Unit 4 Exam - HUSH

The 1920’s Innovations

• A. Context

  • Economic and social life was transformed during the 1920’s

  • People had the money and leisure to indulge in consumerism and a growing advertising industry fueled the appetites of this

  • By 1922, America was hitting new peaks of prosperity every day

  • Department stores offered both convenience and reasonable prices

• B. New Trends

  • A. The Automobile

    • As a result of the development of the assembly line and other innovations, automobiles now became one of the most important industries in the nation

    • In 1913 there were 1.2 million registered vehicles. By 1929, a total of 26.5 million automobiles were registered in the U.S.

    • The impacts went beyond the life of the consumer. It simulated growth in man-created industries

    • Automobiles replaced the railroad as the preferred transportation, freeing Americans to travel where they wished when they wished

    • Increased mobility = increased demand for suburban housing

  • B. Mass Media

    • Radio

    • Once commercial broadcasting began, families flocked to buy more conventional radio sets. By the end of the 1920s, almost every family had one

    • In cities and towns, families gathered around the radio in the evening

  • C. Cinema

    • Hollywood became the center of movie production

    • The industry ground out cowboy westerns and the timeless comedies of Charlie Chaplin

    • By the mid-1930s, every city and most small towns had movie theaters, and movies became the nation’s chief form of mass entertainment

    • sound was added to movies in 1927, “talkies” with The Jazz Singer

  • D. Consumerism in the 1920s

    • A. Context

      • In the 1920s, wages rose faster than living costs, meaning people had more disposable income than ever before

      • Middle-class families purchased electric refrigerators, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners

      • This also included accessories and jewelry

    • B. Buying on credit

      • Stores sold consumer goods on credit

      • Businessmen went from the robber baron to the American hero of the 1920s

    • C. Advertising

      • Publicists sought to identify products with a particular lifestyle

The 1920s Controversies

• 1. Women in the NEW ERA

  • A. Employment

    • the consumerism of the 1920s required money and more women worked

    • married women continued to stay at home, more than ever - about 15% - entered the workforce

    • “Pink collar jobs” - school teaching or office assistant work; earned much less than men

  • B. Flappers

    • Flapper girl

      • flirtatious, high-spirited

      • short skirts and hair

      • listened and danced to jazz music

      • “Excessive” makeup

      • drinking and smoking

  • C. Birth Control

    • Growing interest in birth control. However, since 1872 birth control was a federal crime. Margaret Sanger promoted birth-control devices out of concern for working-class women. She distributed information to women starting in 1912 and spent the rest of her life helping women gain control of their bodies.

• 2. Prohibition

  • Prohibition and the 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages

• 3. Cultrural and Political Controvieries

  • A. Religion vs. Modernism

    • In 1925, Tennessee passed a law forbidding teachers to teach the theory of evolution

    • Scopes Monkey Trial drew national attention

    • the case also captivated the nation because, for many, it encapsulated the debate over whether to stick with tradition or abandon it for progress’ sake

• 4. Black Americans in the NEW ERA

  • A. The Great Migration

    • the most significant development in African American life during the early 20th century was the Great Migration northward

    • During WW1 many African Americans moved North to find factory jobs and escape Jim Crow south

  • B. Harlem Renaissance

    • was a literary and artistic movement that celebrated and brought attention to unique aspects of black American culture

    • Jazz was improvised and free-spirited, it came to be seen as symbolic of the era

      • which is how the decade came to be known as the Jazz Age

• 5. Immigration and Nativism

  • A. Immigration

    • by 1920, for the first time, a majority of the US population lived in urban centers compared to rural areas

    • these cities offered positive and new economic opportunities

    • after WW1, Immigration began to be associated with radicalism

    • Anti-immigration feelings grew rapidly

    • the first Red Scare

      • National fear of Bolshevism and anarchism from the Russian Revolution

      • The Palmer Raids attempted to arrest and deport people

      • Red refers Russia

    • In 1921, congress passed the 1921 Emergency Quota Act a system where annual immigration from any country could not exceed 3% of the persons of that nationality who had been in the U.S. in 1910

    • Cut immigration from 800,000 to 300,000

    • The National Origins Act of 1924 banned immigration from East Asia entirely and reduced the quota for Europeans from 3 to 2%

  • C. Mexican Migration in the U.S.

    • Mexican Cession 1848 was land that was transferred to the U.S. at the end of the war

    • Southern Border

      • the border patrol was established in 1924 as a result of the prohibition

• The Great Depression (1930s)

  • Dust Bowl

    • Farmers from Texas and Oklahoma poured into California

  • Fears about jobs and the economy led to more Nativism

  • Between 1929 and 1935, more than 415k Mexicans were expelled and thousands more left voluntarily

• Key Takeaways

  • 1. Money gave rise to new forms of art and literature that expressed ethnic and regional identities, such as the Harlem Renaissance movement

  • 2. By 1920, a majority of the U.S. population lived in Urban centers, which offered new economic opportunities for women, international migrants, and internal migrants

  • 3. After WW1, nativist campaigns against some ethnic groups led to the passage of quotas that restricted immigration against particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and increased barriers to Asian immigration

  • 4. In the 1920s, cultural and political controversies emerged as Americans debated gender roles, modernism, science, religion, and issues related to race and immigration

Causes of the Great Depression

• A. Stock market crash

  • In 1918 the Republics nominated Herbert Hoover

  • In October 1929, prices dropped, and nobody wanted to buy.

  • “Black Tuesday” = billions of dollars were lost

  • Hoover underestimated the damage. Due to speculation (guessing on a risky stock)

  • Speculators were also banks and corporations, which suddenly were on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay employers or guarantee bank deposits

• B. Other Factors

  • I. Farm Crisis

    • Manufacturers and farmers had been overproducing for years, creating large inventories

  • II. Credit and debt

    • 1920’s the availability of easy credit and installment plans encouraged people to spend beyond their means

    • Later 1920s, underconsumption

• C. Unemployment Effects

  • 25% of America’s population was unemployed

  • minorities were laid off first

    • women, black men

  • Some families who had lost their homes lived in unheated shacks they had built. Hoovervilles a jab at the then-president