Unit 8: The 1920s and the Great Depression

The Anxious ‘20s (1920-1924)

• right after WWI was over, people became very anxious

• Post-War Economic Recession

  • American manufacturing had a big decrease because the war was over

  • unemployment rate goes up

  • high job demands after soldiers come home from war, but they do not have any

    • this will lead to a lot of economic and social problems

• 1st Red Scare

  • Americans are scared of communism because red represents communism

  • communist American political party

    • Americans created this party because they were anxious about communism taking over America

  • Palmer Raids

    • these raids will be a violation of traditional American rights

    • FBI is breaking into homes and businesses and looking at the evidence without a warrant (this is a violation)

      • if they cannot find evidence, they will make something up and leave it there

        • this led to mass arrests without warrants

• Nativism Increases

  • they become the majority opinion

  • cause → Russian Revolution

    • American’s perspective: European immigrants = communists

  • The National Origins Act, 1924

    • it set a limit on the number of Europeans allowed in the U.S.

      • preference was given to Northern and Western Europeans

    • banned Asian immigration entirely

• The Sacco and Vanzetti Trial

  • they were immigrants from Southern Europe, and they were known communists

  • there will be a murder in their neighborhood

    • the two of them were put on trial for this

  • kept in cages during the trial

  • jury foreman kept making anti-Italian slurs against them

  • they were convicted and executed even though the FBI did not have much evidence of them

• Eugenics

  • fake science based on real science

  • people will believe that some ethnicities will be superior to others

    • only the “superior” ethnicities get to pass the generation on

    • no one else should have children if their race is “insuperior”

      • this was popular in the 1920s

• The 2nd Ku Klux Klan

  • take the popularity genetics and use it as a national group

  • they were so popular that both Democratic and Republican parties used the Klan language during platforms

  • the NAACP has two different responses to the clarity of the Klan:

    • increase the number of lawsuits against states

    • start promoting a federal Anti-lynching Law

• Prohibition

  • 18th Amendment was enforced in the 1920s

  • Americans still wanted alcohol even though it was banned

  • 3 unintended consequences:

    • bootleggers → groups that are illegally making alcohol

    • speakeasies → illegal secret drinking clubs

    • • Organized crimes → mobs and gangs start to provide illegal alcohol to Americans, leading to gang wars

      • Al Capone had a well-earned, ruthless reputation

        • 0 problems of eliminating rival gangs

        • he was convicted of tax evasion

  • eventually, the 18th amendment is cancelled by the 21st amendment

• Modern Science

  • Charles Darwin → Theory of Evolution

    • only focuses on the animal kingdom and has nothing to do with humanity

    • critters will evolve into lesser versions of themselves

  • Sigmund Freud → Psychoanalytic Theory

    • your unconscious mind is responsible for your behavior and your personality

      • saying we did not have free will

  • Albert Einstein → Theory of Relativity

    • states that space, time, and mass are relative and not absolute

  • Fundamentalism

    • modern science cannot be true because every word in the Bible is true

    • it is a temptation from Satan to take us away from God

    • fundamentalists were loud, and individual states will ban modern science in schools

  • John T. Scopes “Monkey” Trial

    • science teacher who taught modern science in Tennessee (it was against the law back then)

    • he goes on trial, and it goes on international news

The Roaring ‘20s (1924-1929)

• Presidential Laissez-Faire

  • President Warren G. Harding → corruption

    • promised to return to Normalcy for the U.S.

    • he will do four things:

      • cut taxes

      • increase tariff

      • reduce regulation on business

      • returns America’s policy to isolationism

    • presidency will be known as corruption

      • The Teapot Dome Scandal

        • one of his cabinet members sold federal oil fields, but Harding kept most of the money to himself

• President Calvin Coolidge

  • Normalcy → he uses this and makes it stronger

    • cut taxes off even more, increase tariffs much higher, reduce more regulations, and maintain isolationism

    • puts business owners in charge of remaining regulation

  • Economic Recovery (2 features)

    • lasts for five years

    • factory production goes back up

    • unemployment rate goes down

    • Americans are happy about this

• Consumer Culture

  • the middle class is encouraged to keep buying the products

  • heavy purchases

  • advertising booms

    • celebrity endorsement

    • increasingly directed at young adults

    • ads are on radios as well

• Automobile/Car Culture

  • Henry Ford

    • he invented the Assembly Line

    • he made the car more affordable for the middle class and increased the production of cars

    • he paid his workers so well that his workers were considered middle-class, making them loyal to Ford

