U.S. 1920’s

 During WWI America prospered greatly with industries doubling and tripling their activity  The Government had no plans for demobilization ◦ Transition from wartime to peacetime  Government contracts are canceled ◦ Hundreds of factories close down  Crop $ drop  Millions out of work  Soldiers add to that unemployment rate  1920=5 Million Americans out of work

 1920=Spike in inflation ◦ Prices go up and the value of the $ goes down  High Inflation and high unemployment put America into a Recession ◦ Decline in economic activity   ◦ 100,000 business go bankrupt ◦ 435,000 farms were lost  People got by as best as they could sometimes turning to crime.

 After WWI workers struggle to keep what they gained during the ◦ Factories went back to prewar labor practices  Increase work hours  Lower pay  Less emphasis on safety  No Government involvement  Labor Unions begin to grow ◦ AFL dominates the Unions ◦ IWW  Wobblies= Socialism was the solution ◦ 1919= 3,600 different strikes  Seattle Strike ◦ 35,000 shipyard workers walked off the job ◦ 100,000 joined this general strike  Boston Police Strike ◦ Highly controversial ◦ Officers walked off the job after wages were cut ◦ People sympathized at first then grew angry  After unsuccessful and rise of violence in strikes unions began to decrease in popularity and in membership

 Radicalism ◦ Point of view favoring extreme change especially in social or economic structures ◦ Ideas of Socialism, Communism and anarchist groups  Communism ◦ Called for public ownership of the means of production ◦ Classless society in which all people shared equally in wealth produced by their labor ◦ Pull ideas from the Russian Revolution of 1917  Red Scare ◦ Postwar fear of radical ◦ Red=Slang for communist  Attorney General Mitchell Palmer ◦ Laches a campaign to find and eliminate the rise of radicals  J Edgar Hoover would help him  Palmer Raids ◦ Sought weapons, explosives and other

 Immigration ◦ Revival of Nativism  A surge of immigrants caused Nativists to believe that foreigners would “take the nation”  Believed that immigration restriction was needed  Emergency Immigration Act 1921 ◦ Quota System – to limit the number of immigrants from each country  Immigration Act of 1924 ◦ Again reduced the number of immigrants allowed into the US…  KKK ◦ Defender of American values ◦ Native-born white Protestants  Were against  AA, Immigrants, Catholics and Jews ◦ Early 1920’s  3-4 Million members ◦ Won Political Power  Control state legislatures in OR, OK,TX, IN ◦ Held massive marches on D.C and other large cities ◦ “Secretly” terrorized in the night using  Whippings, kidnappings, cross burnings, arson and murder

 American Civil Liberties Union ◦ Specialized in the defense of unpopular individuals and groups  Immigrants  Asians ◦ Barred from becoming citizens ◦ Couldn’t own land ◦ Banned mixed marriages  African Americans ◦ WWI AA Veterans have trouble finding jobs ◦ Lynching makes a comeback  70 AA are murdered in 1919 ◦ Race Riots  Chicago  Jews and Catholics ◦ Fight Religious Prejudices

Warren Harding  “Less government in business and more business in government”- Harding  Republican Era- through the 1920’s there would be only Republican Presidents  Harding ◦ Small town ◦ Politician ◦ Good Natured ◦ Believed highly in free enterprise system

Calvin Coolidge  Harding ◦ Free enterprise system  Private ownership of property, land and resources  Fiscal policy- taxes and government spending… renews prosperity ◦ “Ohio Gang” Harding’s people who he appointed ◦ Teapot Dome Scandal ◦ Secretary of Interior  Takes $360,000 in bribes from two companies that leased the land  VP turned President ◦ 1924 Election  Silent Cal  Integrity, hard work and thriftiness ◦ Believed “the chief business of the American people is business”  Cuts spending and budgets ◦ Reduction of cooperate taxes  Continues the prosperity in American

Herbert Hoover  Worked as the lead for the Food Administration during WWI  Believed in promoting business ◦ Associationalism  bringing industry leaders together to improve economic efficiency  Wanted to end poverty with more prosperity for everyone

 Return to Isolationism  Harding, Coolidge and Hoover all knew it was important to stay in touch with the outside world through trade  Sent delegates to the League of Nations meetings and the World Courts  Kellogg-Briand pact ◦ Outlawed war in France and the US  Europe’s war debt ◦ GB and FR owe us money ◦ GR owes them money ◦ US loans GR money  Dawes plan ◦ Worked for a while but increased the amount of money that GR owed the US

 Automobile industry booms!  Companies take on the assembly line  Jobs dealing with the automobile take off as well  Airplanes are improved and grow into a huge industry  New forms of plastic becomes a hit and makes several new and user friendly inventions

Big BusinessGet Rich Quick  Consolidation ◦ Merging of two businesses  Republicans approve and encourage consolidation  Creates chain stores ◦ A&P first chain grocery store  Ford, GM and Chrysler ◦ Build 90% of all the cars on the market  Get-Rich as the “good- times” rolled on people wanted more wealth  Bought into schemes ◦ Speculators  People who buy something at a low price to resale it at a higher price  Invest in stocks ◦ Spread to the middle class ◦ Everyone should be rich

 GNP increased 40%  1929 needed $2,500 to live decently ◦ More that half of Americans earned 1,500 or less a year  Hard times for famers and people who worked on the farms  Unskilled workers suffer as well.  Coal miners are laid off due to the increase use of other natural gases  Textile industry falls  African Americans suffer greatly last hired first fired