Ch 23
The 1920’s
EQ’s
• What were the promises and limits of prosperity in the 1920s?
• How and why did the Republican Party dominate 1920s politics?
• How did the new mass media reshape American culture?
• Which Americans were less likely to share in postwar prosperity and why?
• What political and cultural movements opposed modern cultural trends.
1920’s Weight Loss
Economics
Business Doctrine
Death of TR (1919)
War Disillusionment
Return of “old guard”
conservative Republicanism
Business Prosperity 1920’s
Supply side factors Demand side factors
Increased productivity -Taylorism -Mass production -Business innovation
Stock market wealth effect -Buying on margin
Technology -Oil and electricity -Improved infrastructure -Automobile production
Easy consumer credit
Government Policy -High tariffs -Anti labor -”welfare capitalism” and “open shop” -Government spending -Supply-side economics
Easy business credit
Consumer borrowing
Business Prosperity 1920’s Supply side factors Demand side factors
Increased productivity -Taylorism -Mass production -Business innovation
Stock market wealth effect -Buying on margin
Technology -Oil and electricity -Improved infrastructure -Automobile production
Easy consumer credit
Government Policy -High tariffs -Anti labor -”welfare capitalism” and “open shop” -Government spending -Supply-side economics/low taxes
Easy business credit
What happens when you have this sort of imbalance?
Farm Problems
• What led to artificially high farm prices between 1916-18?
• How did they finance increased production?
• Impact of technology?
Other sick industries – why?
The Politics of the Boom
All the presidents of the 1920s were Republican
Republicans also controlled the Congress
Warren G. Harding 1921-1923 (died in office)
Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929
Herbert Hoover 1929-1933
Warren G. Harding
Newspaper magnate
Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922)
Bureau of Budget
Reduced income tax
Pardoned Debs
“Ohio Gang”
“Teapot Dome”
Harding is considered one of the worst Presidents in U.S. History
Teapot Dome
Calvin Coolidge
• Harding’s VP • Gov of MA • Boston Police Strike • Restored confidence • “The business of America
is business. The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there.”
• “When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results”
“Coolidge Prosperity”
1920’s Social/Cultural – The Jazz Age
1920’s Politics of Prosperity
1. 1920’s Republican position on the following and provide example:
– Tariffs
– Taxes
– Fiscal policy
– Govt regulation of business
– Labor
What is the symbolism of this picture?
Age of Automobile
Consumerism
Air Travel
Pop Heroes
Jack Dempsey
Movies
Women • At home
• At work
• Morality
• Divorce
• Activism – League and NWP
Bullets
1. What are the impacts of consumerism on American culture? – Bullet – Bullet
2. Evaluate the importance of the automobile on the U.S. economy. – Bullet – Bullet
3. What was the most significant political change in 1920’s? – Bullet – Bullet
Religion – Revival on the Radio
Religion
• Modernism vs Fundamentalism
– Scopes Trial
The “Lost Generation”
Art and Architecture
The Harlem Renaissance
• Harlem
Renaissance—
African-American
literary, artistic
movement
– express pride in African-
American experience
• Jazz becomes popular
Marcus Garvey
Prohibition
• Why?
• Enforcement
Organized Crime
Nativism
• Reasons
– Catholics and Jews
– Prejudice
– Jobs
– Extremists
Quota Acts of 1921 (3%/1910) and 24 (2%/1890)
The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Significance?
KKK Resurgence
$4.05 per week or 7 and 4/11 cents an hour, for 55 hours
Foreign Policy – Isolationist?
• Five Power Treaty
• Four Power Treaty
• Nine Power Treaty
• Kellogg-Briand Pact
– What did it do?
– Successful?
Problem: The US insists that all allied war debts are repaid. Germany isn’t able to pay the allies the reparations
they owe; thus, how can the allies pay the US?
Dawes Plan