U.S. Interwar Period Flashcards

The U.S. During the Interwar Period

Pre-Interwar Period

• The U.S. saw a continuation of Manifest Destiny.
• Republican presidents sought to increase American influence via:
  • Annexation (Hawai'i).
  • Trade deals (Alaska, American Samoa).
  • Concessions after the Spanish-American War (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines).
• Many sovereign nations in Latin America were under indirect American control (Cuba) or influenced by corporate interests via coups d’état (Hawai'i, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, etc.).
• This provided the American consumer with fruits (bananas, pineapples).
• Reflected American attitude on neutrality under conservative presidents: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

The Roaring Twenties: Politics

Women’s Suffrage

• Demand stemmed from the women’s rights movement starting in the 1840s with the Seneca Falls Convention.
• In 1869, suffragists formed two organizations:
  • The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) - Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton.
  • The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) - Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others.
• Small protests followed. Famously, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote.
• In 1913, the “Woman Suffrage Procession” occurred in Washington D.C.
• After WWI in 1918, President Wilson supported women’s suffrage.
• In 1919, the 19th Amendment was passed, granting women's voting rights.
• 1920 marked the first year women could vote in a general election.

Prohibition

• Originated as the woman-led “Temperance Movement” in the 1830s, aiming to prohibit alcohol consumption.
• The Anti-Saloon League (ASL) rose in the late 19th century, seeking laws against alcohol sales.
• The ASL gained traction using populist messaging, including anti-German sentiment during WWI.
• This led to the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment in 1920, banning the sale, transport, and brewing of alcohol.
• Speakeasies, underground nightclubs, became popular, allowing fraternization of different sexes, races, and classes, paving the way for desegregation.
• Organized crime rose as speakeasies needed alcohol supply. Outfits initially bootlegged alcohol but diversified into loan sharking, gambling, prostitution, and murder.
• The Chicago Outfit, led by Al Capone, became infamous.

The First Red Scare

• Occurred from 1917 to 1920, marked by public fear over the rise of communist and socialist ideologies.
• Triggered by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the rise of the Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin.
• America sent troops to support the White Army during the Russian Civil War due to concerns about communism's spread.
• Many feared immigrants from Russia, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe intended to overthrow the U.S. government.
• Labor strikes and social unrest increased anxiety.
• In 1919, anarchists carried out bombings targeting prominent Americans, including Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
• Raids led by Attorney General Alexander Palmer aimed to round up suspected radicals, socialists, anarchists, and communists.
• Thousands were arrested and many deported, often without sufficient evidence or legal due process.
• The fear of communism led to violations of civil liberties, including censorship, surveillance, and repression of dissent.
• The government justified these actions as necessary for national security, but they resulted in long-lasting distrust of the U.S. legal and political systems.

The Immigration Act of 1924

• Established quotas limiting immigrants from certain countries to 2% of the total number of people of that nationality living in the U.S. as of the 1890 Census.
• Favored immigration from Northern and Western European countries (e.g., Great Britain, Germany, Ireland) and restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe (e.g., Italy, Poland, Russia).
• Effectively banned immigration from Asia, including countries like China, Japan, and India.
• The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) had already restricted Chinese immigration.
• Heavily influenced by eugenics, a pseudoscience promoting the idea that certain races and ethnic groups were genetically inferior.
• Compared to Donald Trump’s policies, which expressed a desire to shift the U.S. immigration system toward a merit-based system, critiqued for disproportionately targeting immigrants of color.

Culture

African American Art

• Despite the abolition of slavery, African Americans in the South faced adversity and sought new economic opportunities, leading to the Great Migration.
• The American North was heavily segregated, leading many African Americans to end up in the same segregated neighborhoods.
• The Harlem Renaissance flourished in the New York neighborhood of Harlem.
• Jazz music originated in New Orleans, influenced by blues, ragtime, hymns, and other musical genres.
• Due to the Great Migration, jazz music was brought north to cities like New York and Chicago, which allowed for its flourishing and the rise of jazz artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Film During the Interwar Period

• Hollywood solidified its position as the global center of the film industry, cultivating movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo.
• The film industry was dominated by major studios like Warner Bros, Paramount and Columbia, which controlled every aspect of film production, distribution, and exhibition, creating a factory-like system of filmmaking.
• The star system helped studios draw in audiences and promoted celebrity culture.
• In 1927, Warner Bros released “The Jazz Singer”, the first major “talkie” (a sound film with synchronised dialogue), which revolutionised the industry.
• Technicolor began to make a mark during the interwar years. One of the most famous early examples of Technicolor was “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939.
• During the Great Depression, films were often a form of escapism, showing uplifting and idealised visions of life. Musicals and comedies were especially popular.
• Certain films also reflected the less glamorous sides of life to raise awareness of social issues. Common themes were struggles of depression, social issues, and the impact of industrialisation. Gangster films also gained popularity.