    • Installment Plan

      • the producer does not get the whole product until the installment is fully paid

• Jazz Culture

  • the credit for the creation of jazz music goes to the African American people from New Orleans

  • improvisation was used a lot during this period

  • this is going to unite African and white Americans

  • Louis Armstrong

    • one of the most successful musicians of all time

  • Cab Calloway

    • he makes jazz music more popular

• Pop Culture

  • popular forms of entertainment during this period:

    • movies

      • Paramount Pictures and MGM Studios

    • silent films

    • Charlie Chaplin

      • known for his comedies

    • Rudolph Valentino

      • known for romantic dramas

    • radio

      • media source of the 1920s

    • literature

      • “Lost Generation” Literature

        • refers to the generation of men who fought in WWI

        • almost half of the men died because of this

        • the book does not try to hide any detail

  • William Faulkner

  • Ernest Hemingway

  • F. Scott-Fitzgerald

    • wrote The Great Gatsby

    • meant to criticize the 1920s

• Flapper Culture

  • the role of women was changing in the 1920s

  • they were known as the “Flapper Generation”

    • concerned about gaining social freedoms: education, career, marriage, and motherhood (they want to be in control of these)

    • the average age for marriage and motherhood goes up

    • casual dating

      • women could go on dates without any supervision/chaperones

    • number of women in the workforce increases, letting them make more money

      • they are still limited to what jobs they could have

      • usually, the available jobs would be clerks or maids

      • women will still be paid less than men for the same job

      • women were still expected to cook, clean, and take care of children when they were home

  • the flapper look was a sense of fashion and symbolized freedom (3 features)

    • bobbed haircut

    • “short” dresses

    • heavy use of cosmetics, especially lipstick

  • Women in the 1920s

    • women could start voting, and they voted similarly to their fathers and husbands

    • women were able to hold office at this point

    • Nellie Tayloe Ross

      • first woman to be voted governor for the state

    • Miriam Amanda “Ma” Ferguson

      • Governor Ma is the first governor of Texas, and she is from Texas

    • Eleanor Roosevelt

      • very political and powerful influencer

      • she could get politicians to do tasks for her

    • Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

      • they are not successful

      • Alice Paul and Lucy Burns created and pushed this

      • this would have been approved based on gender stereotypes and fear that women would lose certain rights and protection

• Harlem Culture

  • Great Migration

    • African Americans moved more to the Northern cities because of job opportunities

    • De Facto Segregation: fact by segregation

    • African Americans were most likely getting violated by policeman

    • Marcus Garvey

      • he agrees that discrimination will never go away and African Americans will never be equal in the U.S.

      • solution: Pan-Africanism → back to Africa movement

      • Garvey was telling African Americans to move back to Africa and never come back to America

  • Harlem Renaissance

    • African Americans thrived and became successful

    • literature, art, and music will be the three most influential

    • writers: Zora Neale Hurston → Their Eyes Were Watching God, Langston Hughes → The Weary Blues

    • art is combined with the United States and African traditions

    • music became famous in Harlem when jazz music originated in New Orleans

      • The Cotton Club

        • promotes the success of African Americans

        • the audience was white only because the club was in a segregated area

        • “The prosperity of the 1920s will lead the way to the Great Depression of the 1930s.”

The Great Depression (1929-1939)

• President Herbert Hoover

  • born and raised as a Quaker (brand of Christian)

  • 2 beliefs:

    • believes in the power of individual effort

    • the local community knows you best and can help you best during hard times

  • elected in 1928, Republican, and defeated Alfred Smith (Hoover’s opponent)

  • Hoover promised that if he were elected president, “there will be chicken in every pot” (meaning everyone would be so rich, they would not have to worry about going hungry)

• Six Causes of the Great Depression:

  • overuse of credit

    • installment plans

      • many people were unemployed and made companies bankrupt

      • cycle of failure → businesses keep failing

  • uneven prosperity (wealth)

    • American farmers were already doing poorly and did not share any wealth in the 1920s

    • as the 20s go on, the price of food goes down

    • more and more farmers lose their livelihood as the years go on

  • uneven wealth distribution

    • when the wealth gap gets too high, the workers’ salaries cannot keep up, and they won’t have enough money to buy what they need

    • no one notices because of the installment plan

  • unsafe banking practices

    • lack of regulations makes the banks less wealthy

    • the banks give out a ton of loans to speculators (financial gamblers)

