Post WWI America

1
Lesson 7

• Post WWI America and
• The Great Depression

2

• End of World War I
• Cancelation of war supply orders.
• Former military personal looking for jobs.
• No immediate economic collapse.
• Americans eager to spend extra cash.
• The Second Industrial Revolution
• American manufacturing
• 1870-1914
• Technological advances increased industrial
  output without expanding the labor force.

3

• Technological Advances
• Electricity replaced steam as main source of
  power for industry.
• Automatic machinery operated by unskilled and
  semi-unskilled workers.
• Rise of the modern cooperation.
• Integrated new methods of production.
• Diversified their products.
• Expanded industrial research.

4

• The Auto Age
• Major impact on American economic life.
• Henry Ford
• Used the assembly line to reduce the number of
  worker hours needed to produce a vehicle.
• Revolutionized the shop floor with new machinery.
• New wage scale.
• Reduced price of vehicles.
• Purchase vehicles on credit.

5

• The auto industry
• Boosted market for related items
• Rubber
• Steel
• Glass
• Petroleum
• Stimulated spending for
• Better roads
• Housing boom in suburbs
• Repair shops
• Car lots
• Gas stations

6
Post War Politics

• 1920s
• Republicans dominated political scene.
• Close relationship between Federal Government and
  business.

7

• The Harding Administration
• Warren G. Harding
• Ohio Gang
• Delegated power.
• Scandals
• Congressional investigations after Hardings
  death in 1924.
• Tea-Pot Dome scandal Secretary Albert Fall
• Received thousands of dollars in pay offs when he
  leased navy oil reserves in
• Teapot Dome, Wyoming
• Elk Hills, California
• Trimmed federal budget, cut taxes on incomes,
  corporate profits, and inheritances.

8

• The Coolidge Administration
• Vice President Calvin Coolidge
• Became President upon Hardings death.
• Won re-election in 1924.
• Calvin Coolidge (R) 382 votes
• John Davis (D)
• Robert La Follette (Pro)
• Reduced federal spending.
• Lowered taxes.
• Blocked congressional initiatives.
• Appointed pro-business officials.

9

• Presidential Election of 1928.
• Coolidge did not run for re-election in 1928.
• Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover.
• Believed he represented the best of the United
  States
• Individual Effort and Hard Work.
• Successful businessman.
• WWI work in Belgium.
• Named to head U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
• Secretary of Commerce under Harding and Coolidge.

10

• Democrats nominated Al Smith.
• New York Governor.
• Reform-minded, streamlined state government.
• Supported legislation establishing a minimum wage
  and maximum hours.
• Catholic who opposed prohibition.
• Attacked on both points.
• Anti-Catholic sentiment.

11

• Presidential Election of 1928.
• Herbert Hoover Wins!!
• 444 Electoral Votes
• 87 Electoral Votes
• Hoover did not believe the Federal Government
  should solve social and economic problems.
• Believed the Federal Government could only
  help.
• Country still on economic high.
• Economic weaknesses.
• The Great Depression.

12

• Economic trouble began to appear in the 1920s.
• Economic insecurity.
• Gains in wages were uneven.
• Textiles/coal mining pay decreases.
• Automotive/electrical manufacturing pay
  increases.
• 80 of the nations wealth held by 10 of the
  population.
• Demand was not keeping up with supply.

13
The Bull Market of the late 1920s

• Stock prices increased at twice the rate of
  industrial production.
• Many who owned stock gained access to the markets
  through easy credit margin accounts.
• Allowed investors to purchase stock with only a
  small down payment.
• The remainder, borrowed from a broker.
• The stocks shares used as collateral.
• Brought about an optimistic attitude on Wall
  Street.

14
Black Tuesday

• Bull Market peaked in September 1929.
• Monday, October 29
• Dow loses 28 points.
• Tuesday, October 20
• The market crashes.
• Panic selling.
• Buyers could not be found.
• Easy credit margin accounts crumbled.
• Confidence in the market destroyed.

