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Chapter 24 - “The New Era”

1)The New Economy

a)Technology and Economic Growth

i)After 1921-1922 recession tremendous economic growth in output + income 

ii)Growth result of collapse of Eur industry after war, important technological advances: rise of auto manufacturing (and in turn gas production, road construction), assembly line, rise of radio and commercial broadcasting, advances in air travel, development of electronics + synthetic materials

iii)Maturation of electricity and telecommunications fields; work during 1920s and 1930s on primitive computer technologies

b)Economic Organization

i)Certain industries (e.g. steel) continued toward national organization and consolidation- these companies adopted new modern administrative systems w/ efficient division structures to allow subsidiary control + easier expansion

ii)In industries w/ more competition stabilization reached thru cooperation—rise of trade association to coordinate production + marketing

iii)Industrialists feared overproduction and recession, and efforts to curb competition thru either consolidation or cooperation reflected this

c)Labor in the New Era

i)Some employers 1920s used “welfare capitalism” to give workers more rights, improve safety, raise wages in order to avoid labor unrest + independent union growth. System survived only if industry prospering- collapsed in 1929

ii)Welfare capitalism helped only a few workers, employers wage increases disproportional to their increase in profits. Ultimately workers still mainly impoverished and powerless, families relied on multiple wage earners

iii)Organized labor + independent unions often failed to adapt to changing nature of modern economy. American Federation of Labor still used craft union system based on skills, did not allow growing unskilled industrial workers

d)Women and Minorities in the Work Force

i)Number of women in workforce increased, especially in “pink-collar” jobs- low-paying service jobs, most unions refused to organize them

ii)African-Americans in cities after 1914 Great Migration largely excluded from unions (A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters exception)

iii)In West + Southwest unskilled and unorganized workers mainly Hispanics and Mexican immigrants, Asians (mainly Japanese who replaced Chinese after Exclusion Acts in menial jobs)

e)The “American” Plan

i)After 1919 economic uneasiness corporations rallied strongly against “subversive” unionism and wanted to protect idea of open shop (in which workers not forced to join union)—known as “American Plan”

ii)Govt intervened on behalf of management, courts often ruled against striking workers. Btwn this and corporate efforts union membership saw large decline

f)Agricultural Technology and the Plight of the Farmer

i)American agriculture adopted new technolgoies (e.g. tractor, combine) allowed more crops w/ fewer workers; hybrid corn + fertilizers increased productivity led to overprodution and collapse in food prices

ii)Farmers called on govt price support- idea of “parity” (govt set price, farmers reimbursed if good sold for less in fluctuating market) and high foreign crop tariffs introduced in Congress in McNary-Haugen Bill (vetoed by Coolidge)

2)The New Culture

a)Consumerism

i)Industrial growth led to rise of consumer culture in which ppl had discretionary funds w/ which to buy items for pleasure (appliances, fashion)

ii)Most revolutionary product was automobile- allowed rural ppl to escape isolation, city ppl to escape crowded urban life; rise of vacation traveling

b)Advertising

i)Techniques first used in wartime propaganda came of age in new age of advertising + work of publicists. Famous book of time The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Burton about Jesus as “salesman”

ii)Ads possible b/c of mass audience in national chains of newspapers, mass-circulation magazine growth

c)The Movies and Broadcasting

i)1920s saw rise of Hollywood, creation of Motion Picture Association and the Hays Code as industry self-ban on objectionable material

ii)Phenomenal rise of radio beginning w/ first commercial station broadcasting in 1920. By 1929 12 million families owned radio sets

d)Modernist Religion

i)Growing consumer culture w/ emphasis on immediate self-fulfillment had influence on religion—abandonment by some of traditional + literal

ii)Harry Emerson Fosdick spokesman for new liberal Protestantism of 1920s

e)Professional Women

i)Most employed women were working class b/c of professional struggle btwn career and family. Few professional women limited to mainly “feminine” fields of fashion, education, social work, nursing

f)Changing Ideas of Motherhood

i)Belief grew that maternal affection not adequate preparation for child rearing, advice and help of professionals needed instead 

ii)Motherhood increasingly relied on institutions out of home, allowing time to devote to “companionate marriage”- involved more as wives, in social life

iii)Growth of birth control related to sense of sex as recreation vs only creation

g)The “Flapper”: Image and Reality

i)Some women came to believe rigid and Victorian “feminism” unnecessary “flapper” women expressed themselves freely thru dress, speech, behavior

h)Pressing for Women’s Rights

i)Women formed League of Women Voters, many women helped growing consumer groups

ii)1921 Sheppard-Towner Act gave federal funds to states for prenatal and child healthcare. Fought my American Medical Association, others; repealed in 1929--- showed women didn’t vote as single block, even on “female” issues 

i)Education and Youth

i)Growing secularism, emphasis on training and expertise manifested itself in growing upper education attendance rates, teaching of technical skills

