1. The USA 1919 to 1939 Part two Isolationism in the 1920s

2. Aims of the lesson By the end of this lesson you will Understand what mean by the term isolationism Evaluate the effect that the introduction of tariffs and immigration controls had on the USA in the 1920s Evaluate the effect of the Sacco and Vanetti case had on the USA

3. Isolationism Not getting involved in the political affairs and wars of other countries Restricting trade with foreign countries in order to protect American producers Restricting the number of immigrants Easiest way to do this was to put tariffs (taxes) on goods coming in to the USA Made these goods more expensive

4. The effects of isolationism American goods were cheaper Foreign goods became more expensive Foreign countries put their own tariffs on US goods – made them more expensive An economic boom occurred in the USA as a result

5. Restricting immigration USA ended its open door policy towards immigration People distrusted foreigners People feared that foreigners would take lower wages and take work away from native American workers People were worried about the new foreign workers bringing in new “non American” ideas like Communism

6. The 1917 Immigration Act Made immigrants have to prove that they could write in English before they were allowed in This was racist – aimed at reducing the number of poor Asians and Africans coming to America

7. 1921 Immigration Quota Act Set a maximum number of immigrants allowed into the USA each year at 357 000 Set quotas from each country based on the number of people from that country living in the USA in 1910 This system favoured those from northern Europe who was started arriving in the USA much earlier

8. Later measures 1924 – quota reduced to 2% of the total in 1890 1929 – maximum number reduced to 150 000. No Asians allowed

9. The effects of these measures Immigrants could only find lowly paid jobs They could only afford poor housing – areas of cities became divided into ethnically divided ghettos Due to living in ghettos immigrants kept their old languages and customs and became more distrusted Communism became seen as an imported and un-American idea