15

• Manufacturers cut production and began laying off
  employees.
• Banks failed as nervous depositors withdrew their
  money (run on the banks).
• Savings vanished No safety net.
• High unemployment was devastating.

16
Unemployment Rates Rise

• 1930
• Unemployment Rate 9
• 1933
• Unemployment Rate 25

17
Presidential Response

• President Hoover failed to respond properly.
• Worried more about undermining individual
  initiative.
• Recovery plan centered on restoring business
  confidence.
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).
• Designed to make government credit available to
  distressed banks, railroads, insurance companies,
  etc.
• Lack of consumer spending made the RFC of little
  value to businesses.

18

• 1932
• Congress authorized the RFC to give 300 million
  to states that were using up assistance funds.
• Things were made worse when
• The Federal Reserve tightened credit.
• Interest rates rose.
• Forced the closure of small banks.
• Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.
• Raised import duties (taxes).
• Nations responded by raising their own tariffs.
• World trade declined.
• 1931
• The Depression was a world-wide crisis.

19
Depression Era Violence

• Violent protests broke out around the nation.
• March 7, 1932
• Communist organizers led a march of several
  thousand Detroit auto workers and unemployed on
  Dearborn, Michigan.
• Police fired tear gas and bullets.
• Four protestors killed.
• Fifty protestors wounded.

20
Depression Era Violence

• Spring 1932
• Veterans gathered in D.C. to demand WWI bonuses.
• July 1932
• The U.S. Army evicted many veterans.
• Visual proof of Hoover Administrations failure.

21
The Election of 1932

• Democrats
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (NY).
• Republicans
• President Herbert Hoover.
• Franklin Roosevelt (D) won
• Electoral College 472-59.
• Popular Vote 57.
• Democrats gained control of both Houses.

22
The New Deal

• Roosevelt emphasized two points
• His health was good and his paralysis would not
  impact his performance as President.
• He was a man of action.
• He promised a new deal for the American people.

23
The New Deal

• Included relief for the poor and unemployed,
  efforts to stimulate the economic recovery, and
  social security.
• March 4, 1933
• Roosevelt takes office.
• Nearly all of the nations banks were closed.
• The economy faced paralysis.

24

• The President asked Congress for sweeping powers
  to deal with the economic crisis.
• March 6
• Roosevelt declared a bank holiday. Closing all
  banks temporarily.
• March 9
• Emergency Banking Bill
• Allowed the Federal Reserve to support the
  nations banks by providing funds and buying
  preferred banks.

25

• Fireside Chats
• The number of deposits outnumbered the number of
  withdrawals.
• Roosevelt signed 15 major pieces of legislation
  over the next 100 days.
• Meant to
• Move the country to recovery, relief, and reform.
• Stimulate the economy and provide a safety net
  for those who lost their jobs.

26

• Bank Act of 1933
• Created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
  (FDIC).
• Insured deposits up to a fixed amount in FDIC
  insured banks and state banks that participate.
• The Security and Exchange Act of 1934
• Created the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Licenses and supervises stock agencies.

27

• Social Security Act of 1935
• Created systems of unemployment, old age, and
  disability insurance and provided for child
  welfare.
• Pension for retirees (65) was controversial.
• Required payments, failed to cover domestic and
  agricultural workers and provided no health
  insurance.
• Federal aid to families with dependent children
  and the disabled.
• Helped fund state-run unemployment compensation
  systems.

28

• 1937 The New Deal began to slow.
• Public and political support waned.
• The Roosevelt Recession.
• Roosevelt cut 4 billion from federal budget.
• Cut relief spending.
• Unemployment soared back to 19.
• Economy unable to cope with reduced spending and
  thousands of unemployed.
• Tarnished Roosevelts recovery image.
• Roosevelt restored spending.

29

• 1939
• The economy was growing again.
• Unemployment was still high.
• 1941 and World War II
• Spending connected with the War, and not the New
  Deal, propelled the American economy out of the
  Depression and to new levels of prosperity.

