Cars changed the physical face of the U.S.

•Roads built to accommodate cars/trucks

•Beginning of suburbs, practice of commuting

•Side industries spring up (oil refineries, glass, rubber, steel)

Oil Companies’ impact• As cars became more affordable and

widespread, existing mass transit was actually taken down

• Example in Seattle: rail line along Aurora Ave (Hwy 99) replaced with a road!

• This was the beginning of our gas-guzzling, solo driving habit

What would it actually be like to work for Henry Ford?

• You’d make an un-heard of $5.00/day• But there were downsides:• He started the assembly workplace Workers not allowed to dissent (disagree)No jazz, Hollywood movies, or liquorAssembly-line mentality (mind-numbing, physically

harsh)Had to read the company magazine (which was often anti-Semitic;

Hitler even used some of Ford’s ideas in speeches)

Women’s identity changed dramatically• Flapper image of rebellion (shorter skirts,

smoking and dancing)

• Working women increased by 50% (number of married women working increased 30%)

• Divorce rate doubled from the decade before

• Birth control pills were pioneered by Margaret Sanger(who said it would eliminate poverty and mental defects, and produce more children from the fit, less from the unfit)

Increased technology led to a gadget-hungry

society • For the 1st time Americans could buy: light

bulbs, electric percolator, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, washing machine, typewriter, iron

• development of chain department stores, catalogues

• assembly line working conditions in a variety of industries

• increasing pressure on workers to speed up

Everyone starts buying on credit (pay later uh-oh!)

Unions on the Risein response to these facts:

• youth is favored (men in 40s often let go to hire younger)• child labor allowed and even encouraged• no worker rights (long hours for poor wages, unsafe conditions caused tragedies)• Each year in the 1920s, about 25,000 workers were killed on the job and 100,000 permanently Disabled and their families got nothing!

This resulted in a period of profits for owners – concentration of wealth in the hands of very few rich people at the top (like today) – 1/10th of 1% (.001) at the top made as much as 42% at the bottom!

Life in Tenement housing• Crowded apartment buildings in big cities

were breeding grounds for disease• These were condemned as fire traps• Immigrants and people of color were the

primary residents

Farmers did not prosper at this time

Small farmers not mechanized like bigger planters

1st time farm population declines.

No electricity in rural areas.

There were advances in healthcare and education

• illiteracy dropped• # high school grads and college enrollment increased• indoor plumbing and electricity enjoyed in cities

Prohibition of alcohol (enforced 1919 – 1933)

• bootlegging flourished in countryside and city

• gangsters took control of liquor sales and made huge profits

• wave of violence swept the nation (In Chicago alone, 250 were killed between 1920 and 1927)

• “Speakeasy” was the place to go

Harlem Renaissance= Rebirth of African American heritage

expressed in painting, music, literatureWhite audiences began to appreciate extraordinary work of black writers,

musicians and artists

In addition to Hollywood movies (silent pictures)There were crazy fads!

• Dance marathons

• Ragtime, Charleston

• Pogo sticks

• Flagpole sitting

Intolerance on the Rise!

• The KKK reached its all-time peak in 1924 with 4 1/2 million members (they targeted blacks, Jews and Catholics)

• Congress passed an Immigration Quota Act in 1924 that favored Northern Europeans (English, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans) and severely limited the entrance of Latinos, Southern and Eastern Europeans (Greeks, Italians, Poles and Russians)

• Asian and African immigration was at a virtual standstill

What the 1924 Quota Allowed

• Africa no more than 100• China no more than 100• Bulgaria no more than 100• Palestine no more than 100• Italy 3,845• Lithuania 124• Russia 2,248• U.K. (Scotland, N. Ireland, England): 34,007• Ireland 28,567• Germany 51,227