Transcript British Colonies in America

1920's, The Great Depression and
the New Deal
The Second Industrial Revolution
• Innovation
• U.S. develops the highest standard of
living in the world
• The twenties and the second revolution
– electricity replaces steam
– modern assembly introduced
• Airplanes – Charles Lindbergh – first solo
flight over the Atlantic Ocean (1927)
Socially transforming innovations
• electricity
– electric lightbulb (1880's – 1924 the Phoebus
cartel)
• automobile
– mass production – assembly line
– Fordism
• radio
Scientific Advancements and
Conservatism
• The Scopes Trial (1925)
• Eugenics – Immigration Act of 1924
The Automobile Industry
• Auto makers stimulate sales through
model changes, advertising
• Auto industry fosters other businesses
• Autos encourage suburban sprawl
Patterns of Economic Growth
• Structural change
– professional managers replace individual
entrepreneurs
– corporations become the dominant business
form
• Big business weakens regionalism, brings
uniformity to America
Glenwood Stove Ad
Economic Weaknesses
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Railroads poorly managed
Coal displaced by petroleum
Farmers face decline in exports, prices
Growing disparity between income of
laborers, middle-class managers
• Middle class speculates with idle money
City Life in the Jazz Age
• Rapid increase in urban population
• Skyscrapers symbolize the new mass
culture
• Communities of home, church, and school
are absent in the cities
Women and the Family
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Ongoing crusade for equal rights
“Flappers” seek individual freedom
Most women remain in domestic sphere
Discovery of adolescence
– teenaged children no longer need to work
– indulge their craving for excitement
The Roaring Twenties
• Decade notable for obsessive interest in
celebrities
• Sex becomes an all-consuming topic of
interest in popular entertainment
The Flowering of the Arts
• Alienation from 20s’ mass culture
• "Exiled" American writers put U.S. in
forefront of world literature
– T.S. Eliot
– Ernest Hemingway
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Harlem Renaissance--African Americans
prominent in music, poetry
The Rural Counterattack
• Rural Americans identify urban culture with
Communism, crime, immorality
• Progressives attempt to force reform on
the American people
– upsurge of bigotry
– an era of repression
The Fear of Radicalism
• 1919-- “Red Scare”
– illegal roundups of innocent people
– forcible deportation of aliens
– terrorism against “radicals,” immigrants
• 1927-- Sacco and Vanzetti executed
Prohibition
• 1918--18th Amendment ratified
• 1920--Volstead Act prohibits production,
sale, or transport of alcoholic beverages
• Consumption of alcohol reduced
• Prohibition resented in urban areas
• Bootlegging becomes big business
• 1933--18th amendment repealed
The Ku Klux Klan
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1925--Klan membership hits 5 million
Attack on urban culture, inhabitants
Defense of traditional rural values
Klan seeks to win U.S. by persuasion
Violence, internal corruption result in
Klan’s virtual disappearance by 1930
Immigration Restriction
• 1924--Congress restricts all immigration
• Preferential quotas to northern Europeans
• Mexican immigrants exempt from quota
The Fundamentalist Challenge
• Fundamentalism: stress on traditional
Protestant orthodoxy, biblical literalism
• 1925--Scopes Trial discredits
fundamentalism among intellectuals
• “Modernists” gain mainline churches
• Fundamentalists strengthen grassroots
appeal in new churches
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
• Republican presidents appeal to traditional
American values
• Harding scandals break after his death
• Coolidge represents America in his
austerity and rectitude
• Hoover represents the self-made man
The Election of 1928
• Democrat Al Smith carries urban vote
– governor of New York
– Roman Catholic
• Republican Herbert Hoover wins race
– Midwesterner
– Protestant
• Religion the campaign’s decisive issue
The Great Crash
• 1928--soaring stock prices attract
individual, corporate investment
• 1929--stock market crashes
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directly affects 3 million
credit crunch stifles business
• Businesses lay off workers
• Demand for consumer goods declines
Effects of the Depression
• Hardship affects all classes
• The middle class loses belief in everincreasing prosperity
• Thousands of young homeless, jobless
Fighting the Depression
• Republican attempts to overcome
catastrophe flounder
• Depression gives Democrats opportunity
to regain power
Hoover and Voluntarism
