From Prosperity to Depression: America in the 1920’s

The American Economy

Modernity and Pleasure

New Pleasures: Music, Movies, Sports, Radio

Year Total $ (Millions)

Motion Picture

Theater & (Millions)

Spectator Sports $ (Millions

1909 377 --- ---1914 434 --- ---1919 806 --- ---1921 911 301 301923 1082 336 461927 1405 526 481929 1670 720 66

*Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Online Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Table Dh309-318.

The Flapper

Business and Government:

The Republican

Era Never before, here or anywhere, else…has government been so

completely fused with business.

Declining Voter Turnout of the 1920s

1896190019041908191219161920192419280

102030405060708090

100

OverallNon-SouthSouth

Election of 1920

Warren G. Harding, 1920-1924

Corruption in Government

Teapot Dome Scandal

Election of 1924

Calvin Coolidge, 1924-1928

Economic Diplomacy

Washington Naval Conference, 1922

Limits of Modern CultureThe Culture Wars

Fundamentalism vs. Liberalism

Scopes Trial (1925): High point in culture battles

Billy Sunday

Immigration Restriction

Immigration Act of 1924The United States enacted a quota system in the 1920s that allotted most slots for immigrants from northern Europe.

http://ahiv.alexanderstreet.com/View/777563/clip/5342

Souvenir Postcard, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith Lynching, Marion, IndianaAfter witnessing the lynching of two black men, smiling men and women had their pictures taken as a memento. The two girls to the left clutch pieces of thevictims’ hair.

The Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes Countee CullenClaude McKay

The Great Depression

The Election of 1928

Herbert Hoover, 1928-1932

The Crash of 1929

Panic and Consequences

Our banking system was the weakest link in our whole economic system…the element most sensitive to fear… the worst part of the dismal tragedy with which I had to deal.

Bank Closings

People loose

money

No money=No purchasing

powerNo purchasing power=loss in

profits

Profit loss=wage cuts, layoffs, and business

failures

Bank runs

The Pot Boils Over: The Fate of the Bonus Army

Reject veteran claims, but

treat them as harmless citizens in desperate

financial straits

Accept advisor views that this was a communist-inspired plot and use force

Accept Veteran argument that government

pay to alleviate their

suffering

Choices and Consequences

Hoover accepted the notion of a communist plot and used force to break up the strike

The Global Flow of Reparation PaymentsAmerican capital kept the reparation system created by the Versailles Treaty afloat in the twenties.

Pictures of Misery