mean?

credit agreements- form of borrowing
- don't pay any interest or charges on amount you've borrowed if you keep to repayment agreement (HP)

emergent quota act : 1921

- immigration numbers dropped to 357000 a year
- each country could send 3% of people
- mainly aimed at western European countries
- gave advantage to group who had been in US for a longer period of time (larger numbers + well established)

the red scare

americans scared russians and communists would try to overthrow and make america communist
- 150000 communists in US blamed for strikes in 1919 and bomb at Attorney General Mitchell-Palmer's house
- many americans thought this was part of communist plot
- 10000 people arrested and held without trial

Sacco and Vanzetti Case

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants charged with murdering a guard and robbing a shoe factory. Convicted on circumstantial evidence; many believed they had been framed for the crime because of their anarchist activities.

factors of economic boom

- consumerism
- hire purchase
- stock market
- advertising

phrase associated with USA's popularity

'American Dream'

cinema

- early films were silent and had accompanied live music
- 1924 : 40 millions tickets sold each week (doubled in 1929)
- 1922 : produced films in colour
- 1927 : the Jazz Singer - introduced sound
- 1928 : steamboat Willie - animation
- $2 billions tickers each year
- Charlie Chaplin : earned $10,000 a week (avg at the time was $13)
- big movie companies: Paramount, Fox, MGM

radios in the leisure industry

-60000 in 1920 to 1 million in 1929
- NBC set up in 1926
- advertising - max factor makeup

sports in the leisure industry

- baseball
- golfing
- boxing
- American football
- was discrimination in sport (black and whites could not be in same team)

factors in women's lives were changing

1) Jobs
2) Voting (19th Amendment)
3) Lifestyle
4) Flappers

women - voting

- 1918 : President Wilson urged Congress to give equal voting rights
- 19th Amendment: gave women equal suffrage (right to vote) in Aug 1920
- women followed the voting patterns of their husbands
- 2 women in the House of Congress

What/When was the law passed allowing women to vote?

19th Amendment - August 1920

women - jobs

- secretaries + bookkeepers
- 2 million joined workforce (20%)
-12% of married women had jobs @ the end of 1920 (increase from 1.9m to 3.1m in 1920's)
- black women : less pay + more domestic jobs
- women did not receive equal pay - $12 less than a man each week

women - lifestyle

- divorce rates rose : 10% to 17%
- birth rate fell to 21.3 births per 1000 people
- household work made easier with new appliances (e.g vacuums)
- some women broke away from traditional roles
- flappers

closed door policy

didn't want anything from other countries so there was restrictive travel and trade for anyone outside of the US

open door policy

allowing unlimited immigration

1900-1920 : how many Europeans immigrated to USA

12.5 million