Prosperity and Crisis

1. The Jazz Age – 1920 - 19302. The Great Depression – 1929 - 19333. The New Deal – 1933 -1939

1919 - 1939

•The interwar years of the United States brought economic prosperity followed by economic disaster to Americans.• From new forms of entertainment and the age of credit to bank panics and the failure of Wall Street, the United States experienced tremendous change economically, socially, and politically. •A new leader would emerge, someone who would transform the American nation.

The Jazz Age

• During the “Roaring Twenties”, Americans sought new forms of entertainment, such as radio programs, movies, and jazz music.

1. Boom Times

2. Life in the Twenties

3. A Creative Era

1920-1930

1. Boom Times• “One hundred thousand people flocked into the showrooms of the Ford

Company in Detroit; mounted police were called out to patrol the crowds in Cleveland; in Kansas City so great a mob stormed Convention Hall that platforms had to be built to lift the new car high enough for everyone to see it.”

• Charles Merz, Only Yesterday, by Frederick Lewis Allen

1919-1939

Prosperity and Productivity

• Republican pro business policies and tax cuts encourages investment and led to economic growth

• 1920’s-American houses have electricity and a number of electrical appliances-mixers, food grinders, sewing machines, and washing machines.

• Frederick W. Taylor and his scientific management was based on every kind of work could be broken down into a series of small tasks.

1919-1939

The Automobile Industry• Henry Ford used scientific

management and lowered the costs of automobiles.

– Model T – 1908 sturdy, low cost automobile

– $250,000 a year by 1915

– Assembly line – to help factories make goods faster; workers stood in one place as partially assembled products moved past on a conveyor belt.

• Price - $850.00 in 1909 to $290 in 1924

• One of Americas biggest industries was automobiles

1919-1939

•“It will cost a man his job to have the odor of beer, wine, liquor on his breath or have any of these intoxicants in his home.”

Ford’s Philosophy

1919-1939

1919-1939

Changes in Work• The assembly line changed the nature of work• Ford and his workers

– Shortened the work day and raised the wages to $5.00

– Workers must reach company standards.– Ford regulated morality and personal

behavior of his workers.• The impact of a new electrical products and automobiles

did have a negative effect on unemployment for some, such as servants and delivery services.

1919-1939

“This chain system you have is a slaver driver! My God! Mr. Ford. My husband has come home and thrown himself down and won’t eat his supper-so done out! Can’t it be remedied? . . . That $5 a day is a blessing-a bigger one than you know but oh they earn it.”

Wife of Ford worker, Personal Complaints, by David Hounshell

A Land of Automobiles• Auto-tourism– 400,000 miles of new roads and

highways decorated with billboards and family restaurants.

– Auto tourism – seeking the countryside by means of the automobile – camping and sightseeing

• The automobile transformed family life.

1919-1939

•“The extensive use of this new tool [the automobile] by the young has enormously extended their mobility and the range of alternatives before them; joining a crowd motoring over to a dance . . . Twenty miles away may be a matter of a moment’s decision, with no one’s permission asked.”

•Robert and Helen Lynd, Middletown

This isn’t very romantic.Ouch! A bug just bit me!

This led to make out point

Critics of the Automobile

•Many claimed that cars reduced people’s sense of community. The Automobile created new social opportunities for teenagers. Before the automobile teenagers spent much of their leisure time at home, after the automobile, teenagers could spend their free time differently.•“What on earth do you want me to do? Just sit around home all evening!”

Creating Consumers• Alfred P. Sloan, head of

General Motors, designed more expensive cars that emphasize industry.

• Marketing– Sloan introduced the

installment plan, which allowed consumers to pay for cars over time –establishing credit

– Credit spread to cover other purchased such as kitchen appliances and sewing machines.

– Planned obsolescence meant coming up with new or yearly models of cars or appliances.

1919-1939

Advertising– 1929-3 billion dollars in advertising– most targeted women

• As the number of products increased so did the consumer demand, which led to a growing retail industry, such as A & P.

1919-1939

2. Life in the Twenties• “About four or five days after I had gotten the

vacuum tube hooked up, I started to hear music coming across the wires. Music! And then, between the music, I could hear somebody talking. . . . ‘I am Dr. Conrad. I am experimenting with radio station 8XK.’ . . . By January of 1921, I had decided to build my own broadcast station. I built a hundred-watter and then applied for an experimental broadcast license. In March, I got a letter saying: ‘One of my first official duties as Secretary of Commerce is to award you this license. Aren’t you the young fellow I met . . . In Marion, Ohio? . . . What’s a fourteen-year-old kid going to do with a broadcast station?”