• Hoover initially seeks solution through
voluntary action, private charity
• Eventually aids farmers and bankers
• Resists Democratic efforts to give direct
aid to the unemployed
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perceived as indifferent to human suffering
programs seen as incompetent
Bank Failures, 1929-1933
The Emergence of Roosevelt
• Franklin Roosevelt
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born to wealth and privilege
1921--crippled by polio
1928--elected governor of New York
talented politician
• 1932--defeats Hoover with farmer- workerimmigrant-Catholic coalition
The Hundred Days
• Banking system saved from collapse
• Fifteen major laws provide relief
• New Deal aims to reform and restore, not
nationalize, the economy
Roosevelt and Recovery
• National Recovery Administration
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industries formulate codes to eliminate cutthroat competition, ensure labor peace
codes favor big business, unenforceable
1935--NRA ruled unconstitutional
• Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933
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farmers paid to take land out of cultivation
prices increase
sharecroppers, tenant farmers dispossessed
Roosevelt and Relief
• 1933--Harry Hopkins placed in charge of
RFC to direct aid to unemployed
• 1933--Civilian Conservation Corps
provides employment to young people
• 1935--Works Progress Administration
place unemployed on federal payroll
• Programs never sufficiently funded
Roosevelt and Reform
• 1933-34--focus on immediate problems
• 1935--shift to permanent economic reform
Challenges to FDR
• Father Charles Coughlin advocates
nationalizing banks, anti-Semitism
• Francis Townsend calls for wealth
redistribution from young to the elderly
• Huey Long calls for redistribution of
wealth by seizing private fortunes
Social Security
• 1935--Social Security Act passed
• Criticisms
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too few people would collect pensions
unemployment package inadequate
• Establishes pattern of government aid to
poor, aged, handicapped
Labor Legislation
• 1935--Wagner Act
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allows unions to organize
outlaws unfair labor practices
• 1938--Fair Labor Standard Act
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maximum hour
minimum wage
Impact of the New Deal
• Had a broad influence on the quality of life
in the U.S. in the 1930s
• Helps labor unions most
• Helps women, minorities least
Rise of Organized Labor
• 1932--National Recovery Act spurs union
organizers
• Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO)
formed by John L. Lewis
• CIO unionizes steel, auto industries
• 1940--CIO membership hits 5 million, 28%
of labor force unionized
The New Deal Record on Help
to Minorities
• Crop reduction program allows whites to
fire or evict blacks, Hispanics
• Public works programs help by providing
employment
• New Deal figures convince minorities that
the government is on their side
• 1934--Indian Reorganization Act gives
American Indians greater control
Women at Work
• Position of women deteriorates in ‘30s
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jobs lost at a faster rate than men
hardly any New Deal programs help
• Progress in government
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Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, the first
woman cabinet member
women appointed to several other posts
Eleanor Roosevelt a model for activism
End of the New Deal
• 1936--New Deal peaks with Roosevelt’s
reelection
• Congress resists programs after 1936
The Election of 1936
• FDR’s campaign
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attacks the rich
promises further reforms
defeats Republican Alf Landon
• Democrats win lopsided majorities in both
houses of Congress
• FDR coalition: South, cities, labor, ethnic
groups, African Americans, poor
The Supreme Court Fight
• Supreme Court blocks several of FDR’s
first-term programs
• 1937--FDR seeks right to "pack" Court
• Congressional protest forces retreat
• FDR’s opponents emboldened
The New Deal in Decline
• 1936--cutbacks for relief agencies
• 1937--severe slump hits economy
• Roosevelt blamed, resorts to huge
government spending
• 1938--Republican party revives
The New Deal and American Life
• New Deal’s limitations
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depression not ended
economic system not fundamentally altered
little done for those without political clout
• Achievements
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Social Security, the Wagner Act
political realignment of the 1930s