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Republicans in the 1920s
Partly due to the death of Theodore Roosevelt, conservative Republicans returned; they did not preach laissez-faire economics. -
Warren Harding
Warren Harding, a Republican, was elected as president; he was not a very good leader, so he elected strong men to his cabinet: Charles Evans Hughes, Herbert Hoover, and Andrew Mellon. -
Increases Productivity
Increased productivity led to the business boom, which then led to economic prosperity; Henry Ford invented the assembly line and Frederick W. Taylor made the manufacturing process more efficient by adopting improved methods of mass production. -
Energy Technologies
Economic growth was also caused by the increased use of oil and electricity; oil powered factories and fueled the newly made cars. -
Government Policy
During the 1920s, government favored the growth of big business; it offered corporate tax cuts, and it did not enforce the antitrust laws. -
Farm Problems
Chemical fertilizers and gasoline tractors helped farmers increase production, but farmers still had a huge debt; farmers borrowed heavily during the war to expand. -
Labor Problems
Union movement declined in the 1920s and wages rose; companies insisted on an open shop, which meant keeping jobs open to nonunion workers. -
Census of 1920
More than half of the population lived in urban areas; culture was based on taste, morals, and habits of mass consumption. -
The Jazz Age
Dancing to jazz music was a way of the youth rebelling; jazz was now the symbol of new and modern culture. -
Consumerism
Electricity made it possible for new consumer appliances; the price of automobiles became more reasonable and chain stores flourished. -
Entertainment
The switch from newspapers to radios was made when radio stations went on air; the movie industry also flourished and became a habit for most Americans. -
Popular Heroes
Prior to the 1920s, politicians were the heroic figures, but in the 1920s, people in movies and people that played sports were now the heroic figures. -
Modernism
In the 1920s, some Protestants defined their faith in new ways; they believed they could accept Charles Darwin's theory without abandoning their religious faith. -
Fundamentalism
The Protestant preachers in rural areas said that every word in the Bible must be accepted as true; they did not like Modernists. -
The Literature of Alienation
There was a common theme for writers in the postwar decade: scorning religion as hypocritical and bitterly condemning the sacrifices of wartime as a fraud perpetrated by money interests. -
Art
Industrial design was new, and it was devoted to making products look as well as they functioned; many architects applied functionalism to their work. -
Fitzgerald and O'Neill
They expressed disillusionment with the materialism of a business-oriented culture; they took to a life of drinking. -
Eliot and Hemingway
They expressed disillusionment with the ideals of an earlier time; they also expressed their unhappiness by moving into exile in Europe. -
Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe
An impact of the new technology and urban life was also found in the stark paintings by Hopper and O'Keeffe. -
Harlem Renaissance
The largest African American community developed in Harlem in New York City; it became famous for its concentration of talented actors, artists, musicians, and writers. -
Leading African American Poets
The leading African American poets included Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay; they expressed emotions from bitterness to joy. -
African American Artists
Bessie Smith was a great blues singer, and Paul Robeson was a singer and an actor; the artists and audiences were segregated from the rest of the nation. -
The Volstead Act
This act was passed in 1919; many people had different views on prohibition, but Congress passed the law due to wartime concerns to conserve grain and maintain a sober workforce. -
Defying the Law
Prohibition did not stop people from drinking; mostly in cities, it became fashionable to go to clubs (speakeasies) where smuggled alcohol was sold. -
The War and Immigration
The war basically stopped immigrants from coming to the United States, but once the war ended, over a million foreigners entered the country. -
Quota Laws
Two quota laws were passed, one in 1921 and one in 1924; the first quota law limited immigration to 3% of the 1910 census, and the second law limited immigration to 2% of the 1890 census, which was before "new" immigration began. -
Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge was Harding's successor, and he had the nickname of "Silent Cal"; "If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it." -
Election of 1924
Because two conservatives were elected by the Republican and Democrat party, a new Progressive Party was formed and elected Robert La Follette; Coolidge won. -
Marcus Garvey
He brought the United Negro Improvement Association to the United States from Jamaica, but he was charged of fraud and deported back to Jamaica. -
W. E. B. Du Bois
Du Bois and other African American leaders did not agree with Garvey's back to Africa idea. -
The Election of 1928
Coolidge decided not to run a second time, so the Republican Party elected Herbert Hoover, who served three times in administrative roles; Hoover won by a landslide. -
Uneven Distribution of Income
One of the causes of the stock market crash was uneven distribution of income: wages did not rise a lot even though productivity and corporate profits shot up; success was not shared at all because the top 5% of the richest Americans received over 33% of all income. -
Hawley-Smoot Tariff
This tariff caused a tax increase ranging from 31% to 49% on foreign imports; this caused national and international economies to sink further into depression. -
Dust Bowl Farmers
A major drought in the early 1930s ruined crops in the Great Plains, as if they did not already have it hard enough; high winds blew away millions of tons of dried topsoil. -
Debt Moratorium
The Dawes Plan for collecting war debts was no longer possible because conditions became so bad; therefore, Hoover proposed a suspension on the payment of international debts. -
The Effects of the Stock Market Crash
Of course, the Great Depression was a result of the Stock Market Crash, but it also led to increasing the power of the federal government. -
The New Deal Philosophy
Roosevelt made no promises but was willing to experiment to end the depression with political solutions to economic problems. -
Brain Trust
Roosevelt relied on advisers: Louis Howe, Rexford Tugwell, Raymond Moley, and Adolph A. Berle, Jr.; the people appointed during his presidency were the most diverse in United States history. -
Repeal of Prohibition
The ratification of the 21st amendment repealed the 18th amendment, which ended prohibition; Roosevelt also raised needed tax money by passing the Beer-Wine Revenue Act. -
The Emergency Banking Relief Act
This authorized the government to examine the finances of banks closed during the bank holiday and reopen those judged to be sound. -
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The FDIC guaranteed individual bank deposits up to $5,000. -
Home Owners Loan Corporation
The HOLC provided refinancing of small homes to prevent foreclosures. -
The Civilian Conservation Corps
The CCC employed young men on projects on federal lands and paid their family small monthly sums. -
The Farm Credit Administration
This provided low-interest farm loans and mortgages to prevent foreclosures on the property of indebted farmers. -
The Federal Emergency Relief Administraiton
The FERA offered grants of federal money to states and local governments that were operating soup kitchens and other forms of relief for the jobless and homeless. -
The Public Works Association
The PWA allotted money to state and local governments for building roads, bridges, dams, and other public works. -
The Tennessee Valley Authority
The TVA hired thousands of people in one of the nation's poorest regions to build dams, operate electric power plants, control flooding and erosion, and manufacture fertilizer. -
The Civil Works Administration
The CWA hired laborers for temporary construction projects sponsored by the federal government. -
The Securities and Exchange Commission
The SEC was created to regulate the stock market and to place strict limits on the kind of speculative practices that had led to the Wall Street crash. -
"Okies"
Many people from Oklahoma migrated westward to California to find a farm or a factory; John Steinbeck wrote about the hardships in "The Grapes of Wrath".
