THE HISTORY OF THE U.S. 18771945
Lecture 6
The road to the Great Depression
BACK TO NORMALCY
• Warren G. Harding
• America’s present need is not heroics, but
normalcy
• An old-fashioned plain fellow
• Promotes Puritan values but drinks during
prohibition, regularly gambled, kept mistresses
• I cannot hope to be one of the great presidents,
but perhaps I may be remembered as the best
loved
President Harding and his wife
DOMESTIC POLICY
• Appoints conservatives to the Supreme Court
• Chief Justice: William H. Taft, Pro-business
attitude, ruling against unions, eliminating
federal child labor laws
• Tax cuts, higher tariffs
• Weakening regulatory commissions
• Weakening the achievements of
progressivism
A CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION
• Ohio Gang: advisors to President
• Scandal at the Veterans Bureau: stealing
medical and hospital supplies
• An associate of Attorney General Harry M.
Daugherty: implicated in bribery and influence
peddling scandal,
• Teapot Dome scandal, Albert Fall, interior
secy. Bribed by private companies in exploiting
federal oil deposits
EVALUATING THE HARDING
PRESIDENCY
• 1920-1923
• Weakened by corruption scandals
• Accomplishments: helping America out of the
postwar crisis
• Creating the foundation of the economic
boom in the 1920’s
SILENT CAL
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Calvin Coolidge
Passive president, defers to Congress
12 hour sleep and an afternoon nap
H. L. Mencken: He slept more than any other
president, Nero fiddled, Coolidge snored
• Man of few words, dry personality
• A dinner guest had bet Coolidge she could
make him say three words: his reply: you lose
A REAL CONSERVATIVE
• The chief business of American people is
business
• A fundamentalist in religion, in social and
economic order
• Promotes the interests of business
• Wins the election of 1924 easily
Silent Cal
RISE OF THE CONSUMER CULTURE
• Foundations: advances in communication,
transportation, business organization, institutions
of advanced capitalism
• Consumption ethic replaces production ethic
• Promotion of impulse buying
• Advertising industry
• 1905: first movie house opened in Philadelphia
• First radio commercial aired in 1922
Charles A. Lindbergh
PROMOTION OF AIRPLANE,
AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
• 1903: Wright Brothers fly at Kitty Hawk N.C.
• 1927: Charles Lindbergh: first transatlantic
flight
• 1929: 23 million automobiles
• Ford: democratization of the automobile
STABILIZING THE ECONOMY
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Herbert Hoover: secy of commerce
Successful businessman, mining engineer
Cooperative individualism
Associationalism
Promotion of trade associations
Attempts to get rid of agricultural surplus
production
HERBERT HOOVER
• Wins election of 1928
• Increasing tariffs
• Americans believe that the country entered an
era of permanent economic growth
• Speculation at the stock market
• By 1927 economic growth slows down
• Black Tuesday October 29, 1929 stocks drop
almost 40% in value
CAUSES OF THE DEPRESSION
• What is the depression: long-term economic
decline
• Overproduction
• Underconsumption
• Unequal distribution of wealth
• Demand could not keep up with supply
• Speculation at the stock market, buying on the
margin
GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSE
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Belief in the soundness of the economy
Unsuccessful attempt to reassure the public
Building of public works
Reconstruction Finance Corporation: provides
emergency loans to businesses and banks
• Bonus Army, Hooverville, Hoover flags, Hoover
blankets
• Hoover cannot bring country out of economic
depression
Bonus Army
Hooverville