Introduction

Core Topics1 Were the peace treaties of 1919–23 fair?

2 To what extent was the League of Nations a success?

3 Why had international peace collapsed by 1939?

4 Who was to blame for the Cold War?

5 How effectively did the USA contain the spread of Communism?

6 How secure was the USSR’s control over Eastern Europe, 1948–c.1989?

7 How effective has the United Nations Organisation been?

Options8 Germany, 1918–45

9 Russia, 1905–41

10 The USA,1919–41

11 China, 1945–c.1990

12 Southern Africa in the 20th century

13 Israelis and Palestinians, 1945–c.1994

14 How to succeed in IGCSE History

What’s on the CD-ROM? ● Past papers and model answers

● Revision checklists

● Timelines of key events

● Glossary

IIIContents

Contents

10 The USA, 1919–41

IntroductionDuring the 1920s the majority of Americans were able to enjoy the highest standard of living ever seen. A startling array of consumer goods was available and recreation time was enriched by the expansion of the leisure industries such as cinema, radio, and sport. America appeared affluent and unstoppable in its search for material improvement. Yet alongside these new-found riches there was poverty, intolerance, and unprecedented levels of organised crime. America was a country of stark contrasts.

The economic bubble burst in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash which signalled the beginning of a nationwide slump that spread worldwide. Unemployment soared and the hopes of the post-war generation were dashed. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a brave attempt to rescue America from this economic catastrophe, but it proved only partially successful. Full economic recovery was not achieved until the Second World War.

The aims of this chapter are to: ● Look at the expansion of the US economy during the 1920s including mass

production in the car and consumer durables industries, the fortunes of older industries, the development of credit and hire purchase, and the decline of agriculture as well as looking at weaknesses in the economy by the late 1920s.

● Consider society in the 1920s by examining the “Roaring Twenties”, film and other media, Prohibition and gangsterism, race relations, discrimination against black Americans, the Ku Klux Klan, and the changing roles of women.

● Examine the Wall Street Crash and its financial, economic, and social effects, as well as the reaction of President Hoover to the Crash.

● Look at the Presidential election of 1932 including Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s programmes, Roosevelt’s inauguration, and the “Hundred Days”.

● Consider the New Deal legislation, the “alphabet agencies” and their work, and the economic and social changes they caused as well as opposition to the New Deal among the Republicans, the rich, business interests, the Supreme Court, and radical critics like Huey Long.

● Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the New Deal programme in dealing with unemployment and the Depression.

The USA, 1919–41246

How far did the US economy boom in the 1920s?On what factors was the economic boom based?America’s economic boom of the 1920s had solid foundations extending back to the nineteenth century. By 1900 America was already one of the world’s leading producers of oil, coal, iron, steel, engineering products, and textiles. These thriving basic industries provided an excellent platform for later economic growth.

The First World War presented the US with increased opportunities for export as the warring European nations were unable to trade with their colonies and required supplies of food, raw materials, and military equipment. Whereas Germany, Britain, and France were exhausted by the war, the American economy emerged strong and reinvigorated. But there were other factors that underpinned the economic advances of the 1920s.

Invention and innovation

● After 1917 there were a number of important breakthroughs involving new products and means of production.

● The building industry benefited from new machines such as concrete mixers, pneumatic tools, and power shovels.

● Communications were speeded up by automatic switchboards, dial phones, and teletype machines.

● Advances in chemicals and synthetics brought rayon, Bakelite, and cellophane into common use.

Electrification ● The widespread availability of electricity meant that homes and industry now had a clean, cheap, and efficient power source.

● Domestic appliances powered by electricity such as fridges, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners became affordable to ordinary Americans.

Mass production ● This was made possible by adapting the line production techniques of a Chicago slaughterhouse.

● Henry Ford used assembly line production in the manufacture of cars but the same techniques were applied to the production of many other items from radios to cigarette lighters.

● Mass production led to a fall in prices.

The motor industry ● The motor car was central to America’s economic success. ● By 1929 one American in five owned a car compared to one in forty-three in Britain. ● The car industry, which employed up to half a million workers, stimulated road and hotel

construction, the building of roadside filling stations, and the development of suburbs and holiday resorts.

● It also boosted a range of other associated industries: plate glass, rubber, steel, leather, and upholstery.

Mass-marketing ● Mass production required ways of mass selling and advertising became a major industry during the 1920s.

● Commercials were devised for the radio and the cinema while giant posters pasted onto billboards became a familiar sight along the highways. Magazines, newspapers, and mail order catalogues were also used to promote the new merchandise.

FPBakelite

An early plastic that did not conduct electricity and was resistant to heat. As a result of these properties it was used in products such as saucepan handles and electrical plugs and switches.

