United States in the 1920s-Domestic Policies

Society in the 1920s Age of excess Jazz Age Flappers-women gained more social freedoms Consumerism-mass media and mass advertising encouraged people to buy more and more consumer goods http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3svvCj4yhYc&mode=related&search=

“The business of America is business” American Businesses used advertising (magazines, the new medium of radio) to create the American ideal. Radios in homes: 1920 - 60,000 1929 - 10,000,000 However, most could not afford this idea, and higher profits for businesses did not lead to higher wages for workers.

The long-term result was overproduction-businesses made too many products that could not be sold, so workers were laid off and the value of such businesses would eventually drop. The foreign market was generally closed to them-Americans greatly increased tariffs (as part of the isolationism policy) and European nations had responded by raising tariffs against American goods.

The one bright spot throughout the 1920s was the automobile-Henry Ford’s assembly line produced Model T was built so efficiently that nearly everyone could buy one.

Plight of the Farmers After WWI the need for American goods dropped Mechanization of farming equipment led to overproduction of agricultural products. Result: prices for food product dropped, and farmers were going bankrupt producing more food and trying to pay for new machinery, mortgages, etc.

American Ideals USA turns inward. Huge numbers of immigrants arrived before WW I, now U.S. less welcoming. Laws passed to restrict immigration 1921, 1924 and 1929 limits or exclusions on immigrants who were deemed not WASP (White Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) enough.

American Ideals cont. To keep foreign ideas out of America-Jews, Catholics, African-Americans all suffered from their bigotry. ‘Jim Crow’ laws in the south discriminated against blacks – segregation KKK-brief re-birth in the 1920s – 5 million people join between 1920 -1925

Legislating morality: Prohibition was meant to make alcohol and the social ills surrounding it go away. It led to gangster control of alcohol (Al Capone in Chicago).