Isolationism
The United States, 1921-1939
The End of Reform
The 1920 presidential election demonstrated that the public had become
tired of reform movements. The Democratic candidates, James B. Cox and
his running mate Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigned for the U.S. joining
League of Nations. But the Republican candidate, Warren Harding, running
on the slogan “Back to Normalcy,” opposed the League. He won an
overwhelming victory.
U.S. Regrets Role in War
In 1920, American voters elected
Warren Harding as President.
Because Harding had opposed
the Treaty of Versailles, this vote
was taken as a rejection of
America’s role in the Great War.
By the mid-1920s, U.S. history
books called American entry in
the war “a mistake.”
He said it was time to return to
“normalcy.”
“Normalcy” Returns
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Election of Harding in 1920 opened an era
of U.S. withdrawal from most world affairs.
Americans were angry that most European
nations were not repaying their war debts.
U.S. politics was dominated by prohibition
and and rising power of Wall Street.
Farmers had a very hard time, because
the wartime prices of grain and cotton fell
as Europe recovered in 1921-22.
The Business of America – is
business
Harding, a small town businessman, took a pro-business view toward his role,
and thus did not favor support of unions or regulation of corporations. But
friends and advisors plunged his administration into scandal. Attorney General
Harry Daugherty (right) of Hardin’s “Ohio Gang,” narrowly missed being
convicted for accepting bribes and was forced to resign; other scandals erupted
in the Veterans’ Bureau.
Prohibition
After a nationwide campaign by the Women’s
Christian Temperance Unions and other antiliquor groups, the 18th amendment to the
Constitution, ratified in 1920, prohibited the
sale of any alcoholic beverages in the U.S.
The Volsted Act enforced it (people could
make a limited amount of “home brew” beer
of 3.2% or less alcohol content).
Prohibition was poorly received by much of
America, and criminal gangs quickly
expanded to supply the booze buyers wanted.
Racism Revival
As had happened after previous
eras of reform, the 1920s saw a
revival of racism and antiforeignism. The Ku Klux Klan
grew up again, in the South, but
also in many cities.
In Congress, a National Origins
Act altered the immigration rules
to reduce the number of
immigrants from eastern and
southern Europe.
The New Prosperity
Postwar prosperity in urban America helped make the early 1920s –
with new advertising through the radio and magazines, and with
profits from overseas trade. Rural America did not obtain much of
this “easy money” but still wanted the comforts advertised in
publications like the Sears Catalog.
The Jazz Age
The prosperity characterized the
“Roaring Twenties,” where
“flappers” smoked in public,
youth enjoyed their own status
as a “market,” movies with titles
like “Flaming Youth” suggested
an end to “old fashioned”
morals, and writers like
Fitzgerald and Lewis deride the
old ways of life.
But the prosperity rested on shaky ground – people did not make
enough money to buy all that was being manufactured. By 1927,
many industries were reducing staff and cutting wages. All that was
required was a shock to create a financial panic.
The bubble burst in 1929.
Low taxes, small budgets
Coolidge promised to keep Federal taxes low and the Federal budget balanced. As
this newspaper cartoon suggests, Coolidge and his Treasury Secretary, Andrew
Mellon, trimmed Federal expenses by closing down some of the Progressive era
regulatory agencies that had fought against child labor, while supporting factory
safety, and other pro-worker actions. This helped increased the prosperity of the
decade.
Consumers and Producers
Registration of vehicles rose in the ’20s from 9.2 million to 26.7 million.
General Motors dominated cars by 1930. Unlike Ford, which concentrated
on the "no-frills" inexpensive "Model T," GM executives each year
introduced a variety of models that made earlier ones obsolete. With many
models and many “luxuries,” they increased their sales each year.
The “Silver Screen”
The “movies” added to a “national culture” by teaching young men and women how to
dress, look, and behave. Rudolph Valentino’s most famous film, The Sheik, left women
swooning and men copying his Latin "machismo" hair style. When he died in 1925 of
complications following an ulcer attack, his funeral became one of the public events of
the decade. NEWSREELS COVERED LITTLE OVESEAS NEWS.
Restoring World Trade
Balkans
An Assurance of Peace?
In the late 1920s, U.S. Secretary
of State Frank Kellogg joined the
French foreign minister in
persuading world leaders to sign
a pact promising to “settle all
differences without resorting to
war.” Every major nation signed
it – and then ignored it.
Prosperity on shaky ground
•Despite the rising stock market, American (and
world) prosperity rested on very little more than
public confidence; this declined as dictatorships
took hold in Europe and Asia
•World trade declined as many nations imposed
high tariffs (taxes on imported foreign goods)
•The world’s gold supply was not stabilizing prices
•Unemployment was slowly growing, as fewer
people could afford modern luxury goods
•As sales of cars, radios, and other “durable goods”
(refrigerators, washing machines, etc.) slowed down,
American factories laid off workers.
