Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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TIMELINE
The Business-Government Partnership of the 1920s Politics in the Republican New Era Corporate Capitalism Economic Expansion Abroad Foreign Policy in the 1920s
Democrat Deadlock
Coolidge called for isolationism in foreign policy in the 1924 elections. The Democrats disagreed mightily over Prohibition, immigration restriction, and the growing power of the racist Ku Klux Klan. This resulted in a hopeless deadlock between Gov. Al Smith (NY) and William McAdoo (CA). After 103 ballots, the compromise candidate was John W. Davis, Wall St. Lawyer
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Progressive Party
A third-party challenge was mounted in 1924 by Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. He mobilized farmers as was reformers and labor leaders. Nationalization of railroads, public ownership of utilities, and a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to overide the Supreme Court.
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Corporate Capitalism
The revolution in business management that began in the 1890s finally triumphed in the 1920s. Large scale corporate bureaucracies headed by chief executive officers (CEO). Immediately after WW1 the nation experienced a series of economic shocks. There was rampant inflation in 1919. Then came a sharp two-year recession
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Corporate Capitalism
An abundance of new consumer products, such as the automobile, stimulated economic expansion. Manufacturing output expanded 64 percent during the decade, factories turned out millions of cars, refrigerators, stoves, and radios. Scientific management, introduced by Frederick W. Taylor (1895) was widely implemented in 1920.
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Corporate Capitalism
The Economy had some significant weaknesses. Agriculture, employing one fourth of all workers, never recovered from the postwar recession. The price of wheat dropped by 40%, corn by 32% and hogs by 50%. The farmers national share of income dropped from 16% in 1919 to 9% in 1929.
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Corporate Capitalism
In addition to agriculture, other sick industries included coal and textiles The weakness of the coal mining, textile, and agricultural sectors in the economy foreshadowed economic problems that would help to cause the Great Depression. Like farmers, these businesses had over expanded output during the war and now faced overcapacity and falling prices. (p.676)
United Fruit was one of the many American companies that found opportunities for investment in South America in the 1920s, it then had to sell tropical foods to the American consumer. To boost sales in the company published elaborate color advertisements. Bananas were sufficiently exotic that the adds explained to consumers how to tell when the bananas were ripe
welfare capitalism
welfare capitalism arose in the 1920s, a system of management that stressed responsibility for employees well being. General Electric, U.S. Steel and other large corporation offered their workers health insurance, old-age pensions, and the opportunity to buy stock at a discount. Their goal was to create a loyal and long serving work force. (p.676)
welfare capitalism
welfare capitalism had a second goal of deterring workers from joining labor unions. Decisions by the conservative Supreme Court undercut union activism and government regulation of the labor market.
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Economic nationalism
The outflow of U.S. capital slowed and then stopped, undermining the reparation payments. The stock market crash also increased a policy of economic nationalism resulting in The Hawley-Smoot Act of 1930 raising tariffs to an all-time high. This made it impossible for the Allied Powers to pay off the remaining $4.3 billion in war loans.
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A Consumer Society
In homes across the country in the 1920s, American sat down to Kelloggs corn flakes, and toast from a G.E. toaster. They got into a Ford Model T to go to Safeway, A&P, or Woolworths. In the evening the family listened to radio programs or read the latest issue of the Readers Digest. On weekends they might see Charlie Chaplin films in a local theater. Millions shared similar cultural experiences.
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A Consumer Society
Nevertheless, many black, rural or working-class Americans were unable to participate in the new national consumer culture, or accept its middle class values. Unequal distribution of income limited many consumers ability to buy the new products. The bottom 40% of American families had an average income of only $725 (about $8,300 today) Poverty in the 1920s prevented many people from participating fully in commercial mass culture.
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necessities?or luxuries?
In order to encourage consumption, a new field of advertising developed by 1929. The advertising industry focused around NYCs Madison Avenue. Consumers were not passive victims of manipulative advertising agencies, but were willing participants in a new culture. For many middle class Americans, gratification of personal desires became a key measure of self-worth.
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The Flappers
Clara Bow, 1927 make-up, short skirts, smoking and jazz.
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The Jazz Singer was the first talkie. Jazz music captured the sensibility of the 1920s, especially creativity and sensuality It was an African American art form. Most of the early jazz musicians were black and they carried its rhythms to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Jazz often expressed black dissent and became popular with young intellectuals.
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The phonograph machine expanded the popularity of jazz, which now could be heard at home as well as in a city jazz joint. "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds sold a million records in 1920 and convinced record companies that there was a market among African Americans for what were called race records." By the 1950s, black music had become "American" music. Perry Bradford, the piano player composer of "Crazy Blues," was also the composer of "Keep A Knockin," which Little Richard made into major rock 'n' roll hit in 1957.
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Mass-circulation magazines and radio were key factors in the creation of a national culture. 1922, ten magazines each claimed a circulation of at least 2.5 million. Time Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies Home Journal Good Housekeeping Associated Press (AP), and the United Press (UP) appeared on the national scene.
