Chapter 20

The Business of America:

  • Business and govt were close:

    • economic increased due to Henry Ford’s moving assembly line (more productive)

  • 1920s: American multinational corporations

  • Consumer goods were in daily life (telephones, cleaning supplies, coca-coca, etc)

  • Americans now spent money on leisure activities (vacations, movies, sporting events)

  • Unequal wages for industrial (less money) vs corporate (more) jobs

  • 1929: 40% families were in poverty 

    • less workers were needed due to improved productivity 

  • After WWI: mechanization + fertilizer continued quick agricultural production (which was unnecessary) —> farm prices decrease —> no income+money for farms

    • 3 million people migrated from rural to urban areas

    • “Factory farms”: big farms w many migrant laborers

  • 1920s: rise of the stock market attracted investors

  • ”Welfare capitalism”: socialite conscious business leadership which paid attention to “human factor” 

  • American Plan: workplace free of govt + union regulations

  • Equal Rights: feminists 

    • abolish poll taxes+literacy clauses in South

    • Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); guarantee equal rights for women (suggestion 1923 —> passed 1972) 

    • Female liberation: flapper (woman who rebelled against feminine standards thru clothing+actions)

    • Woman as consumers: women’s pursuit of personal pleasure was a marketing strategy


Business and Government:

  • The Republican Era (pro-business):

    • resurgence of laissez faire 

    • overturned Muller v. Oregon (1923 - Adkins v. Children’s Hospital) (got rid of women’s minimum wage)

    • Baked Prohibition enforcement (1928 Olmstead v. United States - allowed wiretapping (listening to private calls))

  • Prohibition: increased illegal manufacturers 

  • Teapot Dome: Harding administration scandal where Secret of Interior profiting by illegally leasing land to oil

  • Election of 1924: Harding died and Wilson won the election

  • 1920s: “isolationism” (Wilson’s lack of military+diplomatic pursuit of democracy abroad)


The Birth of Civil Liberties:

  • “Banned in Boston”: French satirist Rabelais works were banned

  • 1930s Hay Codes: set guidelines prohibiting 18+ stuff 

  • The Lost Generation: group of writers+artists (after ww1) disillusioned with American values

    • many moved to Europe (as it was freer)


A “Clear and Present Danger”:

  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): fought against suppression of freedom during wartime


The Culture Wars:

  • Evangelical Protestants felt threatened by decline of values + rise of Catholicism+Judaism

    • Fundamentalism: anti-modern protest movement

    • 1925 Scope Trial: John Scope was arrested for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution (found guilty)

  • KKK resurgence: 3-5 million member; “American citizens endangered by black, Jews, Catholics”; held burnings, auto parades, etc

  • Pressure for immigrant restriction

    • 1921: restricted European immigrants to 357k —> 3 yrs (1924 illegal alien) —> 150k

    • refused those ineligible for naturalized citizenship (Asia)

  • 1924 Indian Citizenship Act: conferred American citizenship to Native Americans (born in US)

    • Some natives believed it was a way to de-native them

  • Race became a determinant of public policy (white>)

  • Anti Defamation League of B’nai B’rith + National Catholic Welfare Council: fought for laws prohibiting discrimination against immigrants

  • NY’s Harlem: “capital” of Black America

    • slumming (whites visit dance halls, jazz clubs, etc) (illegal nightclubs)

    • 1920s Harlem Renaissance: African American literary + artistic movement

    • the “New Negro”

  • Election of 1928: Herbert Hoover (Progressive —> supported Prohibition)

    • Wickersham Commission: first large-scale federal study of the problem of crime)


The Great Depression:

  • Worst economic depression in US; spurred by stock market crash of 1929 —> WWII

  • Stock market crash (Black Tuesday, 10+ bill loss of market value) was not the only cause of the depression

    • frenzied real-estate speculation, banks failing, underdeveloped land, mortgage foreclosures

    • unequal distribution of income + depression in farm regions —> reduced American purchasing power

    • European demand for goods declined

  • Caused high unemployment

  • Thousands hungry people, evicted from homes, moved to shantytowns (Hoovervilles) 

  • Caused deurbanization 

  • President Herbet Hoover opposed federal aid —> many disagreed

    • seemed out of touch with reality —> growing unpopularity

  • 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff: raised tariffs —> worsened Depression by raising prices + discouraging foreign trade

  • 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation: program that loaned money to banks+institutions to avoid bankruptcy

  • Assessing freedom in 1920s: economic + civil liberties