Line production

Most manufactured articles are the result of a number of production tasks or processes. In line production these actions are performed in sequence by specialist workers or tools as the product passes through the factory.

(table continued)

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Hire purchase ● Customers who could not afford to buy a product outright were able to pay by instalments under a hire purchase agreement.

● Since the cost of living was falling for many Americans, with wages rising and both food and manufactured goods becoming cheaper, this seemed a sensible way to buy.

Government policy ● The Republican governments of the 1920s followed financial policies that were considered favourable to business: low taxation, high tariffs and an absence of regulation or government intervention. This policy is sometimes known as laissez-faire.

▲ Table 10.1

1920 1929Radios

10 million60,000

1919 1929

Cars

26 million9 million

1915

0

12

345

67

8 9

0

12

345

67

8 9

0

12

345

67

8 9

1930

Telephones

10 million 20 million

1921

Fridges

For every one...

1929

there were 167

▲ Fig. 10.1 Sales of consumer goods, 1915–30

Tariffs

Tariffs are taxes on imports. The effect is to raise the price of the imported item making it more expensive. Tariffs are used partly to raise money and partly to protect home industries from foreign competition.

Warren Harding 1921–3

Calvin Coolidge 1923–9

Herbert Hoover 1929–33

▲ Table 10.2 Republican Presidents of the USA, 1921–33

The USA, 1919–41248

Why did some industries prosper while others did not?While the 1920s saw economic expansion in many industries, some went into decline. Overall growth never affects every part of the economy in the same way. The increase in car ownership, for example, had a negative impact on the number of people travelling by train. In general, the new industries flourished while the traditional industries declined, but this was not always the case. Steel, oil, and construction, for example, continued to expand during the 1920s even though they were all well-established industries.

Building and construction

The 1920s were the golden age of building and construction in America as new businesses required factories, offices, shops, and showrooms connected by new roads. Many skyscraper projects were designed during this time including New York’s Chrysler Building and the 102-storey Empire State Building, both completed during the early 1930s. Less eye-catching was the increase in the number of homes, schools, hospitals, and other public buildings.

Cotton and woollen textiles

The general increase in the standard of living coupled with the increase in the number of shops and department stores meant that there was increased demand for clothes. But since these were often manufactured from synthetic fibres such as rayon and celanese (artificial silk) there was actually less demand for cotton and woollen textiles. The problem for the traditional textile industry was made worse by the change in fashions—shorter hemlines for women’s skirts and dresses meant that less material was used. Textile operatives in the cotton and woollen industries were among the lowest paid factory workers.

Steel

The steel industry did not share the fate of some other older industries, partly because of the demands of the car industry which used 20 per cent of steel output. Other demand came from the building industry which required steel girders, while most new industries were equipped with machinery that made use of steel or used steel components in its products.

▲ Fig. 10.2 Construction workers attaching steel beams to the framework of the Manhattan Company Building, 1930s

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Coal

As with textiles the coal industry suffered from overproduction. Oil, gas, and electricity were increasingly used as alternatives both in domestic homes and in industrial premises. Existing users of coal could often burn the fuel more efficiently, so adding to the reduction in demand. The industry was plagued by wage cuts, pit closures, and strike action.

Motor cars

This was the undoubted success story of the 1920s. The industry was dominated by three firms: Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. Henry Ford led the field, reducing the cost of his Model T from $850 in 1908 to $290 in the 1920s. This was made possible through the achievement of high volume sales—15 million Model T Fords had been manufactured by 1927. Workers at Ford’s Detroit factory were paid high wages but they had to sign agreements to say that they would not join unions.

▲ Fig. 10.3 The 15 millionth Model T Ford car coming off the production line at the Dearborn factory, May 1927

SOU

RCE

1

Henry Ford writing about the Model T Ford car, 1922.

I will build a car for the great multitude ... It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one–and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

SOU

RCE

2

Alistair Cooke writing about the Model T Ford car, 1973. Alistair Cooke was a British/American journalist, television personality, and broadcaster. He spent much of his life reporting on aspects of American life for the BBC.

It is staggering to consider what the Model T was to lead to in both industry and folkways. It certainly wove the first network of paved highways ... Beginning in the early 1920s, people who had never taken a holiday ... could now explore the South, New England, even the West, and in time the whole horizon of the United States. Most of all, the Model T gave to the farmer and rancher, miles from anywhere, a new pair of legs.

DISCUSSION1. How useful is Source 1 as evidence of the qualities of the Model T Ford car?

