Download The New Era 1920s

The New Era
1920s
Life cover, July 1, 1926
Life cover,
July 1, 1926
"One Hundred and
Forty-three Years of
LIBERTY and Seven
Years of PROHIBITION."
(Private Collection)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
What aspects of life created the
reputation of the “Roaring 20s”?
In what ways and to what degree
were the 1920s a period of tension
between new and changing
attitudes on the one hand and
traditional values on the other.
(Consider Race relations, immigration/ nativism, role of women, consumerism)
BUSINESS
BOOM
BUSINESS PROSPERITY
ECONOMIC PROSPERITY:
productivity: up 50%
unemployment: 4-9-12%?
real income: up 25%
standard of living:
Gross National
Product, 1920-1930
Unemployment, 1920-1930
indoor plumbing
central heating
electricity (2/3 by 1930)
CAUSES OF BUSINESS PROSPERITY:
 Increased productivity (scientific management, machinery)
 Increased use of oil and electricity
 Favorable government policy (tax breaks, antitrust)
Automobiles &
Industrial Expansion
Henry Ford
‘fordism’
1913: car=2 yrs wages
1929: 3 mos. wages
1913: 14 hours to build a new car
1928: New Ford off assembly line every 10 seconds
Henry Ford (1835-1947)
Ford Highland Park assembly line, 1928
(From the Collections of Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village)
“Trying out the new assembly line“ Detroit, 1913
Auto Manufacturing
PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS
Income Distribution, 1929
1%
 40% of all U.S. families
lived on >$1,500 per year
– in poverty range
5%
29%
65%
$10,000+
$5,000-$9999
$2000-$4999
Under $2000
Source: Historical Statistics of the United
States, Colonial Times to 1970
PROBLEMS FOR FARMERS
Mechanization
Farm income down 66%
TILLING ONE ACRE OF LAND
1900: 90 mins. using 5 horses
1929: 30 mins. using a 27-hp tractor
2000: 5 mins. using a 154-hp tractor
PRODUCING 100 BUSHELS OF WHEAT
ON 5 ACRES
1890s: 40-50 labor hours
1930: 15-20 labor hours
SOCIETY,
CULTURE
& VALUES
Farm vs. Nonfarm Population, 1880-1980
1920 CENSUS:
First time majority
of U.S. population in
urban areas (towns
2500 or greater)
1920: More workers
in factories than on
farms
1930: Still 44% live
in rural areas
CONSUMERISM
(electric) appliances
automobiles
advertising (image vs. utility)
buying on credit
chain stores
Consumer
Debt,
1920–1931
General Electric ad
(Picture Research Consultants & Archives)
CONSUMERISM:
Impact of the Automobile
Increase in sales:
1913 - 1.2 million registered;
1929 - 26.5 million registered
Passenger Car
Sales, 1920-1929
(=almost one per family)
Replaced the railroad as
the key promoter of
economic growth (steel,
glass, rubber, gasoline, highways)
Daily life:
commuting,
shopping, traveling, “courting”
Filling Station, Maryland in 1921
Impact of the Automobile:
Trains and Automobiles, 1900-1980
Jones, Created Equal
Automobiles & Consumerism
Dodge advertisement photo, 1933
< Ford ad: “Every family -- with even the most
modest income, can now afford a car of their own."
“Every family should have their own car. . .You live
but once and the years roll by quickly. Why wait for
tomorrow for things that you rightfully should enjoy
today?"
(Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
Ford Motor Company
showroom 1925
Chevrolet
Advertisement
1925
CONSUMERISM
& Automobiles
July 4, Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts, early 1920s
MASS CULTURE:
Radio
New mass medium
1920: First
commercial radio
station
By 1930: over 800
stations & 10
million radios
Networks: NBC
(1924), CBS (1927)
The Spread of
Radio, to 1939
ROLE OF WOMEN:
the “New Woman”
the “New Woman”
“pink collar” jobs
Women’s fashions, 1920
Women in the Workforce,
1900-1940
SOCIAL &
CULTURAL
CONFLICTS
Religion
“modernists”
“fundamentalism”
Scopes Trial
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS:
Prohibition
Prohibition
“wets and dries”
Al Capone
Government agents breaking up an illegal bar during Prohibition
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS:
Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
National Origin Act of 1924:
limited number of
immigrants entering the US
Percentage of Population Foreign Born, 1850-1990
Number of
Immigrants and
Countries of
Origin, 1891-1920
and 1921-1940
Immigration, 1921-1960
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS:
Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
Birth of a Nation - D.W. Griffith
“new” Ku Klux Klan
Leo Frank
Ku Klux Klan initiation, 1923. The Klan opposed all who were not “true Americans”.
(c) 2000 IRC
(Picture Research Consultants & Archives)
African American Population, 1920
Ku
Klux
Klan
(mid-1920s)
(Private
Collection)
Copyright
1997 State
Historical
Society of
Wisconsin
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan parade in
Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 1926
BUSINESS –
FRIENDLY
GOVERNMENT
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY
GOVERNMENT
Calvin Coolidge
“The business of
America is business”
President Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge throwing out first pitch 1924
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY
GOVERNMENT
Herbert Hoover
Al Smith
Election
of 1928
Herbert Hoover
Hoover,
Ford, Edison,
and Firestone
Feb 11, 1929
The Great Crash
New York
Times,
Friday,
October 25,
1929
Stock Market Prices, 1921–1932
Stock Market crash: October 24, 1929
(Corbis-Bettmann)
SOURCES
http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/special_features/image_b
ank_US/1920_1930.html
Brinkley, American History: A Survey
Kennedy, American Pageant 13e (History Companion)
Faragher, Out of Many, 3rd Ed.;
http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_faragher_outofmany_ap/
Jones, et al., Created Equal
Nash
America: Pathways to the Present