The New Economy

1. The New Economy • After the recession of 1921-1922, the United States began a long period of almost uninterrupted prosperity, the nation's manufacturing output rose by almost 60%, per capita income rose 33%, the economic boom was the result of the debilitation of European industry, technological innovation, great industrial expansion, and the development of the assembly line

2. The New Economy • The automobile industry stimulated growth in many related industries, such as steel, rubber, glass, tools, gasoline from oil corporations, road construction, and the housing industry with the development of the suburbs

3. The New Economy • The radio industry, with the discovery of the theory of modulation, made it possible to transmit speech and music, commercial broadcasting began in 1920, by 1925 there were 2 million radio sets in American homes, and by the end of the 1920s almost every home had one

4. The New Economy • Commercial aviation developed slowly beginning with the use of planes to deliver mail, radial engines and pressurized cabins will be important in the 1930s, Trains became faster and more efficient with the development of the diesel-electric engine

5. The New Economy • Electronics, home appliances, plastics, and synthetic fibers such as nylon, aluminum, magnesium, oil and electric power all grew dramatically and spurred the economic boom, telephones continued to grow as well (25 million)

6. The New Economy • Vannevar Bush (MIT) created the first analog computer, later Howard Aiken built a much more complex computer with memory, capable of multiplying eleven-digit 3

7. The New Economy • Genetic research: Thomas Hunt Morgan experiments with fruit and flies reveled how several genes could be transmitted together, how genes could recombine

8. The New Economy • Large industries moved towards concentrating production in a few large firms, U.S Steel became the nation's largest corporation, became so dominant that almost everyone used the term “Little Steel” to refer to all of its competitors

9. The New Economy • General Motors's new leader Alfred P. Sloan created a modern administrative system, efficient divisional organization, made it easier for GM to control subsidiaries and to expand further

10. The New Economy • Trade Association – a national organization created by various members of an industry to encourage coordination in production and marketing techniques, their effectiveness was limited in more decentralized industries (cotton)

11. The New Economy • Industrialists attempted to curb competition through consolidation or cooperation, which led to a strong fear of overproduction, it also resulted in a misdistribution of wealth, 2/3 of the American people lived in no better than" minimum comfort level" and half of those fell at or below the "level of subsistence and poverty", in spite of this most saw their standard of living rise and improved working conditions

12. The New Economy • Welfare Capitalism – paternalistic techniques employed to avoid disruptive labor unrest, Henry Ford shortened the workweek, raised wages, and offered paid vacations, US Steel made efforts to improve safety and sanitation of its factories, 3 million workers became eligible for pensions upon retirement in the 1920s

13. The New Economy • Company unions were able to voice labor grievances at shop committees organized by the corporations themselves, welfare capitalism survived only as long as the industry prospered and only affected a small number of workers

14. The New Economy • Workers received wage increases proportionally lower than production and profits, remained impoverished, powerless group, their wages rose but the average annual income of a worker remained below $1,500 a year when $1,800 was considered necessary for a minimally decent standard of living, only by relying on the earnings of several could a working class family make ends meet

15. The New Economy • The New Era was a bleak time for labor unions because they were largely conservative and failed to adapt to the realities of the modern economy, the American Federation of Labor remained a craft union in which workers were organized on the basis of particular skills and made no provision for the fact that most workers were unskilled immigrants, also a growing proportion of the work force consisted of women

16. The New Economy • Pink-collar jobs were low paying service occupations, secretaries, salesclerks, telephone operators, the AFL not interested in organizing them

17. The New Economy • African Americans had few opportunities for union representation, janitors, dishwashers, garbage collectors, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters led by Philip Randolph was a vigorous union, representing all black work force, won increased wages, shorter hours, benefits

18. The New Economy • Japanese replaced Chinese after the Chinese Exclusion Acts, worked on railroads, construction sites, and on farms, Issei were first generation Japanese immigrants, Nisei were their American born children, the Japanese were relatively successful so California passed laws in 1913 and 1920 making it more difficult for them to buy land, Anti-Filipino riots in California helped pass legislation in 1934 virtually eliminating immigration from the Philippines

