Normalcy and Good Times Chapter 8 1921-1929 Normalcy and Good Times

Chapter 8 1921-1929 Normalcy and Good Times Section 1:Presidential Politics

PRESIDENTIAL POLICIES HARDING 1921-1923 COOLIDGE 1923-1928 HOOVER 1929-1933

RED REPRESENTS HARDING, GREEN REPRESENTS COX

Warren Harding Twenty-ninth president 1921-1923 Born: November 2, 1865 in Corsica, Ohio Died: August 2, 1923 during his presidency while visiting San Francisco, California NORMALCY, HARDING PROGRAM, HE WANTED LAISSEZ-FAIRE, GOV’T COULD HELP ECONOMY BY KEEPING ITS HANDS OFF

Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; Not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; Not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; Not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, But equipoise; not submergence in internationality, But sustainment in triumphant nationality...." A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Harding's speeches "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea." Harding speaking

Harding’s administration was rocked by scandals Harding’s administration was rocked by scandals. He said, of the friends he had appointed to high office, "My god, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies . . . but my damned friends... They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights."  Three major scandals: 1. In the Veterans' Bureau 2. In the Office of the Alien Property Custodian 3. In the Departments of the Interior and Justice. TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR ALBERT FALL LEASED GOVT OIL RESERVES FOR $100,000'S KICKBACKS TO RICH OILMEN Charles Forbes Forbes served time for fraud and bribery in connection with government contracts. He took millions of dollars from the Veteran's Bureau. Harry Daugherty Daugherty was implicated for accepting bribes. Secretary of the Interior Fall Fall leased government land to the oil companies (Teapot Dome Scandal) and was convicted of accepting a bribe. Teapot Dome The Naval strategic oil reserve at Elk Hills, also known as "Teapot Dome" was taken out of the Navy's control and placed in the hands of the Department of the Interior, which leased the land to oil companies. Several Cabinet members received huge payments as bribes. Due to the investigation, Daugherty, Denky, and Fall were forced to resign. Harry Sinclair He leased government land to the oil companies and was forced to resign due to the investigation. He was acquitted on the bribery charges.

MAJOR EVENTS DURING HARDING’S PRESIDENCY INTOLERANCE OF FOREIGNERS OR THOSE WITH DIFFERING POLITICAL VIES RED SCARE, SACCO AND VANZETTI, PALMER RAIDS, KU KLUX KLAN EMERGENCY QUOTA ACT WASHINGTON ARMS CONFERENCE (1922) NINE POWER ACT - OPEN DOOR IN ASIA IS RECOGNIZED AND HELPED EASE IMPERIALIST COMPETITION. FIVE POWER ACT - SHIP BUILDING FROZE FOR TEN YEARS. SOME SHIPS SCRAPPED. RATIOS SET AT 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 BETWEEN U.S., GB, JAPAN, FRANCE, ITALY. PASSAGE OF FORDNEY-MCCUMBER TARIFF (1920) HIGH PROTECTIVE TARIFFS. EUROPEAN EXPORTS TO U.S. FELL FROM 5 BILLION TO 2.5 BILLION IN 1922. ALLIES DEMAND FOR REPARATIONS FROM GERMANY.

ELECTION OF 1924

PRESIDENT COOLIDGE: 1923-1929 “THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA IS BUSINESS" "CIVILIZATION AND PROFITS GO HAND IN HAND" Coolidge was the least active president in history, taking daily afternoon naps and proposing no new legislation

COOLIDGE AND BIG BUSINESS DANCING TO THE SAME TUNE

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH PRESIDENT COOLIDGE IN 1924

ELECTION OF 1928

PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER

HERBERT HOOVER, ONE YEAR BEFORE THE GREAT DEPRESSION BEGAN "WE IN AMERICA TODAY ARE NEARER TO THE FINAL TRIUMPH OVER POVERTY THAN EVER BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF ANY LAND.” HERBERT HOOVER, ONE YEAR BEFORE THE GREAT DEPRESSION BEGAN WITHIN SIX MONTHS OF TAKING OFFICE THE STOCK MARKET CRASHED AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION BEGAN. HOOVER WAS PHILOSOPHICALLY UNEQUIPPED TO TAKE THE NEEDED ACTIONS TO RELIEVE THE SUFFERING OF THE UNEMPLOYED AND FARMERS NOR INITIATE LEGISLATION TO REMEDY THE FACTORS THAT CAUSED THE DEPRESSION. DRAWING SHOWING HOOVER’S TWO MAIN INTEREST, ENGINEERING AND GOVERNMENT. SOUND IS HOOVER’S VISION OF AMERICA

Chapter 8 1921-1929 Normalcy and Good Times Section 2: A Growing Economy

HENRY FORD, THE MAN WHO REVOLUTIONIZED MANUFACTURING BY MECHANIZING THE ASSEMBLY LINE MODE OF PRODUCTION IN 1925 FORD WAS PRODUCING NEW MODEL T’S AT THE RATE OF ONE EVERY TEN SECONDS.

