Unit 7: Pleasure and Pain – 1920 to 1945

Section 1: Party Like its 1929: For Whom Were the ‘20s “Roaring”?

Essential Questions

• Could American pop culture have come to fruition without advances in commerce and industry?

• Did all Americans benefit from the economic boom? What fueled America’s appetite for consumption?

REALITY CHECK: GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEPRESSION

Section 2

Essential Questions

• What caused the most severe economic crisis in American history? Could it have been avoided? Who was responsible?

• Did the hardships of the Great Depression unite or divide Americans?

THE NEW DEAL: A FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SHIFT

Section 3

Essential Questions

• What was the New Deal: a series of reforms that propped up a failing capitalist system, a dangerous lurch towards socialism, or a necessary step to preserve American prosperity and freedom?

• How does New Deal legislation affect our lives today and fuel contemporary political debates?

ReliefImmediate action taken to halt

financial deterioration.

Recovery"Pump - Priming" Temporary

programs to restart the flow of consumer demand.

ReformPermanent programs to avoid another depression and insure

citizens against economic disasters.

Bank HolidayDeclared so that the panic

would be stopped.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

Taxed food processors and gave the money directly to farmers as a payment for not growing food. This decreased supply so price

would go up.

Soil Conservation ActLaws mandating proper soil

maintenance to make sure that another Dust Bowl was avoided.

Emergency Banking ActClosed the insolvent banks and

only reopened the solvent ones.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

Provided long term government jobs building schools and other

public works projects.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Permanent Agency designed to insure depositors’ money in

savings banks.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Temporary jobs to unmarried single adults filling sand bags

and helping out at disaster type situations. Participants lived in

barracks type housing.

Home Owners Loan Corp.Gave loans to home owners so they could pay their mortgages.

This prevented people from going homeless and prevented

banks from going under.

Social Security AdministrationPermanent agency designed to ensure that the older segment of society always would have

enough money to survive. It is also good if they spend throughout their lives.

WORLD WAR II: BECOMING A SUPERPOWER

Section 4

Essential Questions

• Was Pearl Harbor simply an excuse to go to war? Could the United States have avoided the war?

• Was the U.S.’s use of atomic weapons in Japan justified? Did we have to drop the bomb?

• Was it inevitable that the U.S. and Soviet Union became adversaries? Could the relationship have been different?

361 Japanese warplanes attack American airfields and shipyards, disabling 19 ships, destroying 200 planes, and killing over 2300 men. Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Malaya, Philippines soon fall to Japan.

I. Opposing Perspectives

A. Alliance of Britain and U.S. with Soviet Union was pragmatic: need to defeat Germany

1. Lack of trust of Stalin. Neither Churchill nor

FDR told Stalin about the atomic bomb

2. Many Allied leaders hoped USSR could be persuaded to join a

new, stronger League of Nations organization

B. Communist leaders feared capitalist nations

1.Expected for European and then world

domination by communism. 2. Hoped for collapse of capitalist economies and societies

II. Problems with USSR

A. Free elections promised in Poland by Stalin following the war

1. Communist government formed with no elections 2. Border nations

pressured into establishing communist governments

B. Churchill responded with "Iron Curtain" speech in March 1946, declaring that USSR's intentions were to control Eastern European and expand power throughout the world

C. Marshall Plan--Western Europeans nations provided $12 billion to rebuild economies and resist Soviet pressures