THE CRASH
Over speculation in the stock market led to wild swings in stock prices. In
October 1929, the overall market fell to less than 50% of its previous value.
Hundreds of thousands loss their jobs and the financial depression began.
Bank Failures – 9000 banks holding $7 billion closed in
1 year (no deposit insurance existed)
One in four workers were unemployed by 1933
Hunger in a food-rich nation
A BREAD LINE In NYC, 1930
Herbert Hoover’s response
As the president in 1929, Herbert Hoover
(left) was faced with the crisis. He had been
elected in 1928 as a “problem solver” who
had provided aid to Europe after the Great
war and helped the South recover from the
devastating 1927 flood.
But Hoover refused to expand the Federal
government’s debt in order to provide direct
aid. He and the Congress created the
National Recovery Administration (NRA) –
which would lend money to corporations.
He assured people that the NRA would
“engineer” recovery “in the long run.” One
economist replied, “People don’t eat in the
long run, they eat every day. And they’re
hungry now.”
The Bonus March – 1932
The hard times dragged on. In 1932, thousands of veterans from the Great War
of 1917-18 went to Washington to ask Congress to advance them money from
the bonus promised to them in 1945. Several economists argued that advance
payments of the bonus would stimulate economic recovery.
Crushing the Bonus March
Congress refused to advance the bonus
payments, while Hoover, worried about
rumors that the marchers were being
influenced by communist agents, ordered the
U.S. army to “guide” the marchers out of
Washington. Army chief Douglas MacArthur
(left) exceeded his orders, using cavalry and
tanks to drive them out.
When the veterans were gone, chased out by
tear gas, MacArthur ordered the burning of
their camp at the city’s edge. Many in the
nation were outraged at this treatment of
hungry former soldiers at a time when
Federal funds were being spent to save large
corporations from bankruptcy
Election of 1932 -- Franklin D.
Roosevelt
“It’s time for the American
people to get a new deal –
FDR, 1932
Crippled by polio in the 1920s, Franklin Roosevelt had
managed to disguise the fact that he spent most of his
waking hours in a wheel chair. A master at public
speaking, he also knew how to use radio more
effectively than most politicians of the day.
New Deal
The New Deal stimulated the economy
with Federal $ aimed at 3 goals:
Relief – jobs and assistance
Recovery – restoring full employment
Reform – preventing banking collapses, stock
market manipulations through regulation
The plan stirred controversy but was supported by
most voters.
Overseas
Europe’s response to the world-wide economic depression varied. Many
countries struggled with high unemployment, but the work issue was
‘solved’ in Germany and Italy where fascist governments controlled all
production and banking, and Russia offered communism as another
form of full employment.
War abroad
In reality, war became the method by
which dictatorships solved their
economic problems. Japan invaded
China in 1931, Italy conquered
Ethiopia in 1935, and German
‘annexed’ Austria and Czechoslovakia
in 1938. Russia used the threat of force
to gain favorable trade concessions
from Finland, Rumania, and the Baltic
countries.
The League of Nations proved helpless,
unable to prevent these violations of
the Treaty of Versailles.
The American Nazi Movement
The American-German Bund (here at a
1938 rally) was quite small, but it had
its admirers among the GermanAmerican populations of the upper
Midwest. After a Minnesota Senator
died in an air crash in 1940, it was
discovered that he (or someone in his
office) had permitted thousands of proNazi pamphlets to be mailed out using
his Federal postal privileges.
War, September 1939
German invasion of Poland ignited war
in Europe as Britain and France
honored it treaty with Poland.
Frames from film showing German
army advancing into Poland. Nazi
tanks (panzers) and aircraft were
then superior to those of the Allies
Neutrality
Neutrality Laws in 1935-1936,
written by Gerald Nye of North
Dakota (below), restricted
American business with nations at
war and prevent American
citizens from being endangered.
•As U.S. journalists begin covering the war in Europe their stories would have
an impact on how Americans regard the war and its likely influence on
American policies.
America is Neutral
This picture of downtown Moorhead,
December 1939, shows citizens
enjoying an unseasonably warm day
as Christmas approaches.
Americans hoped that “this time”
they would not become involved in
the war in Europe. The U.S. had
also steered clear of the war
between Japan and China, raging
since 1937.
Public opinion polls showed that
while about 3 of 4 Americans
sympathized with China, Britain and
France, 4 out of 5 wanted to remain
neutral in the conflicts.