Literature

• The 1920s were characterized mainly by Modernism with sub-Modernist movements such as Dada and Surrealism.
• Modernism was marked by themes of disillusionment and loss, coupled with nihilistic and destructive impulses, yet also carried a sense of hope for the potential of change.
• Writers sought to deliberately break away from traditional writing, leading them to use non-linear narrative structures, stream of consciousness writing, fragments and experimental language.
• The “Lost Generation” was a group of expatriate American writers who lived in Europe, mainly in Paris, and who used their writing to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI but also to criticize post-war America.
• Key themes in their writing were alienation, the moral decay of society, cynicism, the effects of WWI and a condemnation of materialism and the “American Dream”.
• Notable authors from this period were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson.

Cultural Events

• The Scopes Monkey Trial was a highly publicized supreme court ruling in which a Tennessee teacher was fined $100 for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution instead of the story of Genesis in the Bible, which was required by law to be taught.
• This marked a shift in American values as the country shifted from more traditional values to the scientific findings of the modern age.
• The 1920s also saw a rise in the popularity of the KKK, a far-right, racist, anti-Catholic, and antisemitic group.
• This was the first time in which the KKK saw nationwide support, which came after large waves of immigration from European nations like Italy, as well as the Great Migration and African Americans entering society of Northern cities like New York and Chicago, with the goal of preserving so-called “traditional American values”.

Economy

The economy of the ‘20s

• After World War I had ended, the U.S. faced the task of transitioning from a wartime economy to peacetime.
• The war had led to significant economic growth and industrial expansion.
• President Warren G. Harding later pursued pro-business policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation, and a focus on reducing the national debt.
• In contrast to Wilson’s internationalism (League of Nations), Harding focused on internal matters and marked a shift toward a more isolationist stance.
• The U.S. economy experienced an era of rapid economic growth during the Roaring Twenties. The stock market boomed, and new industries, such as automobiles, consumer goods, and entertainment, flourished.
• Mass production techniques, notably in the automobile industry (e.g., Henry Ford’s assembly line), helped drive economic expansion. These changes led to a rise in consumerism and a growth of urbanization.

The Everyday American of the ‘20s

• The average American worker of the 1920’s benefited from many economic developments of the time. Reformed labor practices from the end of the Gilded Age meant Americans began to receive livable wages.
• This economic boom also led to a declining unemployment rate, reaching 2.4% by the end of the ‘20s.
• Additionally, this boom also meant a rise in employment opportunities for women and minorities, specifically in the industrial North.
• Due to these economic benefits, many also benefitted from the technological advancements of the time. The ‘20s saw a rise in affordability, from cars by Ford and General Motors to medication by Eli Lilly, to dietary diversity from canned fruits by Dole and United Fruit Co.
• Electricity had also come a long way, which led to the sale of cheaper electric appliances such as domestic refrigerators, toasters, vacuum cleaners, and radios.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

• Also known as the Wall Street Crash, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 happened when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges) started declining in September and early October.
• On Black Thursday (October 24th) 12.9 million shares were traded, leading to huge losses for investors. Though there was an attempt to bring the stocks back up again, panic began again on Black Monday, when the market lost 13%. It continues to decline until it reached an all-time low in the summer of 1932 and did not return to its pre-crash heights until November 1954.
• Overproduction in agriculture due to improved farming techniques led to supply outstripping demand. Reductions in demand for wheat-based products and high tariffs also contributed.
• There was also less demand for American products from Europeans due to high tariffs (Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act (1922)) which ultimately led to falling prices.
• Furthermore, there was a general overproduction and underconsumption of consumer goods, such as cars, because people who could afford these items had already purchased them and others who were on low wages could not afford consumer goods.
• A second main cause for the crash was the laissez-faire policy of the Republican Presidents which meant there were not enough safeguards in the economy. There were very few large Banks in America, but there was a high number of small banks, and these were not regulated and often loaned money recklessly. This led to many banks closing before the crash already, as they did not have the financial resources to cope with the demand for money, as people tried to draw out their cash, in the weeks leading up to the crash.
• In addition to this a lot of Americans bought goods on hire purchase, resulting in shops and credit companies went bankrupt as people failed to pay their debts.
• A third and final cause for the crash was that the government’s sale of war bonds during WWI meant that ordinary people had become attracted to investments which continued in the 1920s when they saw the potential profit that could be made from trading shares, known as speculation.

