ECONOMIC GROWTH1920’s

Manufacturing output rose 60%

Had to do with technology!

Assembly line

Radio

Motion Pictures with sound

Home Appliances

Plastics

Synthetic Fibers

Oil

Electric Power

CONSUMERISMChanges In Industrialization

Created a mass of consumer culture

Men and women could now buy for fun!

Middle Class Families

Purchased: Electric refrigerators, washing machines, electric irons, and vacuum cleaners.

Above all the bought automobiles

30 million cars will be on the road by the end of the century.

1928-1929- automobiles killed as many Americans as had lost their lives in battle during WWI!

MAGAZINESBegan publication in 1871.

Appealed to small town families

Homey Stories.

MAGAZINESFounded in 1921.

Contained condensed stories, even books.

Expanding knowledge and information for those who had no access to it.

MAGAZINESFounded in 1923

Set out condense the news of the week.

For people who didn’t have newspapers.

OTHER MAGAZINES

MOVIES AND BROADCASTING

Movies were becoming more popular.

100 million- saw films in the 1930’s

20 million- saw films in 1922.

Addition to sound

1927 – The Jazz Singer

First Commercial Radio Station

KDKA in Pittsburgh

Began in 1920

First National Radio Network

National Broadcasting Company formed in 1927.

1929- 12 million families owned radio sets.

THE FLAPPER1920’s Women

No longer necessary to maintain rigid respectability.

They could:

Smoke

Drink

Dance

Wear seductive clothes.

Makeup

Attended parties

They were liberated in dress and hairstyle, speech and behavior.

Nightlife- often flocked alone to clubs and dance halls in search of excitement and companionship.

Highly dependent on men

Powerless when men exploited that dependence.

THE DISENCHANTEDCommon Nickname:

“Lost Generation”

Most intellectuals agreed with that description.

Aftermath: war was shattering. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Ernest Hemingway:

A Farewell To Arms:

Story of an officer who deserts the army with a nurse.

Some left the U.S to live in France.

Made Paris for a time of American artistic life.

Other moved to the West.

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Harlem

Became the nation’s largest and most influential African- American communities.

Spread of African American culture:

Nightclubs, great Jazz music

Duke Ellington- great jazz musician.

Many White New Yorkers traveled up to Harlem for the music and theater

Audiences were largely black.

HARLEM IN THE 1920’SCenter of Literature, Poetry, and Art.

Racial Pride

Marcus Garvey

Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association

Promoted the idea of resettlement of American blacks in their own homeland.

Was convicted of mail fraud and shipped back to Jamaica.

THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL

Tennessee March 1925

Legislature made it illegal to “Teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.”

ACLU- Founded in 1920

Alarmed by the repressive legal and social climate of the war and its aftermath.

Needed an association to defend legal speech and belief.

THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL

ACLU

Offered free legal council to any Tennessee educator willing to defy the law and become the defendant in a test case.

Scopes- agreed to be arrested.

Clarence Darrow- defended Scopes.

William Jennings Bryan- would help with prosecution.

Scopes violated the law.

Verdict was guilty

Fined 100$

Case was dismissed in a higher court.

Darrow/Bryan- Made Bryan feel foolish in court.

PRESIDENT HARDINGHarding- Elected in 1920

Senator from Ohio

Appointed men to important cabinet offices.

Unfit: “I don’t seem to grasp that I am President”.

“I am not fit for this office and should never have been here!”

Delegated authority to others

Political Cronies

Members of his cabinet.

Albert Fall- Secretary of Interior

Engaged in fraud and corruption.

Spectacular Scandal-

Involved reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

Fall- secretly leased the reserves to wealthy businesses and received a half million dollars in loans..

Used the money to ease money troubles.

Convicted of bribery and sentenced to a year in prison.

Summer of 1923- Harding left Washington.

Cross-Country speaking tour.

Seattle- July- had severe pain.

He had food poisoning

Will die a few days after in San Francisco

Suffered two major heart attacks.

COOLIDGE AS PRESIDENT

Coolidge was different than Harding.

He was:

Quiet (Silent), and Honest.

One way that he was like Coolidge was that he was passive.

Was Governor of Massachusetts in 1919.

VP nominee in 1920.

Daily Routine:

Long naps every afternoon.

Official appointments to a minimum.

Talked very little.

Proposed no significant legislation

Took little part in running the nation’s foreign policy.

“He aspired to be the least president the country ever had”.

PRESIDENT COOLIDGE

1924- Coolidge was elected president and could have won in 1928.

Chose not to run again.

Walked into the press room.

Handed each reporter a slip of paper:

It said:

“I do not choose to run for president in 1928”.

1928 Election: Republicans: Herbert Hoover for president in 1928.

Hoover won easily promising bold new efforts to solve the nation’s economic problems.