2. What impact did the Model T Ford car have on the lives of the American people according to the writer in Source 2?

The USA, 1919–41250

Why did agriculture not share in the prosperity?The most striking example of an industry that was unable to share in the prosperity of the 1920s was agriculture which employed more than a quarter of the working population. During the First World War American agriculture had boomed as grain from the Midwestern and southern states had been exported to Europe. With the aid of new machinery, such as combine harvesters, production increased, prices rose, and American farmers were able to make substantial profits. But the good times came to an abrupt end following the armistice.

Why was this?

There were a number of reasons that agriculture missed out on the growth experienced elsewhere.

● Demobilisation in Europe meant that former agricultural workers returned to their farms and began producing food again. American imports were no longer needed.

● American tariffs made selling to Europe even more difficult. European countries found it hard to sell in American markets thereby earning the dollars with which to purchase American produce.

● American agriculture also began facing competition from Canada and Argentina who began supplying grain to the world markets.

● American patterns of food consumption were changing. An increasingly prosperous population preferred more luxurious foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, to cereal products. Furthermore, the banning of alcohol under the Prohibition laws meant that the consumption of barley in making beer fell by 90 per cent.

All this meant that American agriculture was suffering from overproduction and prices fell. Profits were squeezed and many small farmers could no longer afford their rents or mortgage payments. Evictions and forced sales followed. There were one million fewer farms in 1930 than in 1920.

It was the small farmers and labourers who suffered the most. The larger operators, equipped with modern machinery, were still able to make profits. These included some of the fruit growers of California and Florida together with the cereal farmers of the Midwest.

The plight of the farming sector was bad for the whole economy. This was partly because so many Americans, approaching half the total population, lived in rural areas with their livelihoods dependent on the well-being of the farming community. As agricultural incomes dropped, so demand for manufactured goods dropped also, creating unemployment in the industrial areas.

Did all Americans benefit from the boom?We have already seen how the economic boom failed to improve the lives of farmers and agricultural labourers and those who worked in certain traditional industries such as coal and textiles.

Unemployment was an obvious problem but low wages also prevented a significant part of the labour force from joining in the new prosperity.

FP

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Female cotton operatives, for example, could be paid as little as $9 a week at a time when $48 was considered to be the minimum necessary to maintain a basic standard of living. Estimates of the number of Americans living beneath the poverty line vary, but some put it as high as 60 per cent of American families in the late 1920s. In addition to the groups already mentioned were three particularly vulnerable groups in society who found it difficult to find work.

Black Americans

Until the end of the First World War the population of black Americans was concentrated in the states of the South such as Texas and Louisiana. Here they worked as labourers or sharecroppers. With the onset of the agricultural slump of the 1920s, approximately 750 000 of these black workers were laid off by their white landlords. Those who remained experienced poverty and extreme forms of racial discrimination.

Many took the decision to try to find alternative work in the northern cities. While the cities provided greater employment opportunities many of the jobs available were in the lowest paid sectors: domestic service, casual labouring, and building work. Most of the new industries which offered higher wages operated a whites-only employment policy. Blacks met with considerable discrimination, especially with regards to housing where they were segregated into slum areas such as Harlem in New York. It is fair to say that the vast majority of black Americans were excluded from the benefits of the boom.

Native Americans

During the nineteenth century, American Indians had been gradually forced off their land and by the early 1920s were living in reservations specially provided for them by the American government. The reservations were located in areas with poor soil so that growing crops was difficult. Those who remained on the reservations lived a primitive way of life compared to western standards, suffering from poverty, poor education, and ill health. Those who left and tried to mix with white society met with prejudice and discrimination, finding that the main job opportunities lay with low-paid work. As with the black Americans, the new prosperity largely passed them by.

New immigrants

With the exception of the American Indians, America is an immigrant society. The population arrived from Europe and elsewhere over three centuries. The earliest immigrants, largely from northern Europe and Scandinavia, together with their descendants, came to resent the later waves of immigration from southern and eastern Europe and Russia. The new immigrants found that only the lowest-paid jobs were available to them and as with the black Americans and American Indians they suffered from discrimination on account of their religion (many were Jews or Catholics), lack of education, and ability to drive down wages. Unemployment rates among new immigrants remained high throughout the 1920s.

Sharecropper

An agricultural worker who passes on a share of his crop to the landowner in return for land to farm.