• Albert Sindlinger, The Century, Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster

1919-1939

Prohibition• Prohibition, prohibiting the distribution or sale of

alcohol, was a major issue in the 1920’s. • The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale,

transportation, and manufacturing of alcohol.

1919-1939

Volstead Act

– Congress passed the act in 0ctober, 1919 to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment.

– In many areas prohibition was strictly enforced, but many people, especially in cities, did not take a favorable view of prohibition.

1919-1939

Al Capone

– AL Capone was the one of the more successful bootleggers.

– He controlled Chicago’s underworld by wiping out all of his competition.

1919-1939

Do your homework, or else . . .

Bootlegging– One of the decade’s most profitable

businesses.– The Federal Prohibition Bureau, an agency

created to stem bootlegging, corruption, and violence, hired Eliot Ness, special agent who organized top young detectives to go after the gangsters.

1919-1939

The Untouchables– The Untouchables, as Ness and his detectives

were nicknamed, were successful in ending Capone’s reign in Chicago. He was eventually arrested on tax evasion.

– Prohibition led a widespread breakdown of law and order, and eventually Congress, in 1933, passed the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment.

1919-1939

Youth Culture

• Many young Americans ignored prohibition laws. As a result, a new youth culture began to emerge in the 1920s.

1919-1939

The New Woman• Flappers, women who often defied traditional standards of female

behavior, were the “new women” and caught the attention of the media.

• During the 1920’s, magazines, movies, and literature began to describe the new women as adventurous, stylish, independent, and often career minded.

1919-1939

College Life

– Most Americans, in the early 1900’s, received little education pass high school.

– The growing number of college students influenced popular culture.

– During the 1920’s, college enrollment dramatically increased.

1919-1939

•“College style has a definite meaning. . . . Fall ’23 can almost be called the young man’s season with the style of pace set by the collegian.” 1923 California university newspaper

Leisure fads and fun

• New leisure activities and a variety of fads spread throughout America in the 1920’s.

• The “Dance Derby of the Century;” • Miss America Beauty Pageant• Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly – 145 flagpoles in 1929

1919-1939

Mass Entertainment

• Radio• Movies• Professional Sport

1919-1939

Radio– Commercial Radio also grew. First

Stations were Detroit’s WWJ and Pittsburgh’s KDKA.

– By 1929, 800 stations over 10 million homes. Radio stations also offered advertising as a form of making money.

– National Broadcasting Company (NBC) offered networks packages of programs to broadcast.

1919-1939

Movies– Movie Director Cecil B. DeMille introduced a

new style of movies based on epic plots and complex characters.

– The era of silent movies (Charlie Chaplin) was replaced in 1927, by the first movie with sound, produced by Warner Brothers, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.

– It would not be long, until the public realized that movies and eventually television needed to be government regulated.

1919-1939

Movie Director Cecil B. DeMille

It looks like I am out of work! Unless I finally start talking!

Sports

– Sports, like football, became quite popular. Opening day for the Chicago Bears attracted 35, 000 fans, the largest crowd to date.

– Baseball remained the most popular sport despite the Chicago White Sox scandal. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Lou Gehrig dominated the game.

1919-1939

Books and Magazines• New monthly and weekly publications

provided Americans with sources of information and entertainment.

• Reader’s Digest was founded in 1921, and reprinted articles from other magazines in shorter form.

1919-1939

Celebrities and Heroes

• Jim Thorpe– One of the more talented athletes of the 20th century was Jim Thorpe. – He participated in the 1912 Olympics, and became the first competitor to win the pentathlon and the

decathlon.– He also played baseball and football.

• Charles Lindbergh– One of the biggest celebrities of the 1920’s.– Lindbergh was the first pilot to travel across the Atlantic Ocean, using the Spirit of St. Louis. (New York to Paris)

• Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

1919-1939

Religion in the 1920s

• Some Americans found the social change of the 1920’s more troubling than exciting. Religion remained a vital part of American culture.

1919-1939

Revivalism– Many Americans became concerned with the

decline of morality because of the evils of popular entertainment.

– Revivalism referred to return of moral standards throughout America, usually through religious leaders.

– Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the more popular revivalists.

1919-1939

Fundamentalism– In response to the changing society during the 1920’s,

many Americans turned to a more conservative approach to religious faith.

– Evangelical preachers who spread the fundamental religion spellbound people. (Billy Sunday)

1919-1939

The Scopes Trial• Famous court case between

fundamentalism and scientific thought. Earlier in 1925, the Tennessee legislature had outlawed the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of human evolution in state’s public school.

» John Scopes, a Tennessee school teacher, challenged the legislation, and Clarence Darrow, a famous lawyer from Chicago, defended him. Darrow attacked the law claiming it as a threat to free expression.

» The prosecutor was William Jenning’s Bryan. He spoke for many Americans who felt that the theory of evolution contradicted deeply held religious beliefs.

• Darrow’s defense failed to convince the jury and he was found guilty and fined $100.00.

1919-1939

The Scopes Trial

Clarence Darrow

William Jenning’s Bryan

Evolution Religion

3. A Creative Era

• “When I came back to New York in 1925 the Negro Renaissance was in full swing. Countee Cullen was publishing his early poems, Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, and Wallace Thurman were writing. Louis Armstrong was playing, Cora Le Redd was dancing, and the Savoy Ballroom was open with a specially built floor that rocked as the dancers swayed. . . . Art took heart from Harlem creativity. Jazz filled the night air . . . And people came from all around after dark to look upon our city within a city, Black Harlem.”

» Langston Hughes, Freedomways

1919-1939

Music• Jazz is an innovative form of music and is a

hybrid of various musical styles that existed in New Orleans.

– Jazz stemmed from the style of music known as ragtime and was made famous by Scott Joplin.

– Blues, another form of African American music, also became quite popular.

– Blues featured heartful lyrics and altered notes that echoed the mood of the lyrics. (Bessie Smith-“Down Hearted Blues” and Louis Armstrong – Jazz)

1919-1939

And I think to myself what a wonderful world!

The Spread of Jazz• As African Americans moved north to cities such as New York City and Chicago, so did jazz and the

blues.• The popularization of jazz

• As jazz became more popular, different backgrounds started infusing jazz into their style of music.

• Notably, George Gershwin – “Rhapsody in Blue”-jazz into symphonic form.• Harlem Cotton Club and other clubs were mostly white clubs with African American

performers.

1919-1939

Hey Lou! How about I infuse a little jazz into the symphony!

•“I, Too”

I, too, sing AmericaI am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody’ll dareSay to me,“Eat in the kitchen,”Then.

Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-I, too, am America.

The Harlem Renaissance

• A movement developed by a number of African Americans in Harlem, New York, which became the cultural center for them.

• Theater – leading African American actors – Paul Robeson -Emperor Jones– Rose McClendon -In Abraham’s

Bosom• Literature

– Nella Larsen – a book about racial equality-Quicksand

– James Weldon Johnson— achieve racial equality through artist achievement and advancement in education

1919-1939

Paul Robeson . . .

A former slave

An athlete – 15 varsity letters in four different sports

A professional football player

A lawyer

A concert artist who can perform in more than 25 different languages

An activist

An actor

And the list goes on . . .

•If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

James Weldon Johnson

The Lost Generation• Stories of disillusionment

– Ernest Hemingway -A Farwell to Arms-depicts devastation of World War One

– F. Scott Fitzgerald -The Great Gatsby-emptiness of one man’s pursuit of money and social status

• Criticizing the middle class– Sinclair Lewis -Main Street-close-mindedness

of the middle class– HL Meneken -The American Mercury was a

magazine that promoted novelists who satirized middle class Americans.

1919-1939

“ I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them . . . And had read them . . . Now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell Arms

• Ernest Hemingway spent much of his life in France, Spain, and Cuba. He also served in the Italian Front and was seriously wounded in the Great War.

• He expressed anger and the uselessness of war.

•F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda

•There marriage began to suffer to due to Fitzgerald’s alcoholism and Zelda’s incurable mental illness.

Meneken Quotes

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.""Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it."“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.” “Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.” "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

The Visual Arts• Painting and photography

– Painting and photography, in the 1920’s became widely appreciated as an art form.

– Alfred Stieglitz -popularized photography as art form

• Murals became popular in Mexico portraying the evils of the upper class.

• The spirit of creativity in architecture; Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright

1919-1939