Untitled Flashcards Set

                                                                        1920-1930s

Cultural Changes of the 1920s

Women

• Fashion for women is changing > more skin shown, higher up dresses

  • Women's beauty standards; body image

• Cosmetic industry is changing, more makeup is being worn

• More concerned about social norms than voting norms

• Suffragettes

  • College educated

  • Wealthy, have free time to dedicate to protesting 

• Margaret Sanger

  • Activist concerning women's reproductive rights 

  • Planned parenthood

• Social frontier

  • Women had freedom to leave without chaperones 

• 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote

Racial Changes

• Racial barriers are being broken, more public diversity

• Fashion transcended race

• Changes do not exclusively apply to white women 

• Harlem Renaissance 

  •  The Harlem Renaissance brought African American culture into the mainstream, with jazz, blues, and literature becoming more widely accepted and celebrated by white audiences. Harlem's nightlife, particularly its clubs and speakeasies, allowed Black performers and artists to thrive in an otherwise segregated society.

LGBTQ Changes

• Gay New York

• Greenwich Village

  • Drag balls

  • Harlem

  • Bohemian men

  • Supportive people, they were outcasts themselves so they supported gay people because they had open minds

Religious+Social Changes

• Scopes Monkey Trial

  • Dayton TN

  • Evolution, 1st trial to be broadcasted on the radio 

• Evolutionists/progreessives vs. traditionalists

  • Evolutionists - believed in human evolution and teaching it in schools

  • Traditionalists - people who were more traditional+conservative thinking, wanted religion

• Temperance

• Increase in urbanization/electricity

The Great Depression

Causes of the Great Depression

• October 1929

• Farmers

  • Tractors, etc. 

  • Overproduction

  • Debt

• Cities

  • New tech

  • Refrigerators, vacuum, radios, credit

• Demand>Production>Employment

• Reached market saturation, market is saturated>demand goes down> people sell stocks> stock prices go down

• A lot of consumerism

  • New products had no room to be bought twice, so market dropped

  • Demand for radios went up

• Buying stock on margin, debt inflated value of stocks

  • People take money from banks to buy all new products

    • Everyone is in debt

• Keynesian economics

Herbert Hoover

• His response

  • He did nothing, the federal govt. did nothing

  • 1930 dictatorship, was response to Great Depression

    • Some people were okay with dictatorship

• Assembled business leaders

• Tariffs-makes domestically products more competitive in domestic markets

  • Tariffs on American imports

1930s: Dust Bowl 

• Natural disaster caused by abuse of land and resources, which caused the topsoil of land to fall off and flow in the wind (“dust”)

  • Grass>machines>more crops>overuse of land

  • Action taken fixed temporary state of land, long term lead to more capitalism

  • Stemmed from capitalistic greed in society

• “Dust Bowl” book teaches that the Dust Bowl was not only caused by the weather, but capitalism

  • Same society that caused the Great Depression caused the Dust Bowl

  • Nature must be seen as capital 

• Dorthea Lange

  • Photographer for WPA

  • Photographed Dust Bowl+economic crisis

• 3 maxims

  • Nature is capital

  • Man has an obligation to wealth that the land offers

  • Social order+land should permit personal wealth+growth

• The USA has still not done anything to address the root cause of the problem

ID Terms

• WJB

• Clarence Darrow

• Keynesian Economics

• Broad Executive Power

• Dorthea Lange

  1. Photographer for WPA

  2. Photographed Dust Bowl+economic crisis

• Farm security administration

  1. a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States

  2. Photography, Documented the struggles of farmers and migrant farm workers (Dorthea Lange) 

  3. Resettlement, loans, soil conservation, health care, emergency relief

Important Questions

1. To what extent did the New Deal address the root causes of the Dust Bowl?

   1. It did in a way

   2. It didn’t because more jobs, and more people working leads to more capitalism/focus on monetary goods

2. How did women’s gender norms change in the 1920s?

   1. Suffrage+political change, women were college-educated

      1. Wealthy, have free time to dedicate to protesting 

      2. Economic independence, consumer culture, Women had disposable income

   2. New feminine ideals, shorter dresses, more makeup, flappers, fashion and cosmetics 

   3. Social roles, Women had freedom to leave without chaperones, Jazz clubs, parties

3. What conclusions can be drawn about the Harlem Renaissance?

   1. Elevated Black voices in American artistic and intellectual life. It was a movement that embraced racial pride, fostered artistic expression, and laid the groundwork for future social and political activism

   2.  There were limitations, its impact on American culture and society was profound and continues to resonate in the ongoing struggle for racial equality

4. What were negative changes during the 1920s (conservative side)?

   1. The KKK was raging (anti catholic, Jewish, immigrants)

   2. Open border policy–>quota system, stopped immigration in this period

   3. Scopes Trial, for example was a conservative reaction to all the progress of the time

      1. rise in conservatism

5. What role did debt play in helping the Great Depression?

   1. Excessive Borrowing: In the years leading up to the Great Depression, both individuals and businesses took on excessive debt, often through risky stock market investments or loans. When the stock market crashed in 1929, many were unable to repay their debts, leading to widespread bankruptcies, foreclosures, and a sharp contraction in consumer spending and business investment.

