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Economic Growth. 1920’s Manufacturing output rose 60% Had to do with technology! Assembly line Radio Motion Pictures with sound Home Appliances Plastics Synthetic Fibers Oil Electric Power. Consumerism. Changes In Industrialization Created a mass of consumer culture
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Economic Growth • 1920’s • Manufacturing output rose 60% • Had to do with technology! • Assembly line • Radio • Motion Pictures with sound • Home Appliances • Plastics • Synthetic Fibers • Oil • Electric Power
Consumerism • Changes In Industrialization • Created a mass of consumer culture • Men and women could now buy for fun! • Middle Class Families • Purchased: Electric refrigerators, washing machines, electric irons, and vacuum cleaners. • Above all the bought automobiles • 30 million cars will be on the road by the end of the century. • 1928-1929- automobiles killed as many Americans as had lost their lives in battle during WWI!
Magazines • Began publication in 1871. • Appealed to small town families • Homey Stories.
Magazines • Founded in 1921. • Contained condensed stories, even books. • Expanding knowledge and information for those who had no access to it.
Magazines • Founded in 1923 • Set out condense the news of the week. • For people who didn’t have newspapers.
Movies and Broadcasting • Movies were becoming more popular. • 100 million- saw films in the 1930’s • 20 million- saw films in 1922. • Addition to sound • 1927 – The Jazz Singer • First Commercial Radio Station • KDKA in Pittsburgh • Began in 1920 • First National Radio Network • National Broadcasting Company formed in 1927. • 1929- 12 million families owned radio sets.
The Flapper • 1920’s Women • No longer necessary to maintain rigid respectability. • They could: • Smoke • Drink • Dance • Wear seductive clothes. • Makeup • Attended parties • They were liberated in dress and hairstyle, speech and behavior. • Nightlife- often flocked alone to clubs and dance halls in search of excitement and companionship. • Highly dependent on men • Powerless when men exploited that dependence.
The Disenchanted • Common Nickname: • “Lost Generation” • Most intellectuals agreed with that description. • Aftermath: war was shattering. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. • Ernest Hemingway: • A Farewell To Arms: • Story of an officer who deserts the army with a nurse. • Some left the U.S to live in France. • Made Paris for a time of American artistic life. • Other moved to the West.
The Harlem Renaissance • Harlem • Became the nation’s largest and most influential African- American communities. • Spread of African American culture: • Nightclubs, great Jazz music • Duke Ellington- great jazz musician. • Many White New Yorkers traveled up to Harlem for the music and theater • Audiences were largely black.
Harlem in the 1920’s • Center of Literature, Poetry, and Art. • Racial Pride • Marcus Garvey • Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association • Promoted the idea of resettlement of American blacks in their own homeland. • Was convicted of mail fraud and shipped back to Jamaica.
The Scopes Monkey Trial • Tennessee March 1925 • Legislature made it illegal to “Teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.” • ACLU- Founded in 1920 • Alarmed by the repressive legal and social climate of the war and its aftermath. • Needed an association to defend legal speech and belief.
The Scopes monkey trial • ACLU • Offered free legal council to any Tennessee educator willing to defy the law and become the defendant in a test case. • Scopes- agreed to be arrested. • Clarence Darrow- defended Scopes. • William Jennings Bryan- would help with prosecution. • Scopes violated the law. • Verdict was guilty • Fined 100$ • Case was dismissed in a higher court. • Darrow/Bryan- Made Bryan feel foolish in court.
President Harding • Harding- Elected in 1920 • Senator from Ohio • Appointed men to important cabinet offices. • Unfit: “I don’t seem to grasp that I am President”. • “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here!” • Delegated authority to others • Political Cronies • Members of his cabinet. • Albert Fall- Secretary of Interior • Engaged in fraud and corruption. • Spectacular Scandal- • Involved reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. • Fall- secretly leased the reserves to wealthy businesses and received a half million dollars in loans.. • Used the money to ease money troubles. • Convicted of bribery and sentenced to a year in prison. • Summer of 1923- Harding left Washington. • Cross-Country speaking tour. • Seattle- July- had severe pain. • He had food poisoning • Will die a few days after in San Francisco • Suffered two major heart attacks.
Coolidge as President • Coolidge was different than Harding. • He was: • Quiet (Silent), and Honest. • One way that he was like Coolidge was that he was passive. • Was Governor of Massachusetts in 1919. • VP nominee in 1920. • Daily Routine: • Long naps every afternoon. • Official appointments to a minimum. • Talked very little. • Proposed no significant legislation • Took little part in running the nation’s foreign policy. • “He aspired to be the least president the country ever had”.
President Coolidge • 1924- Coolidge was elected president and could have won in 1928. • Chose not to run again. • Walked into the press room. • Handed each reporter a slip of paper: • It said: • “I do not choose to run for president in 1928”. • 1928 Election: Republicans: Herbert Hoover for president in 1928. • Hoover won easily promising bold new efforts to solve the nation’s economic problems.