1. 1920’s & 1930’s: Economic Boom to Bust
Economic Boom to Great Depression:
The 1920’s & 1930’s
1920’s & 1930’s: Economic Boom to Bust

2. American’s were celebrating the end of WWI.
Post-War America
Return to isolationism:
American’s were celebrating the end of WWI.
Americans were reforming society, culture and our economy.

3. 1920’s: Economic Boom

4. Presidents of the 1920’s

5. President Warren G. Harding (Republican 1921-1923)
Return To Normalcy
Favored big business:
Low taxes/high tariffs

6. President Warren G. Harding
Republican Harding dies
Vice President
Coolidge
takes over

7. President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

8. President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
Pro-business: “The chief business of America is business. The man who builds a factory builds a temple, the man who works there worships there.”
Low taxes & high business profits
Wanted to end government regulation of business and industry
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) grew from 74 billion in 21’to 104 billion in 29’

9. Booming Society of the 1920’s
Business
Increase in consumer good industries
Led to affordable luxuries--radios, movies, cameras, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, telephones, automobiles, airplanes…

10. Booming Society of the 1920’s
B. Creative advertising
Focused on the psychology of the consumer
Installment buying
Consumption became an easy necessity
You buy now, pay as you use it.
Credit buying

11. Creative 1920’s Advertising

12. Booming Society of the 1920’s
II. Culture
Americans craved excitement and authority of the past generations
Jazz Age
Women

13. Booming Society of the 1920’s
Women
Flappers-liberated women
Makeup, short skirts, smoke/drank in public.
Right to Vote 1920

14. Flappers

15. Booming Society of the 1920’s
Automobile changed lifestyle:
Mobility, privacy for youth, farmers less isolated
Radio & silent movie popularity
Harlem Renaissance
Harlem, NY
Popularized African American creativity in art, music, & literature

16. Duke Ellington & his Orchestra

17. Langston Hughes: Poet
To fling my arms wide in some place of the sun, to whirl and to dance till the white day is done then rest at cool evening beneath a tall tree while night comes on gently dark like me, this is my dream! To fling my arms wide in the face of the sun, Dance! Whirl! Whirl! Till the quick day is done, rest at pale evening, a tall slim tree…. night coming tenderly black like me.
----”Dream Variations”

18. Booming Society of the 1920’s
Prohibition ( )
Banning of the sale, manufacture, transportation of alcoholic beverages
Society resists bootleggers/speakeasies/gangsters.

19. Prohibition Era

20. Booming Society of the 1920’s
Heroes
Charles Lindbergh-1st non-stop solo flight, NY to Paris
Babe Ruth-60 homeruns for NY Yankees in 1927
Jack Dempsy-Heavy weight champ defeated by Tuney in 1st 50 million dollar fight (1927)

21. The end of the good times arrives in 1929.
Stock market crashed
Wealthy people lost their investments
Businesses failed and closed
People lost their jobs
Debts could not be paid.
And… it just got worse!
The 1930’s are known as the Great Depression years.

22. Boom Versus Bust Economy
Boom 1920’s
* high demand for goods
* inflation increases
Many jobs are available
* unemployment falls
* national income accelerates
Can make payments on debts.
Bust ’s
* demand is low for goods
* inflation decreases
Factories and businesses close
* unemployment rises
* national income falls
Can’t make payments on debts.

23. The 1920’s The Roaring Twenties Many jobs Harlem Renaissance
New technology
Celebrate life after WWI
This decade is the birth of installment buying.
Advertisements encouraged more spending than families earned.
Music, literature and art shows American Spirit.

24. 1920’s Roaring Twenties Americans had good jobs. Steady paycheck
Extra money to spend
Improved the quality of their lives