   2. Bank Failures: The collapse of numerous banks during the early years of the Depression was mainly bc of bad loans, people defaulted on debts, banks lost their capital, which eroded public confidence in the financial system and further restricted access to credit, making the economy go down

   3. Deflation and Debt Burden: Prices falling, increased the real value of existing debt; wages and prices fell, debtors couldnt repay loans, making economic hardship worse, extending the Depression's effects

6.  Who was FDR? What did he promise?

   1. 32nd president, most influential president, inaugurated March 1933

   2. FDR promised a series of bold reforms and programs to provide relief for unemployed, recovery for the economy, and reform to prevent future depressions. His "New Deal" focused on government intervention to stabilize the economy and help those most affected by the Depression

   3. FDR promised "action, and action now" to provide immediate relief, launched programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Public Works Administration (PWA) to provide jobs and infrastructure development

7. What are the parallels between the 1920s and modern day?

   1. Cultural changes:  fighting for womens suffrage, rights for black people, LGBTQ rights

   2. Economic inequality+wealth disparities, financial instability, the top 1% holds all money and power, the bottom is struggling to survive, investment in stocks, 

   3. Technological progress (radios fridges etc), and now we see the growth of technology as well (ai, cars etc)

8. How did farmers contribute to the Great Depression? Why were farmers also in debt?

   1. Overproduction + falling prices, farmers in the U.S. overproduced crops to try to meet growing demand, After World War I, agricultural demand dropped, leading to a surplus of crops, supply outstripping demand, prices plummeted, hard for farmers to cover the costs of production, led to financial strain

   2. Farmers were in debt from taking out too many loans from the banks, bought new things like tractors to keep up, crop prices fell and they couldn’t pay back their debts

   3. Severe drought and soil erosion known as the Dust Bowl struck the Great Plains, natural disaster devastated crop yields, worsened farmers' economic struggles, farmers were unable to produce enough to repay their debts, exacerbated the financial and agricultural crisis that contributed to the broader Great Depression.

9. How did FDR use Keynesian economics to try and save the USA?

   1. FDR embraced John Maynard Keynes' idea that during economic downturns, the government should increase its spending to offset reduced private sector investment. He initiated massive public works programs through New Deal agencies like the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which created millions of jobs and built infrastructure like roads, bridges, and schools

   2. Roosevelt used federal funding to provide direct relief to the unemployed and impoverished. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and other New Deal programs created jobs for young men in conservation projects, and the Social Security Act laid the foundation for future unemployment benefits, pensions, and welfare programs, which helped boost consumer spending

   3. FDR implemented financial reforms such as the Banking Act of 1933, which aimed to stabilize the banking system and restore public confidence. Additionally, he supported policies like the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which provided subsidies to businesses and encouraged cooperation between government, business, and labor to regulate wages, prices, and production—aiming to create economic stability

10. Why should the Dust Bowl be viewed as an ecological disaster?

    1. It was rimarily caused by overplowing of Great Plains' grasslands,  left the soil exposed and vulnerable to erosion, no natural vegetation to hold the soil in place, winds carried away topsoil, creating massive dust storms→ led to the loss of fertile land, making it difficult or impossible for farmers to grow crops in the affected areas

    2. Happened at the same time as a severe drought, exacerbated effects of soil erosion, no rain dried out soil, making the land even more susceptible to wind erosion. 

    3. Combination of poor land management practices+harsh climate turned productive farmland into a wasteland, causing ecological damage, loss of plant and animal life in the affected areas

11. Why should the Dust Bowl be viewed as an economic disaster?

    1. Capitalism caused the Dust Bowl

    2. Agriculture was the primary economic activity. The loss of fertile soil, combined with years of drought made big areas of farmland unproductive. Farmers were unable to grow crops, leading to severe financial losses. This collapse in agricultural output affected the entire agricultural supply chain

    3. As farmers and their families lost their livelihoods, many were forced to abandon their land and migrate westward in search of work; d"Okies" and "Arkies" (from Oklahoma and Arkansas) added to the already significant strain on urban areas, especially in California

    4. The Dust Bowl made the economic situation of the Great Depression worse,agricultural output plummeted, food prices rose, armers fell deeper into debt

12. How do the Dust Bowl and Great Depression correlate?

    1. Agricultural Collapse and Economic Strain: The Dust Bowl worsened the Great Depression by devastating agricultural production in the Great Plains. With crops destroyed and farmland rendered unproductive, farmers faced financial ruin

    2. Exacerbation of Debt and Bank Failures: The economic strain caused by the Dust Bowl forced many farmers into deep debt, were unable to pay off loans or mortgages bc of crop failures, led to foreclosures and bankruptcies in agricultural communities,  As a result, local banks, heavily invested in farming loans, collapsed, contributing to the broader banking crisis that worsened the Great Depression

    3. Migration and Displacement: Dust Bowl+ Great Depression forced millions of people to migrate in search of work and better living conditions, in the Dust Bowl, families from states like Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, were displaced by the harsh conditions and moved west to states like California, mass migration often referred to as the "Okie" migration

       1. Unemployment rates increased 

    4. Government Response: Both problems led to significant government intervention. The New Deal, a series of programs and policies implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression, also included specific measures aimed at addressing the effects of the Dust Bowl

       1. Letter agencies