Reading the handout, answer the following questions in your notebooks: (1) Why were farmers optimistic during WWI, and how did this lead to poor economic decisions by farmers? (2) How were the Roaring Twenties unkind to rural America? (3) Why were rural banks allowed to fail?
Problems with the Farms and Rural and Western Banks 1917 - 1929 [1] During WWI, prices are good [2] Farmers invest [3] Overproduction [4] Crop prices drop in 1920 & 1921 [5] Hard time paying mortgages and loans [6] Farms become foreclosed [7] Rural banks fail
Bank Failures ** 600 bank failures a year between 1921 - 1929
Dust Bowl 1929 - 1939
Dust Bowl - “Black Sunday,” April 14, 1935 … - Causes of the storms
Dust Bowl - Storms increase in number throughout the decade … - Grasshopper & Jackrabbit plagues … - Static electricity ... - Okies … - “Hobos” … - Rockets to make it rain … - Concrete …
1920’s – An Era of Optimism (1) Credit culture of America in the 1920’s (2) “Buying on the Margin” – risky investments in stock market speculation (3) Farmers over-invest, taking out loans for more land and farm equipment (4) Overproduction in farm products and consumer goods
“Roaring Twenties” A Culture of Optimism … By end of 1920’s, majority of homes have electricity Impact of radio Impact of automobile Scopes Trial Rise of K.K.K. & Nativism
Prohibition (18th Amendment) - State-level reforms … - What the 18th Amendment did … - Pro’s and Con’s - 21st Amendment (1933) “Speakeasy,” 1920’s
Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929) A period of “national recognition” of African-American arts – music, theater, poetry, novels, etc. Langston Hughes “I, Too, Sing America” "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" Zora Neale Hurston “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and idea of “Passing” George Schuyler “Black No More”
Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929) Paul Robeson World renown actor, started in “Emperor Jones” in 1933. Josephine Baker World renown actress and performers, started in Zouzou in 1934. “Lost Generation” Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, and T.S. Eliot Paul Robeson in “Emperor Jones” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8WEJCX_DQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEH6eDpjgRw&t=29s
African American Political Organization Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) Favored a “gradual” approach to social justice, focusing first on job skills & economic development W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) Favored immediate social justice, full civil rights, and political participation immediately Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) Back to Africa Movement “Atlanta Compromise”