The USA in the second half of 19th –

the 20th centuries

Industrial growth and Great Depression

in the second half of 19th – the first part of the 20th

century

During the second half of 19th

– the first part of 20th century

the USA was becoming the

world’s leading industrial

power and great fortunes were

made by shrewd businessmen.

The first transcontinental

railroad was completed in

1869.

● The petroleum industry prospered,

dominated by John D. Rockefeller’s

giant Standard Oil Company.

● Andrew Carnegie, who came to

America as a poor Scottish immigrant,

built a great empire of steel mills and

iron mines – which he sold in 1901 for

nearly 500 thousand million dollars.

Textile mills multiplied in the South,

and meatpacking plants sprang up in

and around Chicago.

Andrew Carnegie

● An electrical industry was created

by a series of inventions – the

telephone, the phonograph, the light

bulb, motion pictures etc.

● In Chicago architect Louis Sullivan

used steel frame construction to

develop an American contribution

to the cities of the world – the

skyscraper.Architect Louis Sullivan

● Industrialization brought with it the rise of organized labour. Many of the

workers in the new industries were immigrants.

● Between 1865 and 1910, 25 million people came to the United States, many

of them settled in major American cities. Immigrants often suffered

discrimination from native-born Americans – who, of course, were

themselves descended from immigrants. Still, America offered the

immigrants more religious liberty, more political freedom and greater

economic opportunities than they could find in their native lands.

● Since the founding of Jamestown,

the first permanent European

settlement in North America, in 1607,

the United States has accepted two-thirds

of all the world’s immigrants – a total

of 50 million people.

Jamestown

● Although the economy was booming

and prosperity was spreading, up to

half of all industrial workers still lived

in poverty – and many of those

workers were women and children.

Many states passed laws restricting

child labour, protecting women

workers, limiting work hours and

providing workmen’s compensation.

Women agitated for the right to vote,

and by 1914 several states had granted

that right.

● In 1921, Congress enacted

immigration limits. These

restrictions favoured

immigrants from Britain,

Ireland, Scandinavia and

Germany – “Anglo-Saxon”

and “Nordic” stock. Small

quotas were reserved for

eastern and southern

Europeans; none at all for

Asians.

The Ku Klux

Klan

● The 1920th were an extraordinary

and contradictory decade. It was

the age of Prohibition.

● In 1920 alcoholic beverages

were outlawed by a

Constitutional Amendment. But

drinkers cheerfully evaded the

law in thousands of illegal bars,

and gangsters made fortunes

supplying illegal liquor.

Composer George Gershwin

● The Ku Klux Klan, revived in 1915,

attracted millions of followers and

terrorized blacks, Catholics, Jews

and immigrants. At the same time,

there was a flowering of black

literature – the “Harlem

Renaissance” – and jazz caught the

imagination of many white

Americans, including composer

George Gershwin.

Henry Ford and his Model T

● For business, the 1920th were golden

years of prosperity.

● The United States was now a consumer

society, with a blooming market for

radios, home appliances, synthetic

textiles and plastics. The businessman

became a popular hero.

● One of the most admired men of the

decade was Henry Ford, who introduced

the assembly line into automobile

production. Ford was able to pay high

wages and still earn enormous profits by

manufacturing the Model T – a simple,

basic car that millions of buyers could

afford.

Henry Ford

“Black Thursday”

There were, however, problems in the

prosperity of the 1920th.

Overproduction of crops depressed

food prices, and farmers suffered.

Industrial workers were earning better

wages, but they still did not have

enough purchasing power to continue

buying goods, produced by the

factories.

On October, 24, 1929 – “Black

Thursday” – a wave of panic selling of

stocks swept the New York Stock

Exchange. By 1932, thousands of

banks and over 100,000 businesses

had failed. Industrial production was

cut in half, farm income had fallen by

more than half, wages had decreased

60 percent, new investment was down

90 percent and one out of every four

workers was unemployed.

Watch the video about “Black Thursday” in the USA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKkCp-sS8Yc

After watching the video answer the following questions:

● What does “Black Thursday” mean?

● What are the causes of the stock market crash?

● What was the government policy for recovering of the

economy?

● Name the consequences of “Black Thursday”.