19. The New Economy • Mexican immigrants, more than any other immigrant group, found work locally in factories, returned to cities between jobs, faced hostility and discrimination but there were few efforts to actually exclude them, employers in the relatively under populated West needed this ready pool of low paid, unskilled and unorganized workers

20. The New Economy • The strength of corporations was the primary reason why there was no effective union organization in the 1920s, after the turmoil of 1919 corporate leaders worked hard to spread the doctrine that unionism was somehow subversive, that a crucial element of democratic capitalism was the protection of the open shop

21. The New Economy • The American Plan was the crusade for the open shop, which received the endorsement of the National Association of Manufacturers in 1920 and became the pretext for a harsh campaign of union busting across the country

22. The New Economy • In 1921 and 1924 the Supreme Court declared picketing illegal, supported the right of courts to issue injunctions against strikers, Union membership fell from more than 5 million in 1920 to under 3 million in 1929 as a result of government intervention

23. The New Economy • 35 million new acres of cultivation were opened by new technology in tractors (internal combustion engines), increasingly sophisticated harvesters and combines made it possible to produce more crops with fewer workers, the invention of hybrid corn, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides increased agricultural productivity.

24. The New Economy • Surpluses developed resulting in a disastrous decline in food prices, leading to a severe drop in farmers incomes, farmers who lost their land turned to rent, more then 3 million people left agriculture altogether during the decade

25. The New Economy • Farmers began to demand relief from the government in the form of price supports, Parity was a complicated formula for setting an adequate price for farm goods and ensuring that farmers would earn back at least their production costs no matter how the agricultural market fluctuated,

26. The New Economy • Urged high tariffs against foreign agricultural goods and government commitment to buy surplus domestic crops at parity and sell them abroad, the McNary-Hagen Bill required parity for grain, cotton, tobacco and rice but Coolidge vetoed it both times it came up in 1926 and 1928

27. The New Culture • Consumerism – people could now buy items just not for needs but for pleasure, middle class families purchased appliances such as electric refrigerators, washing machines, electric irons and vacuum cleaners, which revolutionized housework, above all Americans bought automobiles.

28. The New Culture • By the end of the 1920s there were more than 30 million cars on the roads, the impact of automobiles expanded geographical horizons, provided a means of escaping the isolation of farm life, travel for vacations became feasible, young people developed social lives

29. The New Culture • N.W Ayer and J. Walker Thompson founded the first advertising and public relations firms, publicists no longer simply conveyed information, they sought to identify products with a particular lifestyle, to persuade customers that purchasing that item would be personal fulfilling and an enriching experience

30. The New Culture • The Man Nobody Knows (one of the most successful books of the 1920s) by Bruce Barton, it portrayed Jesus Christ as a "super salesman” who “picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world”, the parables of Jesus were “the most powerful advertisements of all time”

31. The New Culture • Barton’s message fit in with the spirit of the consumer culture, Jesus had been a man concerned with living a full and rewarding life in this world, 20th Century men and women should do the same

32. The New Culture • The Saturday Evening Post (1871) appealed to rural and small-town families with its homey stories and conspicuous traditionalism, its popularity was evidence of a yearning for a simpler time

33. The New Culture • Time Magazine (1923) condensed the news of the week into brief, accessible, lively format for people who didn’t have time to read the newspapers and the Reader's Digest (1921) condensed stories and books originally published elsewhere to expand world of knowledge

34. The New Culture • In 1922 40 million Americans saw movies, by 1930 100 million Americans saw movies, the addition of sound to motion pictures (the Jazz Singer in 1927 was the first feature length "talkie") drew these increasing numbers into the theaters, the film industry introduced "standards" during the 1920s and created the Motion Picture Association, and gave Will Hays broad powers to review films and ban anything likely to offend viewers