ASSEMBLY LINE PRODUCTION IN AN ASSEMBLY LINE EACH PERSON HAS A SPECIFIC TASK WHICH THEY REPEATEDLY PERFORM ALL DAY. THIS ALLOWS FOR SPECIALIZATION OF ONE SKILL AND ALLOWED HENRY FORD TO MASS PRODUCE AUTOMOBILES.

$265 =$2742 IN 2002 DOLLARS $685.00 =$7089.00 IN 2002 DOLLARS $775.00 =$7863.00 ON 2002 DOLLARS THE AVERAGE FAMILY INCOME IN 1925 WAS APPROXIMATELY $2200.00, $22321.00 IN 2002 DOLLARS.

INADEQUATE PARKING AND ROADS WERE APPARENT BY THE MID 1920s

LINDBERGH FLIES ACROSS THE ATLANTIC SOLO LINDBERGH FLEW TO PARIS IN 33 1/2 HOURS, 1,000 MILES OF THE FLIGHT WAS THROUGH SNOW AND SLEET, MAY 21, 1927

RADIOS AND MOVIES: THE GROWTH OF A WORLDWIDE CULTURE THE 1920s SAW THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LIFE FROM A RURAL-DOMINATED TO AN URBAN-DOMINATED CULTURE WITH MASS ENTERTAINMENT AND MASS MARKETING WITH UNPRECEDENTED MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION.

KDKA, THE FIRST COMMERCIAL RADIO STATION IN THE U.S. KDKA BEGAN SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING WITH THE HARDING-COX PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RETURNS ON NOVEMBER 2, 1920 KDKA, FIRST RADIO STATION THAT WENT ON THE AIR IN 1920 IN PITTSBURGH. IN DECEMBER, 1921, THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE ISSUED REGULATIONS FORMALLY ESTABLISHING A BROADCAST SERVICE. THIS RESTORED ORDER TO A CHAOTIC COLLECTION OF STATIONS BROADCASTING ON SIMILAR WAVE LENGTH. BEGINNING IN 1922 A "BROADCASTING BOOM" OCCURRED, AND SOON THERE WERE OVER 500 STATIONS. LARGE CORPORATIONS SUCH AS CBS AND NBC SOON CAME TO DOMINATE RADIO COMMERCIALS FOR NATIONAL BRAND PRODUCTS ON RADIO LED TO A GENERAL STANDARDIZATION OF AMERICAN CONSUMPTION RADIO SPREAD A COMMON CULTURE THROUGHOUT ALL PARTS OF THE US, BOTH URBAN AND RURAL RADIOS BECAME THE KEY NEW TOOL OF MASS COMMUNICATION, AND IT PLAYED A CRUCIAL IN SHAPING AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY AS POLITICIANS AND ENTERTAINERS REACHED MILLIONS OF AMERICANS IN THE COMFORT OF THEIR LIVING ROOM. FIRST COMMERCIAL RADIO BROADCAST

In 2002 dollars the Lyric Radios cost $950.90 to $4369.00. ADS FOR RADIOS IN THE 1920s IN 2002 DOLLARS THE LYRIC RADIOS COST $950.90 TO $4369.00. In 2002 dollars the Lyric Radios cost $950.90 to $4369.00.