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Redefining American Identity The Rise of Nativism Legislating Values: Evolution and Prohibition Intellectual Crosscurrents Cultural Wars: The Election of 1928
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Immigration
Native animosity fueled a new drive against immigration. Congress banned Chinese in 1882. 1907: An agreement was negotiated under Roosevelt to restrict Japanese immigration. 1924: Congress passed a National Origins Act. 1929: Congress passed more restrictive quotas, setting a cap of 150,000 immigrants per year from Europe and banned most immigrants from Asia.
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Immigration
New laws tended to permit unrestricted immigration from countries in the western hemisphere and Latin Americans arrived in increasing numbers. 1 million Mexicans entered from 1900 to 1930. Nativists lobbied Congress to limit the flow of Mexican migrants. American employers (larger farmers Texas and California)persuaded Congress to allow Mexicans to provide cheap labor.
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Legislating Values
Other cultural conflicts - religion and alcohol. Debate between modernist and revivalist protestants came to a head in the 1920s. Modernists reconciled their faith with evolution. Fundamentalists insisted on a literal reading of the Bible and clashed with modernists over science and the Bible. Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson used open-air revivals to popularize their brand of charismatic Christianity.
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Aimee McPherson founded the Foursquare Gospel Church, which now claims a worldwide membership of over three million. Born as Aimee Kennedy in Ontario, Canada, she married missionary Robert Semple in 1907. After his death in China, she married Harold McPherson and eventually settled in Los Angeles. By 1923, McPherson was preaching to a radio audience and to crowds of 5,000 at her massive Angelus Temple.
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Media Bias
H.L. Mencken, of the Baltimore Sun, wrote trial reports were heavily slanted against the prosecution and the jury He mocked the town's inhabitants as "yokels" and "morons". He called Bryan a "buffoon" and his speeches "theologic bilge". In contrast, he called the defense "eloquent" and "magnificent".
monkey trial
The press dubbed the trial with the pejorative term monkey trial. The trial began as a publicity stunt. The jury took only 8 minutes to deliver a guilty verdict. The TN Supreme Court overturned Scopes conviction, but the law remained on the books for 30 more years.
Prohibition
Another attempt by the state to enforce social values was the noble experiment of prohibition. Many Americans drank less, but many others continued to drink illegally and gave the decade the name the roaring 20s. Some people brewed their own homemade beer or bathtub gin. Others attended illegal speakeasies. There were 30,000 in NY.
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Prohibition
There were liquor smugglers operating with ease along the Canadian and Mexican borders. The Untouchables Trailer Organized crime took over the bootleg trade. The Untouchables Season 1 Episode 1 Part 1 The noble experiment was a dismal failure and came to an end in 1933.
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Intellectual Crosscurrents
Americans celebrated the end of the Great War but not all intellectuals agreed. Ernest Hemingways In Our Time (1924) The Sun Also Rises (1932) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) portrayed the dehumanization of war. T.S. Elliots poem The Waste Land (1922) showed the despair of ruined civilization. Writers offered stinging critiques of what they saw as materialistic, moralistic and anti-intellectual tone of American life.
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The Onset of the Great Depression, 19291932 Causes and Consequences Herbert Hoover Responds Rising Discontent The 1932 Election
Hoovervilles
By 1930, homeless people had built shantytowns in most of the nation's cities. In New York City, squatters camped out along the Hudson River railroad tracks, built makeshift homes in Central Park, or lived at the city dump. This photograph, taken near the old reservoir in Central Park, looks east toward the fancy apartment buildings of Fifth Avenue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at left.
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Hoovers strategy
Hoover attempted to deal with the depression by encouraging business men to take voluntary measures to maintain wages and jobs and to rebuild confidence in the system. He cut federal taxes in an attempt to boost private spending. He also increased Fed spending for public works. He mistakenly raised taxes in 1932 to balance the budget.
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Rising Discontent
As the depression continued, Herbert Hoover became increasingly unpopular. Hoovervilles were shanty towns were people lived in packing crates. Hoover blankets were newspapers. Rising discontent led for violence. 1931-32 Civil disorder erupted in the cities. Unemployed citizens demanded jobs and bread from local authorities. The Communist Party hoped to use the depression to overturn the capitalist system.
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Vivid images from the depression are of long lines of men standing outside soup kitchens and of well-dressed men on street corners selling apples and giving shoe shines. Most of the people in this line are white men but there are a few blacks. Some of the men wear worker's caps but almost as many wear fedoras, the stylish hat favored by the middle and upper classes.
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Rising Discontent
March of the Bonus Army - Part 1 March of the Bonus Army - Part 2 March of the Bonus Army - Part 3
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Summary
1920s By thesociety the U.S. had become a modern, urban with corporate businesses and
mass consumption. The Republican Party controlled the national government and had a close partnership with business interests. Movies, radio, and other mass media encouraged the development of a national culture.
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Summary
In order to enjoy leisure, consumption and amusement, families needed a middle class
income. The middle class lifestyle required a middle class income. Farmers, workers and African Americans were unable to afford the middle class lifestyle. Cultural disputes over prohibition, evolution, and immigration led to the creation the new Klu Klux Klan.
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