▲ Fig. 10.4 American unemployment 1920–9

01920 1921 1922 1923 1924

Year1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

Perc

enta

ge

2

4

6

8

10

12

The USA, 1919–41252

How far did US society change in the 1920s?What were the “Roaring Twenties”?America in the 1920s was not just a land of economic prosperity. For a minority it was a country of glamour, glitz, and partying. This life of excess and frivolity was projected across the nation through the mass media so that few Americans were totally unaware of the new age and the daring new ways of the younger generation. This was the decade of short skirts and make-up, bobbed hair, cocktail drinks, nightclubs, the Charleston, the saxophone, jazz, and Hollywood. In many ways it was a time of rebellion against the starchiness of nineteenth century standards of dress, morals, and social behaviour. But millions of Americans were envious or disapproving spectators of the racy lifestyles enjoyed by the young, rich city-dwellers. The “Roaring Twenties” was more an image than a reality for the majority of the population.

Movies ● Cinema provided an opportunity for escapism for many Americans and audiences more than doubled during the 1920s reaching 95 million in 1929.

● Hollywood launched stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolf Valentino who became some of the world’s first celebrities.

● “Talkies” arrived in 1927 and millions flocked to watch and hear Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. ● The hairstyles, clothes, make-up, perfumes, and mannerisms of the stars were copied by

impressionable  Americans. ● There were concerns, however, that films were corrupting public morals so the industry introduced a code

of practice which, among other restrictions, limited the length of on-screen kisses and banned nudity.

Jazz ● Jazz music was the popular music of the 1920s giving rise to the term “Jazz Age”. ● Along with Blues music it originated in the African American community of the south. It was often performed

by black musicians who had migrated to the northern cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. ● Jazz was linked to dance music and led to the formation of many nightclubs such as the Cotton Club of

Harlem, New York which launched the career of Duke Ellington. ● Jazz appealed to young whites who found it exciting, dynamic, and modern. Older Americans found it

threatening as it broke with tradition and was seen as a corrupting influence.

Radio ● By 1930, 40 per cent of American households possessed a radio. ● The first national network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), was set up in 1926 following the

establishment of more than 500 local commercial radio stations. ● Radio was used to broadcast light musical entertainment to a mass audience, producing the age of the

great dance bands. Orchestras led by Joe Candullo, Meyer Davis, and Jean Goldkette would play tunes such as Swanee River Blues, Black Bottom or Gimme A Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?

● Radio also provided a fresh start for some of the artists such as comedians, impersonators, instrumentalists, and vocalists of the declining vaudeville or variety theatres.

Cars ● The car made possible much of the activity that characterised the “Roaring Twenties” by giving many Americans a freedom of movement they had never known before.

● It provided an easy means of visiting clubs, cinemas, and restaurants and created opportunities for taking day trips and other holidays.

▲ Table 10.3

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▲ Fig. 10.5 Poster for The Jazz Singer, 1927▲ Fig. 10.6 King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong kneeling in the centre

foreground, 1920s

▲ Fig. 10.7 Advertisement for a Buick car, 1928

The USA, 1919–41254

O The economic boom of the 1920s: why it happened, its main features and why it did not benefit all industries and all Americans.

O Social changes in the 1920s including intolerance, Prohibition and the apparent revolution in the role of women.

O The causes and economic and social consequences of the Wall Street Crash.

O The 1932 Presidential election.

O The New Deal: what was it, how was it introduced, why did it give rise to fierce opposition, why did it fail to eliminate unemployment, how successful was it?

KEY POINTS

● The role of the automobile industry and mass production is a particular favourite when questions are set on the 1920s boom. Remember that the term ‘boom’ is a generalisation and there were plenty of exceptions including agriculture and the older industries.

● You must be familiar with the nature of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. But, as with changes in the role of women, you must appreciate that it affected a tiny minority in American society. Most Americans were not partying throughout the 1920s and most young American women remained unliberated.

● You must understand why America sometimes appeared an intolerant society during the 1920s. Why did the WASPS feel so threatened and how did they try to preserve their supremacy? Questions on Prohibition are popular and you need to know why it was introduced, how it affected American society and why it was repealed after 13 years.

● The Wall Street Crash does not need to be a difficult topic. Remember that Wall Street was simply a market place for company shares. Try to work out what types of American would (a) lose heavily (b) remain largely unaffected and (c) gain from the Crash. What is the difference, if any, between the Crash and the onset of depression?

● When answering questions on why Roosevelt won the 1932 Presidential election remember that the outcome reflected Hoover’s weaknesses as well as Roosevelt’s strengths.

● Questions on the New Deal are very common and there is a lot of detail to master. Don’t let this overwhelm you. Break it up into manageable sections such as the First Hundred Days or Second New Deal and so on. Keep on going back over material you have already revised. Only rarely does information sink in thoroughly after one reading. Detail is important but so also is the ‘big picture’. Make sure that at the end of your revision you are equipped to answer the general questions on the New Deal such as whether it was an overall success or failure.

Revision tips

The USA, 1919–41272