35. The New Culture • Most important communication vehicle in the 1920s was radio, KDKA first commercial radio station in Pittsburgh, the first national radio network (the National Broadcasting Company) was formed in 1927, radio programming was more diverse and at time more controversial and subversive than film, less centralized

36. The New Culture • Liberal Protestantism – Henry Emerson Fosdick, wrote Abundant Religion, argued religion as a vehicle for advancing "man's abundant life", most people remained faithful to more traditional religious messages, Robert and Helen Lynd (sociologists in Muncie, Indiana) discovered a large amount of people paid less attention to religion than their parents had, devaluing religion

37. The New Culture • Majority of the 25% of married women who worked outside the home were working class, professional opportunities for women remained limited by society’s assumptions, most middle class women remained in the home

38. The New Culture • Redefinition of motherhood – maternal affection was not sufficient preparation for child rearing, instead mothers should rely on advice and assistance of experts and professionals like doctors, nurses, trained educators in nursery schools and kindergartens, argued behaviorists like Watson, had the effect of making motherhood less emotionally fulfilling and more dependant on people and institutions outside the family

39. The New Culture • Companionate Marriages were where a middle class wife shared increasingly in her husband’s social life, more attention to cosmetics and clothing

40. The New Culture • Margaret Sanger was a pioneer in development of birth control, she believed that large families were among the major causes of poverty and distress in poor communities, also argued that women should be able to enjoy the pleasures of sexual relations without worrying about procreation, birth control devices began to find large market among middle class women, some techniques were illegal in many states and abortion was illegal nearly everywhere

41. The New Culture • Flappers were women who would smoke, drink, dance, dress provocatively, attend lively parties, modern women, liberated lifestyles, had a particular impact on lower-middle class and working-class single women, asserted an independence and control over their lives, but in reality most women remained highly dependent on men

42. The New Culture • National Women's Party under the leadership of Alice Paul, pressed its campaign for Equal Rights Amendment, Women organized the League of Women Voters in the 1920s

43. The New Culture • The Sheppard-Towner Act (1921) provided federal funds to states to establish prenatal and child healthcare programs, met with much opposition from Sanger (it would discourage birth control efforts), American Medical Association (it would introduce untrained outsiders into the medical field) and National Women's Party (it classified all women as mothers), in 1929 Congress terminated the program

44. The New Culture • Women voters changed electoral outcomes hardly at all, male politicians in Congress felt less concern about the consequences of opposing demands of female reformers

45. The New Culture • High school attendance more than doubled, from 2.2 million to over 5 million, enrollment in college increased from 600,000 to 1.2 million, attendance at trade and vocational schools was also increasing, education included modern technical skills such as engineering, management, and economics

46. The New Culture • Emergence of a separate youth culture, idea that adolescence was a distinct period in the life of an individual: developed his or her own hobbies, interests and activities, began to identify more with peers than families

47. The New Culture • Gradual disappearance of the reality and ideal of the "self-made man", the belief that any person could through hard work achieve wealth and renown was a exposed as a myth, became ever more dependent on rules and norms established by large, impersonal bureaucracies “The self made manager in business is nearly at the end of his road.” Century Magazine

48. The New Culture • Three men became the most widely admired hero’s of the 1920s, Thomas Edison – inventor of the electric light bulb, Henry Ford – creator of the assembly line, and Charles Lindbergh – first aviator to make solo flight across the Atlantic, all three represented triumphs of the modern technology and industrial society, but they also had risen to success without the help of a formal education

49. The New Culture • Lost Generation – America no longer provided individuals with avenues by which they could achieve personal fulfillment, Ernest Hemmingway – Farewell To Arms expressed the generation's contempt for the war, many believed society and culture was devoid of idealism and vision, outmoded and priggish morality, obsessed with materialism and consumerism

50. The New Culture • Debunkers were critics of modem society, H.L Mencken ridiculed everything most middle class Americans held dear: religion, politics, arts, and democracy