The Great Depression

Economy

Causes of the Great Depression

• The Stock Market Crash (wiped out billions in wealth and led to debt and unemployment)
• Bank failures and financial crisis (leading to depositors losing their savings)
• The Dust Bowl (period of severe dust storms), which greatly damaged ecology and agriculture
• Overproduction and underconsumption of various consumer goods
• Decline in international trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act
• Unequal distribution of wealth (a small percentage of American controlled most of the wealth and instead of spending it, they saved it, leading to low consumer demand)
• The Federal Reserve’s mistakes: raising interest rates instead of lowering them, reducing the money supply and making it harder for businesses and people to borrow money which deepened deflation and unemployment

Economic Effects

• During the Great Depression there was a big deflation, as prices fell. This ultimately led to the housing market crash and increased homelessness.
• There were also very high rates of unemployment which only increased with business failures and bank closures.
• An overall loss of wealth mainly as a result of the stock market crash left people struggling and unable to afford consumer goods, which led to overproduction and underconsumption in various industries.

Politics

Herbert Hoover and his response to the Great Depression

• Hoover’s faith in the laissez-faire policy led him to use a mostly hands-off approach as he believed the government should not interfere and that the economic problems of the time would work themselves out.
• At first, he tried to provide relief to the economy by asking business leaders to keep prices and wages at current levels, asking the government to reduce taxes, lower interest rates and create public works programs. He also asked wealthier people to donate more money to charity. This plan of volunteerism didn’t work, and people began to demand government assistance, which Hoover was hesitant to give, because he felt it was unconstitutional.
• Furthermore in 1930, Congress passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff which Hoover signed into law. The tariff raised high taxes on foreign imports, leading European countries to retaliate by imposing tariffs of their own. Although it was put in place to help the American economy, it ultimately decreased trade and worsened not only the American but also the global economy.
• In October 1930 the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment (PECE) was created to coordinate state and local relief programs, but it only had limited success. It was replaced in 1931 with the President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief (POUR).
• In 1932 Hoover signed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act, which created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The RFC lent millions to the states for relief programs to help struggling banks and insurance companies as well as businesses in danger of going bankrupt. It also provided money for public works programs, such as the construction of the Hoover Dam. Later that year, the Federal Home Loan Bank Act was passed, setting up 12 banks across the United States, that provided loans, mainly to construction companies and provided mortgages to people who wanted to buy houses.
• Ultimately people were unhappy with the way Hoover responded to the Stock Market Crash and even blamed him for the Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal

• FDR ran on the promise of lifting Americans out of poverty and set forth multiple policies and laws aimed at addressing economic hardship, collectively known as the New Deal.
• The first part of New Deal programs was aimed at relief for the American worker, with the government directly addressing unemployment. This meant a Keynesian approach to hiring Americans directly in the form of public works projects, which were directed by the newly established Public Works Administration, Work Projects Administration, and Civil Works Administration.
• Other such agencies were the Tennessee Valley Authority, which electrified parts of southern Appalachia via hydroelectric dams, or the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed young men to develop America’s national parks.
• Additionally, monetary aid was also used, such as the Federal Emergency Relief Act functioning as stimulus checks for the unemployed, or the Homeowners Loan Corporation keeping banks from foreclosing homes. The New Deal also saw the implementation of the Social Security program, which was the first time which the US regularly paid monthly checks to fund the retirement of its people.
• The second part of the New Deal was aimed at business recovery, with legislation such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) and the National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA).
• the AAA was implemented in order to pay farmers to produce less; the reasoning behind this was that by curtailing supply, the cost of food goes up, meaning higher earnings for farmers. Meanwhile, the NIRA and its subbranch, the National Recovery Administration, focused on giving more power to industrial workers in cities. It implemented a federal minimum wage, maximum working hours, and suspended antitrust laws to allow companies to cooperate in finding fair pricing and their own standards for a minimum wage, as well as giving workers the power to unionize, although this ultimately led to strikes.
• The third part of the New Deal was aimed at economic reform to prevent future depressions of this scale. This was done mostly via bank reform to prevent volatility.
• Firstly, the government insured both banks and consumers against bank runs as to get reimbursed if a bank goes under. Secondly, it consolidated more power to the Federal Reserve by removing the USD from the gold standard, making it so that the government could regulate the amount of money in circulation more directly. Thirdly, the Glass- Stegall Act was passed, prohibiting banks from using their funds to invest in the stock market, making them more independent from large economic downturns, since overspeculation was what caused the stock market crash and the collapse of financial institutions.