ii)Emergence of distinct youth culture w/ growing idea of adolescence, belief this was time for child to develop institutions w/ peers separate form family

j)The Decline of the “Self-Made Man”

i)Myth of “self-made man” who could gain wealth and fame thru hard work and natural talent gave way to belief that nothing possible without education and training (men felt losing independence, control, “masculinity”)

ii)Idolized self-made men in Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh

k)The Disenchanted

i)New generation of artists and intellectuals viewed society w/ contempt; isolated themselves instead of playing reform role

ii)Lost Generation’s critique American system in which individual had no means of personal fulfillment rose out of WWI experience and sense of deaths in vain, end of Wilsonian idealism, growing business + consumerism

iii)Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929) expressed contempt of war; other “debunkers” critical of society included H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis

iv)Many of these critics who rejected the “success ethics” of America became expatriates living abroad. Paris was center of American artistic life

l)The Harlem Renaissance

i)Other intellectuals saw solution to problems in exploration of own culture and its origins—great example Harlem during “Harlem Renaissance”

ii)Harlem center of black artists and intellectuals; literature, poetry , and art drew on African roots—famously Alan Locke, Langston Hughes

m)The Southern Agrarians

i)Group of Southern intellectuals and poets known as the Fugitives rebelled against depersonalization and materialism due to industrialization by recalling the Southern nonindustrial, agrarian way of life

ii)Wrote reactionary ideas in their 1930 agrarian manifesto I’ll Take My Stand

3)A Conflict of Cultures

a)Prohibition

i)Prohibition took effect 1920; within a year “noble experiment” failing b/c even though some drinking rates fell alcohol still widely available and legitimate businesses being replaced by organized crime (famous Al Capone)

ii)Prohibition supported by rural Protestants who they associated drinking w/ Catholic immigrants + new valueless culture

b)Nativism and the Klan

i)After war many Americans associated immigration w/ radicalism; efforts to restrict influx grew, 1921 Congress passed emergency law w/ quota system 

ii)Nativists wanted harsher law--- National Origins Act of 1924 banned all east Asian immigration, reduced especially eastern Eur quotas

iii)Ku Klux Klan re-emerged as force b/c of fear by some older Americans of disruption of culture by new peoples—“New Klan” emerged in 1915 after meeting in Stone Mountain, GA

iv)At first targeted blacks, after the war targeted Catholics, Jews, and foreigners- purge “alien” influences; membership grew in S but also N industrial cities

v) Wanted to threaten anyone who challenged “traditional values”- irreligion, drunkenness, ect. Defend racial homogeneity + defend traditional culture against modernity; provided disenfranchised w/ sense of community, power

c)Religious Fundamentalism

i)Fight over role of religion in modern society—split in Protestantism btwn urban, middle-class ppl who wanted to adapt religion to modern science and secular society vs traditional rural ppl who wanted to retain religious import

ii)Fundamentalists wanted traditional interpretation of bible, opposed Darwinism; evangelical movement wanting to spread doctrine (famous preacher Billy Sunday)

iii)When teaching Darwinism outlawed in Tennessee, ACLU promised to defend teacher John Scopes who defied law—Scopes trial isolated Fundamentalists from mainstream Protestants, ended their growing political activism

d)The Democrat’s Ordeal

i)Democrats split btwn urban and rural factions; party included prohibitionists, Klansmen, fundamentalists but also Caths, urban workers, immigrants

ii)At 1924 Democratic National Convention in NY conflict btwn urban wing wanting prohibition repealed, denunciation of clan, and supported Alfred Smith for nominee; W + S supported William McAdoo. After deadlock both withdrew and John Davis chosen as nominee

iii)In 1928 AL Smith won nomination, but party still divided b/c of southern anti-Catholicism; lost election to Herbert Hoover

4)Republican Government

a)Harding and Coolidge

i)Pres Warren Harding elected 1920; appointed party elite who had helped win him nomination to positions in administration, ultimately this corrupt “Ohio Gang” committed fraud and corruption in Teapot Dome oil reserve scandal

ii)Harding died of a heart attack 1923, VP Calvin Coolidge ascended to presidency (known for crushing Boston Police riot)

iii)Coolidge a passive president like Harding, believed govt should not interfere little in life of nation; won re-election 1924 but did not seek office in 1928

b)Government and Business

i)Even though New Era presidents passive, fed govt as a whole worked to helped business + industry operate efficient and productively

ii)Sec of Treasury Andrew Mellon reduced tax on corporate profits, personal incomes, inheritances, and cut federal budget

iii)Sec of Commerce Herbert Hoover favored voluntary cooperation of businesses in private sector for stability. Supported business “Associationalism” in which businessmen in an industry worked together to promote stability, efficient production, and marketing

iv)Hoover won the Presidential election of 1928, but nation entered Depression in 1929

 

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