30
Global Changes

• Three nations challenged international system.
• Eager to use military force.
• Japan.
• Germany.
• Italy.

31
Japan

• Sought raw materials and markets.

32
Germany

• National Socialist Party.
• Adolf Hitler.
• 1933.
• Return Germany to military superiority.

33
Italy

• Benito Mussolini.
• Prime Ministry of Italy.
• Used Italian nationalism to expand imperial goals.

34
Changes in Mass Culture

• Radio Mania.
• Early 1920s.
• Cheaper technology.
• New radio stations.
• Created a national community of listeners.
• Significantly grew the influence of American
  commercialism throughout the western hemisphere.

35
Prohibition

• 18th Amendment.
• Banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation
  of alcoholic beverages.
• Prohibition.
• Associated drinking with degradation of
  working-class culture.
• Difficult to enforce.
• Prohibition Bureau.
• 1919.
• Understaffed.

36
Prohibition

• Bootlegging.
• Law enforcement bribed to look the other way.
• Speakeasy Illegal drinking establishments.
• Early 1920s Western states no longer enforcing
  laws.
• Prohibition boosted organized crime.
• Became permanent part of American life.

37
Prohibition

• Congress repealed the 18th Amendment.
• 22nd Amendment.

38
Ku Klux Klan

• Strong nativism.
• Revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Stone Mountain, Georgia (1915).
• Hiram Evans (Imperial Wizard 1922).
• Hired professional fundraisers and publicists.
• Ran effective recruiting scheme.
• Membership drive.

39
Ku Klux Klan

• Supported
• White supremacy.
• Prohibition.
• Anti-Immigration.
• Opposed
• African-Americans.
• Jews.
• Roman Catholics.
• Immoral, drunk, or blaspheming white protestants.
• Very popular in the South and Mid-West.

40
Ku Klux Klan

• Boycotted businesses.
• Threatened families.
• Engaged in
• Public Whippings.
• Lynchings.
• At its core, the revived KKK was a social
  backlash against modernity.
• 1925
• Grand Dragon David Stephenson.
• Sex scandal.
• Slowed growth of Klan.

41
Religious Fundamentalism

• Protestant churches.
• Focus on progressive social and reform
  activities.
• Took literal understanding of the Bible.
• Rejected modern scientific theories.
• Theory of Evolution.
• Charles Darwin.
• Origin of Species 1859.

42
Religious Fundamentalism

• John Scopes.
• 1925.
• Biology teacher.
• Violated Tennessees law banning the teaching of
  Evolution.
• Scopes Monkey Trial.
• Prosecution William Jennings Bryan.
• Scopes found guilty.
• Verdict thrown out.

43
Feminism

• June 4, 1919
• 19th Amendment Proposed.
• August 18, 1920
• 19th Amendment Ratified.
• 19th Amendment
• Gave women the right to vote.
• Womens movement split
• Protection.
• Equality.

44
Feminism

• National American Woman Suffrage Association.
• League of Women Voters.
• Supported reform organizations.
• Concentrated on educating women voters.
• Encouraged women to run for office.
• Pushed for laws protecting women/children.
• Sheppard-Towner Act
• First federally funded health care.
• Matching funds for states.
• Opposition (NWP).
• Congress discontinued funding.

45
The New Negro

• 1920s Large numbers of African Americans moved
  north.
• From American South.
• From Caribbean.
• Moved mainly to New York City.
• Harlem.
• Middle-class African-Americans.
• Marcus Garvey Universal Negro Improvement
  Association
• Economic self-determination and unity.
• Convicted of mail fraud and sent to jail.

46
The New Negro

• Demand for housing grew in Harlem.
• Cost of rent was too high for many who worked
  low-wage jobs.
• Overcrowding.
• New leaders and movements emerged.
• Civil Rights Movement.
• End of Lesson