The American Neutrality Acts

• The American Neutrality Acts were a series of laws enacted between 1935 and 1939, designed to keep the United States out of escalating conflicts in Europe and Asia. These laws aimed to limit U.S. involvement in international disputes by imposing restrictions on American actions.
• The Neutrality Act of 1935 was the first in this series, focusing on preventing the U.S. from being drawn into war. It prohibited the export of arms, ammunition, and other war materials to countries involved in conflict and made it illegal for American citizens to travel on ships belonging to belligerent nations.
• The Neutrality Act of 1936 expanded the first law’s provisions by forbidding loans to countries at war. This measure sought to avoid the financial entanglements that had played a role in drawing the U.S. into World War I. Additionally, it prohibited American involvement in civil wars.
• The Neutrality Act of 1937 introduced the "cash-and-carry" provision, which required warring nations to pay cash for non-military goods and transport them on their own ships. The law also extended the arms embargo to include civil wars, and U.S. citizens remained barred from traveling on belligerent ships. The goal was to avoid actions that might lead the U.S. into the growing global conflict.
• The Neutrality Act of 1939 marked a shift in U.S. policy as World War II broke out. This law permitted the sale of arms to Allied nations on a cash-and-carry basis, allowing belligerents to buy weapons as long as they paid in cash and arranged for transportation. This represented a major change in U.S. policy, as the country began to support the Allies more directly, without fully entering the war.
• The primary goal of these acts was to keep the United States out of foreign wars and prevent the nation from becoming entangled in international conflicts, reflecting the strong isolationist sentiment that prevailed following the aftermath of World War I. The outbreak of World War II prompted a shift in U.S. foreign policy. By the end of 1939, the United States began to lean towards supporting the Allies, as demonstrated by the implementation of the cash-and-carry provisions in the Neutrality Act of 1939. This shift was further solidified with the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which allowed the U.S. to provide military aid to Allied nations without requiring immediate payment. However, the U.S. did not officially enter the war until December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the U.S. joining the conflict, the Neutrality Acts became effectively obsolete, and the policy of strict neutrality that had been maintained throughout the 1930s came to an end.

Culture

Literature

• Literature at the time was characterized by the sentiment of the people. This meant that key themes were poverty and hardship, social injustice and inequality, nostalgia, escapism, perseverance and hope, despair and hopelessness and radicalism. The reason that some themes are paradoxical is that some authors felt differently about the situation than others did: while some were deeply demoralized about the Depression, others were hopeful for a better world. Furthermore, radicalism became very prominent, as the Great Depression had caused a distrust in capitalism, which led many to turn to Marxism. Popular authors and their works include John Steinbeck who wrote “Grapes of Wrath”, Richard Wright and his “Native Son”, Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” and John Dos Passos with his “U.S.A. Trilogy”.

Games and Sports during the Great Depression

• With fewer people able to afford expensive entertainment or vacations, board games became a popular pastime for families during the Depression. Classic games such as Monopoly, which was released in 1935, became widespread, offering a form of entertainment that was both affordable and relatable, as the game’s themes centered around property and wealth accumulation, which mirrored many people’s hopes and frustrations during the economic downturn. Monopoly quickly became a hit due to its focus on economic principles, including buying and trading properties. The game is a reflection on the anti-capitalist sentiment and reality of everyday Americans in the 1930s. Not only were board games popular, since card games were also a common pastime. And although the Great Depression took a financial toll on many, sports continued to thrive as a form of recreation and escape. Baseball, in particular, remained a dominant part of American culture. Sports helped people to forget their problems and served as a reminder of American resilience and determination and created a sense of unity.

Radio

• The development of radio technology saw its boom in the ‘30s, a time when more and more people had radios in their homes. The government began to use the radio with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, where he would address the American public and inform them of what was occurring in internal and external affairs. This was meant as a way to ease the public and increase confidence in the ability of the government to build back the economy.
• Radio also had a large influence on news and entertainment. For news, radio meant transmitting information at record speeds, revolutionizing the industry. Radio stations also introduced regular programming, such as variety shows and soap operas, as well as music stations, which would commonly feature the musical styles of swing and big band. Radio also had a large influence on sports broadcasting, making sports like baseball more accessible to large audiences, and solidifying baseball as a national pastime.