Chapter 11:
The United States, 1919–41
11.1 How far did the US economy boom in the 1920s?
1) The US reluctantly joined the WW1 in April 1917, almost three years after the European powers had started
fighting.
2) It contributed almost one million troops and gave financial support to Britain and France.
The end of the war, in November 1918 left the US in a strong position.
3) Its losses were small and was no damage to its own land.
4) In fact, the US economy benefited in several ways:
-It European allies received food and goods from American farms and factories.
-Almost 10 million in loans from US banks during and immediately after the war.
- US policy of isolationism.
5)The US expanded into new overseas markets as its competitors struggled to cover from the war.
6) Another effect of the war was the US policy of isolationism.
7) It refused to join the League of Nations- preferring to stand aloof from overseas quarrels.
Congress imposed tariffs on imports, in order to protect US industries and encourage the buying of Americanmade goods.
1) Mass Production and
Standardisation
On what factors was the economic boom based?
2) Consumer culture
3)Republican government policy
1) Car maker, Henry Ford used an
assembly line method of
production.
2) This speeded up the work- by
mid-1920s, 7,500 cars were being
produced every day.
3) One type car Model T Ford to
a standardised specification- to be
a luxury item and became
affordable to ordinary Americans.
4) By the mid-1920s, there was a
car for one in every five
Americans, meanwhile in Britain
was one to 43.
5) Cars created a demand for
rubber for tyres, glass for
windscreens and other materials.
6) Garages were built to provide
petrol, servicing and repairs;
hotels and restaurants appeared
to meet the needs of travellers.
8)Suburbs expanded, as people
could travel further to their
workplace, rural areas became
less isolated
1) The average wage rose by 8%
between 1923 and 1929.
2)At the same time the price of
consumer goods fell, so people’s
spending power grew, increasing
demand.
3) Newspapers, magazines and the
radio carried advertisement
designed to make people feel that
they needed items –refrigerators,
washing machines and vacuum
cleaners.
4) Many targeted women, who
were responsible for housework,
to encourage them to purchase
labour-saving devices.
5)Salesmen sold goods directly to
people in their house.
The purchase of these goods was
made easier by the spread of hire
purchase- buying of goods on
credit through a series of
instalments.
Before the war there had shame
attached to buying something if
you could not afford to pay for it
entirely.
This would be one cause of future
problems, as people’s ability to
make repayments was dependant
on continued economic growth.
1) Republican presidents Warren
Harding, Calvin Coolidge and
Herbert Hoover (1921-1933)
reduced taxes and left business to
make their own decisions known
as laissez-faire.
2) ‘Rugged individualism’ people
should succeed through their own
talents and work.
3) The cut left people with more
money, fuelling a spending boom.
4) They did not believe in much
government intervention, they
believed in laissez-faire.’
5)‘They reduced income tax.’
Chapter 11:
The United States, 1919–41
Why did some industries prosper while others did not?
1)The automobile industry was a success story and drove
successes in related industries such as road-building; the
US road network had doubled in length by 1930.
2) Among new industries, commercial flying became
feasible with the appearance of larger and more
comfortable aeroplanes.
3) Aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly
solo across the Atlantic in 1927, making flying seem
glamorous.
4) Electricity was supplied to many homes and factories.
5) By the 1920s, encouraging the growth of industries that
produced electrical consumer goods.
6) Department stores, which stoked these, appeared in
cities.
7) This all generated new jobs, thus stimulating further
productions.
8)The decade also saw the construction industry of big
business produced a demand for new office buildings.
9)New building materials and techniques enabled the
construction of skyscrapers, which now became a familiar
part of urban landscape.
10) The Chrysler Building in New York, 319 metres high
(1946 feet) the tallest in the world when completed in
1930, was overtaken by the Empire State Building (381
metres or 1250 feet high)
11) Not all industries were able to adapt to change by
introducing new methods, such as assembly-line
production.
12) Some older industries only grew slowly partly because
of competition from new technology.
13) Demand for coal declined as oil, gas and electricity
became more widely used.
14)Railways struggled to compete with the expansion of
road traffic.
Road transport was becoming increasingly important.
15) The textile industry faced a number of challenges.
16) Shorter dresses were fashionable, requiring less
material that pre-war designs.
17) The introduction of cheap synthetic fibres such as
rayon, made in factories requiring fewer workers, was a
threat to older textile such as cotton.
Did all American benefit from the boom?
1) The US remained an unequal society in the boom
years.
2) Unskilled and casual workers unemployed, and two
million unemployed, were unable to purchase the goods
available to better-off Americans.
3) New immigrants often had a lower standard of
education than more established Americans.
4) Workers in older industries faced unemployment or
wages that failed to keep up.
5) Coal miners’ standard of living dropped.
Textile industry employers, faced with rising competition,
employed cheaper female or child labour in order to
reduce costs.
6)Strikes for higher wages were rarely successful, partly
because the police suppressed disturbances.
7) Some firms only hired non-union labour to avoid
strikes.
8) Farmers and farm workers were badly affected by the
agricultural slump of the 1920s.
9) Farmers- overextended the loads, farms were
repossessed by the banks.
10) Others moved to industrial cities or to California,
where fruit farms were creating employment.
11) Some travelled the country in search of work.
12) Share croppers rented farmland: when prices of farm
produce fell, they struggled to pay the rent.
12) Eviction brought both unemployment and
homelessness.
13) Black Americans formed a disproportionate part of
country’s poor.
14) In cities such as New York and Chicago they tended to
be confined to poorly paid employment, often living in
overcrowded conditions in segregated areas known as
ghettoes.
15) Many farm workers in the South were black, and one
million of the lost their jobs in the 1920s.