Chapter 8 1921-1929 Normalcy and Good Times Section 3: The Politics of Prosperity

THE AVERAGE INCOME WAS $2200 A YEAR OR $22,743 IN 2002 DOLLARS $10,000 IN 1927 WOULD BE EQUAL TO $103,390 IN 2002 DOLLARS SOURCE: Prosperity: fact or myth [by] Stuart Chase , 1927, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS INTERNET SITE FOR INFLATION CALCULATOR: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

INFLATION 1913 TO 1925 1. GUNS TO BUTTER, EXPRESSION MEANING THE PRODUCTION OF WAR MATERIALS OR CONSUMER GOODS 2. INFLATION, IN 1920 GOODS COST TWICE AS MUCH AS THEY HAD IN 1918 LEGEND 1913 1924 1925

UNION WAGES ALSO WENT UP UNION WAGES AND HOURS OF WORK, NEW YORK CITY The wartime honeymoon between labor and capital blew up in fearful strife.   Four million men hit the bricks in 1919 alone: the unions didn’t want to go back to the long week and low wage of the prewar years, nor to the Open Shop cherished by the patriotic defenders of free American enterprise.   Strikes swept the nation by the thousands, hitting steel, the meat packers, the railroads, the building industry, the garment trades, even the vaudeville houses. John L. Lewis took 435,000 minors out of the pits and relaxed with Homer’s Iliad as Detroit closed its freezing schools and factory owners everywhere talked of banking their furnaces.   Seattle was crippled by a general walkout.   On the Atlantic Seaboard, striking longshoremen shut down the ports.   Blood ran, too.   Pennsylvania’s coal and iron police bent clubs over strikers’ skulls and U.S. troops ran interference for U.S. Steel’s scabs in Gary, Indiana.   In West Virginia, the Weirton Steel Company’s private police force made 118 strikers kneel and kiss the American flag; in the temper of the time, with the Government’s Red Raids picking up steam, you were a Bolshevik if you shouldered a picket sign.   “The American businessman,” said Frederick Lewis Allen in Only Yesterday, “was quite ready to believe that a struggle of American laboring men for better wages was the beginning of an armed rebellion directed by Lenin and Trotsky, and that behind every innocent professor who taught that there were arguments for as well as against socialism there was a bearded rascal from Eastern Europe with a moneybag in one hand and a smoking bomb in the other.” UNION WAGES AND HOURS OF WORK, NEW YORK CITY

WITH INSTALLMENT (CREDIT) PRICES 1930’S HOME FURNISHINGS WITH INSTALLMENT (CREDIT) PRICES CREDIT, BEFORE THE 1920'S AMERICANS FELT IT WAS WRONG TO GO INTO DEBT THIS CHANGED AS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BOUGHT THINGS THEY COULD NOT AFFORD ON CREDIT

ADVERTISING BECAME THE VEHICLE TO SELL MASS CULTURE This movie clip is selling refrigerators.

ADVERTISING, BECAUSE MANY OF THE NEW PRODUCTS OFFERED FOR SALE WERE NOT NECESSITIES MANUFACTURES HAD TO CONVINCE PEOPLE THEY NEEDED THEM THROUGH ADVERTISING

FARMERS IN THE 1920’S DID NOT SHARE IN THE GENERAL PROSPERITY OF THE DECADE REPUBLICAN POLICIES IN AGRICULTURE DID NOTHING TO HELP FARMERS SHARE IN THE PROSPERITY OF THE 1920S. THE PERIOD FROM 1900 TO 1920 HAD BEEN ONE OF GENERAL FARM PROSPERITY AND RISING FARM PRICES, WITH THE UNPRECEDENTED WARTIME DEMAND FOR U.S. FARM PRODUCTS PROVIDING A STRONG STIMULUS TO PRODUCTION. FARMERS HAD OPENED UP POOR LANDS LONG ALLOWED TO REMAIN IDLE OR NEVER BEFORE CULTIVATED. AS THE VALUE OF U.S. FARMS INCREASED, FARMERS BEGAN TO BUY GOODS AND MACHINERY THAT THEY HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN ABLE TO AFFORD. BUT BY THE END OF 1920, WITH THE ABRUPT END OF WARTIME DEMAND, THE COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE OF STAPLE CROPS SUCH AS WHEAT AND CORN FELL INTO SHARP DECLINE. MANY FACTORS ACCOUNTED FOR THE DEPRESSION IN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE, BUT FOREMOST WAS THE LOSS OF FOREIGN MARKETS. U.S. FARMERS COULD NOT EASILY SELL IN AREAS WHERE THE UNITED STATES WAS NOT BUYING GOODS BECAUSE OF ITS OWN IMPORT TARIFF. THE DOORS OF THE WORLD MARKET WERE SLOWLY SWINGING SHUT. WHEN THE GENERAL DEPRESSION STRUCK IN THE 1930S, IT MERELY SHATTERED AGRICULTURE'S ALREADY FRAGILE STATE. 1920's                        Agricultural surpluses became the chief agricultural issue 1920 Collapse of agricultural prices 1921-40 Long-term agricultural depression

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