The New Era1920s
Life cover, July 1, 1926
"One Hundred and Forty-three Years of LIBERTY and Seven Years of PROHIBITION."
(Private Collection)
Life cover, July 1, 1926
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
What aspects of life created the reputation of the “Roaring 20s”?
In what ways and to what degree were the 1920s a period of tension between new and changing attitudes on the one hand and traditional values on the other. (Consider Race relations, immigration/ nativism, role of women, consumerism)
BUSINESSBOOM
BUSINESS PROSPERITYECONOMIC PROSPERITY:
productivity: up 50%
unemployment: 4-9-
12%? real income: up 25%standard of living: (where?)
indoor plumbing central heatingelectricity (2/3 by 1930)
CAUSES OF BUSINESS PROSPERITY: Increased productivity (scientific management, machinery)
Increased use of oil and electricity Favorable government policy (tax breaks, antitrust)
Gross National Product, 1920-1930
Unemployment, 1920-1930
Automobiles & Industrial Expansion
Henry Ford‘fordism’
Ford Highland Park assembly line, 1928(From the Collections of Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village)
“Trying out the new assembly line“ Detroit, 1913Henry Ford (1835-
1947)
1913: 14 hours to build a new car1928: New Ford off assembly line every 10 seconds
1913: car=2 yrs wages1929: 3 mos. wages
Auto Manufacturing
PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS unions lose WWI gains:
open shopscompany unionsinjunctions
“welfare capitalism”employment insecurity
PROBLEMS FOR WORKERS Income Distribution, 1929
$10,000+$5,000-$9999$2000-$4999Under $2000
65%29%
5%
1%
Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970
40% of all U.S. families lived on >$1,500 per year – in poverty range
PROBLEMS FOR FARMERSMechanization
Farm income down 66%
“parity” McNary-Haugen BillAgricultural Marketing Act (1929)
TILLING ONE ACRE OF LAND1900: 90 mins. using 5 horses 1929: 30 mins. using a 27-hp tractor2000: 5 mins. using a 154-hp tractor
PRODUCING 100 BUSHELS OF WHEAT ON 5 ACRES1890s: 40-50 labor hours 1930: 15-20 labor hours
SOCIETY, CULTURE & VALUES
Farm vs. Nonfarm Population, 1880-1980
1920 CENSUS:
First time majority of U.S. population in urban areas (towns 2500 or greater)
1920: More workers in factories than on farms
1930: Still 44% live in rural areas
CONSUMERISM
(electric) appliancesautomobilesadvertising (image vs. utility)
buying on creditchain stores
Consumer Debt, 1920–1931
General Electric ad (Picture Research Consultants & Archives)
CONSUMERISM: Impact of the Automobile
Replaced the railroad as the key promoter of economic growth (steel, glass, rubber, gasoline, highways)
Daily life: commuting, shopping, traveling, “courting”
Increase in sales: 1913 - 1.2 million registered; 1929 - 26.5 million registered
(=almost one per family)
Passenger Car Sales, 1920-1929
Filling Station, Maryland in 1921
Impact of the Automobile: Trains and Automobiles, 1900-1980
Jones, Created Equal
Automobiles &
Consumerism
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
< Ford ad: “Every family -- with even the most modest income, can now afford a car of their own."
“Every family should have their own car. . .You live but once and the years roll by quickly. Why wait for tomorrow for things that you rightfully should enjoy today?"
(Library of Congress)
Dodge advertisement photo, 1933
CONSUMERISM & Automobiles
Chevrolet Advertisement 1925
Ford Motor Company showroom 1925
July 4, Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts, early 1920s
MASS CULTURE: Radio
New mass medium
1920: First commercial radio station By 1930: over 800 stations & 10 million radios
Networks: NBC (1924), CBS (1927)
The Spread of Radio, to 1939
MASS CULTURE: Movies
Movie “palaces”“talkies” (1927)
Will Hays
80 million tickets sold per week by 1930 (population: 100 million)
(Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library)
MASS CULTURE: Popular Heroes
(Private Collection)
Charles Lindbergh (National Archives)
“success ethic”“self-made man”Bruce Barton- The Man Nobody
KnowsThomas EdisonCharles Lindburgh
ROLE OF WOMEN:the “New Woman”
the “New Woman”
“pink collar” jobs
Women’s fashions, 1920Women in the Workforce, 1900-1940
ROLE OF WOMEN – the “flapper”
the “flapper” – fact and myth
ROLE OF WOMEN: Women and Politics
Impact of suffrageLeague of Women VotersNational Women’s PartyAlice PaulMargaret Sanger Alice Paul
Sheppard-Towner Act
CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ARTLiterature
“lost generation”F. Scott FitzgeraldSinclair LewisErnest HemingwayH.L. Mencken - “booboisie”
Eugene O’NeillF. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald on the Riviera,
1926 (Stock Montage)
Eugene O’Neill
CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART African Americans
Harlem RenaissanceLangston Hughes
Langston Hughes
I’ll Take My Stand
CHANGES IN LITERATURE & ART JazzJazz
“The Jazz Age”Louis ArmstrongDuke Ellington
Louis Armstrong & the Fate Marabel band, 1919
Louis Armstrong
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS
Religion
“modernists”
“fundamentalism”
Scopes TrialAmerican Civil Liberties UnionClarence DarrowWilliam Jennings Bryan
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS:Prohibition
ProhibitionThe noble experiment
“wets and dries”
Al Capone
Alphonse “Scarface” CaponeGovernment agents breaking up an illegal bar during Prohibition
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
National Origin Act of 1924
Number of Immigrants and Countries of Origin, 1891-1920 and 1921-1940
Percentage of Population Foreign Born, 1850-1990
Immigration, 1921-1960
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
Communist International3rd International Goal (1919): promote worldwide communism
Red ScarePalmer Raids (1920)
A. Mitchell Palmer’s Home bombed, 1920
Police arrest “suspected Reds” in Chicago, 1920
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
Sacco & Vanzetti
HAVE A CHAIR! from The Daily WorkerIS THIS THE EMBLEM? from The Daily Worker
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1921
SOCIAL & CULTURAL CONFLICTS: Xenophobia and Racial Unrest
Birth of a Nation - D.W. Griffith
“new” Ku Klux KlanLeo Frank
(Picture Research Consultants & Archives)
Ku Klux Klan initiation, 1923. The Klan opposed all who were not “true Americans”. (c) 2000 IRC
Black Population, 1920
Ku Klux Klan
(mid-1920s)
(Private Collection)
Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 1926
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT
Warren G. Harding“Return to normalcy”Herbert HooverAndrew MellonThe “Ohio Gang”
Teapot Dome Scandal
Harding with Laddie, June 13, 1922
Albert B. Fall (left)
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT
Calvin Coolidge“The business of America is business”
President Calvin Coolidge Coolidge throwing out first pitch 1924
BUSINESS – FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT
Herbert HooverAl Smith
Herbert Hoover
Election of 1928
Hoover, Ford, Edison, and Firestone
Feb 11, 1929
The Great Crash
Stock Market Prices, 1921–1932
Stock Market crash: October 24, 1929 (Corbis-Bettmann)
New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929
SOURCES
http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/special_features/image_bank_US/1920_1930.htmlBrinkley, American History: A SurveyKennedy, American Pageant 13e (History Companion)Faragher, Out of Many, 3rd Ed.; http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_faragher_outofmany_ap/Jones, et al., Created EqualNashAmerica: Pathways to the Present
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