History great dipression test

The Roaring 20’s

To what extent was the 1920’s a time of modernism

The Red Scare

• Fear of communists, socialists anarchists ect

  • Following a series of anarchist bombings in 1919

• A. Mitchell Palmer (Palmer Raids) 

  • Coordinated raids on homes of suspected radicals and headquarters or radical organizations across US

• Unions targeted as “leftist organizations”

  • IWW was socialist but others were not

  • Anti-union “open shops” called the “American Plan”

• Criminal Syndicalism Laws

  • Made it illegal to advocate violence to secure social change

• Sacco & Vanzetti Trial

  • Two anarchist Italian immigrants convicted for robbery and murder based on who they are rather than evidence

  • Increased Nativism

• Immigration Quota Act of 1924

  • The quota for immigrants entering the U.S. was set at two percent of the total of any given nation’s residents in the U.S. as reported in the 1890 census

  • Targeted “undesirable” immigrants most associated with radical ideas

    • Eastern and southern europe were limited

The Ku Klux Klan

• The KKK was

  • Anti foreign

  • Anti Catholic

  • Anti black

  • Anti Jewish

  • Anti Pacifist

  • Anti Communist

  • Anti internationalist

  • Anti revolutionist

  • Anti bootlegger 

  • Anti adultery

  • Anti birth control

• At its peak in the 1920’s it claimed 5 million members

  • Primarily from the south

• “The Birth of a Nation” Was the first full-length feature film in America

  • It glorified the the KKK of the reconstruction era

Prohibition

• Prohibition passed in 18th Amendment and implemented by Congress's Volstead Act

• Difficult to enforce

  • Bootlegging & Speakeasies

• Gave rise to the “golden age of gangsterism”

  • Gang wars in 1920’s chicago

  • “Scarface” (Al Capone)

  • Honest businesses forced to pay protection money

  • Racketeering rampant: in the 1920’s the underworld made $12-18 billion

The Scopes Trial 

• Over the teaching of evolution

• Shows conflict between fundamentalists and science

  • Larger trend of traditionalism vs. modernism 

• ACLU hired Clarence Darrow whose cross examination of William Jennings Bryan made Bryan look foolish and hurt the fundamentalist cause

  • Defended Scopes during trial

• Scopes was found guilty and fined bc he did violate the Tennessee Law (Butler Law) banning the teaching of evolution
  
  

Consumerism

• Small post-war recession ended in 1921 and the economy prospered

• Advertising and credit stimulate consumption

  • Although real wages did not increase significantly

• Sports and politics got a boost from radio 

• Hollywood films were popular

• Electricity facilitated economic growth

Transportation

• Henry Ford perfected assembly line production

• Whole industry to support manufacture and service of cars emerged, employing 6 million Americans

• Threatened monopoly of railroads

• Speedy marketing of perishable foods and growth of suburbs

• Wright Brothers launch aviation age 1903

• Charles Londebergh flew solo across the Atlantic in 1927

Radio And Film

• 1920’s made long-range radio broadcast possible and national programs were broadcast into American homes

• Nickelodeon's with 5 cent silent films proliferated

  • Films like “Birth of a Nation”(1915)

• “Jazz Singer” (1927) - first movie with sound (“talkie)

The Harlem Renaissance

• A flowering of African American culture in the 1920’s

  • Instilled interest in African American culture and pride in being an African American

• Marcus Garvery formed the United Negro Improvement Association

• Poetry and jazz music flourished 

• Harlem became a center for movements to improve the conditions for blacks in America

Tulsa Race Massacre

• A white mob attacked Greenwood, looting and burning homes and businesses

• Thousands of black residents were displaced and detained

• The massacre caused economic and emotional devastation

• It was repressed from mainstream history for many years

Lifestyle Changes Of The Roaring 20’s

• Flappers exemplified the clash between modernists and traditionalists

• Margret Sanger advocated for access to birth control

  • Created Planned Parenthood

• Alice Paul established the National Women’s Party to campaign for an “equal rights amendment”

The Lost Generation

• Term popularized by Getrued Stein for disillusioned artists and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and nErnest Hemingway

• Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the nobel prize in literature with his novel “Babbitt”

• Cirtized war and questioned progress

To what extent was the 1920’s a time of modernism

• During the 1920’s there was lots of social tension between the old and the new, but this shows that modern ideas were emerging. The 1920’s had very modern advancements such as women’s rights, African American pride, cars, movies, and consumerism. Although prohibition limited modernism by limiting rights and raising crime rates, there was also lots of backlash from traditionalists, and the KKK. 

Politics And The Economy

America was primarily isolationist after WWI, though they did continue to participate in the global economy. The Republican presidents returned to more Gilded Age practices that were pro-big business & reduced government regulation of the economy. Political corruption was also prominent during this decade.