  • overproduction of durable goods

    • because they make many durable goods, the consumption of the goods goes down

  • stock market crash

    • Bull Market

      • excessively going up

      • September 1929 - stocks start decreasing

      • October 1929 - stocks decrease more

        • investors start to panic

      • on Tuesday, October 29, 1929, this day is known as Black Tuesday

        • the stocks will continuously fall for the next four years

        • they lost $30 billion worth of stocks

        • suicide rate goes up because of this

        • businesses will lay off their workers and will eventually go out of business

        • all of the savings are gone at the banks

          • this was an economic catastrophe

Failures to Recovery

• three reasons:

  • do not have new markets to sell to

  • America’s economy was overwhelmingly industrial

    • no other job opportunity

  • Hawley-Smoot Tariff

    • taking the high tariff from Coolidge and making that tariff even higher

    • the tariff only took the national economic situation into an international situation

Life During the Great Depression

• unemployment

  • 25% of American people were out of jobs

  • by 1932, 13 million people were not working

  • employed people were underpaid

  • the American people lost a lot of confidence and thought that they could never fix this

  • they even suggest taking away their liberties

  • this does not get better throughout the 1930s

• Dust Bowl

  • two causes:

    • overfarming

    • extensive drought on the Great Plains

  • all dust winds destroy lives, crops, and homes

  • Okie Migration

    • 800,000 people were moving to the West Coast

    • this led to a lot of conflict and unrest on the West Coast

Herbert Hoover’s response to the Great Depression

• he is going to put out a message called Rugged Individualism

  • Americans were going to work harder to fix this

  • encouraged the wealthy to pull their money and donate to charity

  • government cannot and will not fix the Great Depression and it is up to the people to fix this

  • Hoover’s message came up as unsympathetic and his popularity went down

Bonus Army

• many WWI veterans

• they marched to Washington, D.C., and demanded the government pay their bonus early

• Hoover orders Douglas MacArthur to drive out the protesters

  • MacArthur went out to burn the people’s possessions, which were one of the only possessions the people had

  • Hoover’s popularity rate goes down even more and his reputation is ruined

1932 Presidential Election

• Hoover had to run as a Republican who promised more rugged individualism

• Democrats will run Franklin D. Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt’s cousin)

  • “Happy days are here again”

    • promised a new deal → strong government in action to fix the Great Depression

• Mandate Victory

  • FDR wins the election very easily

The Brain Trust

• FDR brings in the best experts and he tells them that their job is to come up with a plan and fix the economy

• Frances Perkins

  • first woman to be a cabinet secretary

• Fireside Chats

  • FDR spoke over the radio and addressed the American people about the deal so he could sell it to them

  • they loved FDR’s fireside chats because he was a people person and talked casually to them

  • three goals: relief, recovery, and reform

    • relief → immediate charity aid to those who need it

    • recovery → fix the employment problem

    • reform → long-term steps to make sure that the Great Depression never happens again

1934 Midterm Elections

• midterm → half of the house is up for re-election

• the American people seem more confident about the economy themselves (positives)

• the unemployment rate is still very high (negatives)

• Super-Majority of Congress

  • the Democrats won

  • this allowed them to pass the 2nd new deal

    • this deal was very controversial because there was a lot of government involvement

    • two groups against the New Deal:

      • liberals → Huey P. Long

        • the leader of the liberal critic of the New Deal

        • argued that the New Deal was too weak and it didn’t go far enough

        • he wanted FDR to confiscate America’s wealth and distribute it to everyone (mainly wanted the poor to have more money)

      • conservative critics → American Liberty League

        • think that the New Deal is too much and it’s a violation of Congress

1936 Presidential Election

• FDR’s concerns about re-election:

  • the unemployment rate is still very high

  • most of the media and producers were against the New Deal

  • many people were running for president at this time

  • strategy: “champion of the common people”

• FDR won most of the electoral votes

  • the final rejection of rugged individualism

  • the final rejection of laissez-faire capitalism

Legacy/Outcome of the New Deal

• the New Deal failed and did not succeed in the unemployment rate (economic problem)

  • because of the relief and reform success, it did a great job of healing the people in the economy psychologically

• the reason why the 2nd New Deal was created was because he let the people give their ideas and he acted upon their ideas

• Welfare State

  • this was to make sure the welfare of the people is to protect them and their liberties

  • Democratic Socialism

    • collecting tax money and distributing it to people (socialism)

    • we, as the people, get to tell the government how to spend our tax money (democratic)

• Deficit Spending

  • when the economy is bad, the government is going to try to spend more money than what they have to fix it again