THE ROARING 20S

Mr. Ermer

U.S. History Honors

Miami Beach Senior High

LACC.1112.RH.1.9, SS.912.A.5.1-10, SS.912.A.1-7,

SS.912.G.1-3, SS.912.G.4-3

A BOOMING ECONOMYRecession of 1921-22 ends, bringing almost a decade of prosperity

• The United States emerge only healthy industrial power after the war

Industrial growth funds more innovation and technological expansion

• Automobile spurs boom in suburban construction & road building• Commercial Air Travel• Radios, Telephones, Electronics, & Home Appliances• Early research into computers at MIT• Notable Columbia University & Cal Tech geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan

LABOR IN THE 1920S

Welfare Capitalism• Henry Ford shortens work week, raises wages, offers paid

vacations• U.S Steel improves factory safety• “Company Unions”• Company towns/worker housing

Many workers below poverty level, replaced by machines

1920s not a good time for organized labor, AFL remains weak

WOMEN & MINORITIES AT WORK

“Pink Collar Jobs”: low paying service jobs• Like manufacturing, not skilled enough to be organized by AFL

AFL craft jobs actively block participation by African-Americans• In northern cities, African-Americans forced to work low-paying jobs• In the West, Asians & Hispanics blocked from high paying work

• 1920: California passes law to prevent purchases of land by Japanese• Mexican barrios develop in Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, Denver

The “American Plan” campaign of union busting

AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

Number of tractors triples in the 1920s after the invention of the internal combustion engine, expanding acres under cultivation

Sophisticated combines and harvesters helped produce more crops with fewer workers, many farmer workers out of work

Hybrid crops, chemical fertilizers and pesticides

Demand for food does not keep up with crop production, prices drop

Parity: attempts to set “adequate” price controls on farm goods

CHAPTER 8, LESSON 2

On page 216, write and answer questions 1-5