Republicans And Pro-Business Policies

• Unwittingly, Harding filled  his cabinet  with his “Ohio Gang” of corrupt cronies 

• Laissez-Faire and “trickle down” economics increased government regulation and relaxed antitrust laws

  • Dismantled wartime economic controls

  • Reversed Muller V Oregon decision in Adkins v Children’s Hospital

• Andrew Mellon’s tax plan cut taxes for the wealthy

• Bull market - over inflated values on stocks to do speculation and buying on margin

Labor Movement

• The government had been friendly to labor during WW1 (War Labor Board)

• 1919 steel strike branded “dangerous Reds”

• Attorney General’s pro-big business bias

  •  lead to issuing a federal injunction breaking up rail strike in 1922

• Union membership dropped 30% between 1920 and 1930

The US And The World After WW1

• Isolationism and disarmament were the dominant policies

• 1922- the Five Power Naval Treaty

  • Limited the construction of certain types of large naval ships

  • Applied ratio limits to the number of ships a country could build

• Harding Administration raises tariffs

  • Starts tariff war

  • Stunts economic development and recovery

• After WW1 America became a creditor to the world

Corruption In The Cabinet

• Political corruption under harding such as 

  • Teapot Dome Scandal

    • Cabinet member leased oil fields to private companies in return for a $100,000 bribe

• Attorney General Daughter forced to resign due to illegal sales of liquor permits

• Corruption in cabinet reminiscent of Grant who was also unaware

• Harding died in 1923 and succeeded by Coolidge

Frustrated Farmers

• War ended and so did government guaranteed high prices for crops 

• Mechanized agriculture led to overproduction

  • Drove prices down

• Coolidge vetoes McNary-Haugen Bill 

  • To keep prices high by the government buying surpluses and selling them abroad

The Dawes Plan

• Plan to revive the German Economy

  • The US loans Germany money which they can pay reparations to England and France, who can then pay back their loans from the US

Great Depression Notes

In what ways and to what extent did FDR and his policies change the role and scope of the federal government?

The presidents of the 1920’s

• Harding - return to “Normalcy”

• Coolidge - businesses

• Hoover - rugged individualism

The stock market crash 

• Black Tuesday (1929)  

  • over 16 million stocks sold in one day

  • Stock market crashed

  • 5000 banks collapsed

• Caused by:

  • Speculation on buying credit

  • Overproduction & underconsumption

Reactions to the crash

• Hoover Stayed committed to laissez-faire but implemented remedies for the depression: 

  • Hawley Smoot Tariff 

    • Raised taxes on foreign goods and actually worsened the depression

  • Reconstruction Finance Corporation

    • Trickle down economics 

• Bonus Army  WW1 vets wanted their $1,000 bonus before 1945

  • They got evicted with bayonets & tear gas

    • Hoover continued to lose popularity

• Hoovervilles towns that sprang up when people had lost everything.
  
  

Roosevelt Takes Over

• Election 1932 

  • Black voting shifted from democrat to republican

  • Inaugural Address assured nation “The only thing to fear is fear itself

• First 100 Days

  • Glass-Steagall Act 

    • Created FDIC & ends the massive bank failures  

  • Currency reform 

    • US money went off of gold standard and switched to managed currency

      • Managed currency : a system where a country's central bank can control the money supply and exchange rates to achieve economic goals.

• Fireside Chats

  • Radio broadcasts that united and assured the public.

• FDR blames practices of the money changers for the depression 

  • Because of the way they caused the banks to collapse 

The New Deal 

• Relief

  • CCC

    • Most popular agency employs 3 million men in public service

  • FREA

    • Led by Harry L. Hopkins created CWA for temp employment

  • TVA

    • Build dams to create hydroelectric power

      • Seen as radical

        • Publicly owned utility companies

  • WPA

    • Provided jobs for building and artists

• Recovery 

  • AAA

    • Paid farmers to grow less to drive prices up

  • PWA

    • Lead by Harold L. Ickes

    • Aimed at long range recovery 

    • Spent $4 billion on public infrastructure

• Reform

  • Social Security Act

    • Old age pensions and disability insurance

  • Wagner Act

    • Allowed unions to strike and use collective bargaining

      • CIO formed for unskilled workers

        • 4 million members by 1940

Labor Unions

• National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) 

  • created a powerful new National Labor Relations board

• 1935 - John. L. Lewis founded Committee for INdustrial Organization (CIO) for unskilled workers

  • CIO used sit-down trikes in 1936

  • Broke from the AFL in 1938

• 1938 - Fair Labor Standards Act 

  • Companies engaged in interstate commerce subjected to maximum hours and minimum wage

    • Excluded agricultural and domestic service jobs which predominantly hired blacks, Mexicans, and women.

• Labor unions and workers supported FDR (democrat) while business owners were staunch Republicans 

Social Security

• One of the most complicated and far-reaching laws to ever pass Congress

• Made to provide security in old age

• Financed by a payroll tax paid by both employees and employers

• Represents departure from “rugged individualism” and hands off government.

Critics of the New Deal

Radical

• Supports the changes to society and economy 

• Share Our Wealth Movement

  • Created by Huey Long

  • Raising taxes on the rich and giving every family $5000

• Father Charles E. Coughlin

  • Turned against FDR when he refused to nationalize the banking system

• Old Age Revolving Pension

  • Proposed by Dr. Francis Townsend

  • Every American over 60 would retire to open up jobs for the younger unemployed

  • Recipients had to agree to spend the entire $200 check they received within a month. 

Conservative

• Supports letting the economy stabilize on its own and opposes governmental efforts. 

• American Liberty League

  • Conservative wealthy business elites that opposed intervention in economy

    • Called the New Deal “socialist”

In what ways and to what extent did FDR and his policies change the role and scope of the federal government?

• FDR shifted from laissez faire and trickle down economics. Government became more involved in the welfare of its citizens and implemented many reforms. Overall helped the economy stabilize with government intervention.