· Roxy’s theatre opens in March 1927
o 60 million Americans “worshiped” at movie theatres each week
o Movies emerged as the most popular form of entertainment
· Hollywood
o Sunny and dry climate was ideal for year-round filming
o Scenic locations
§ Mountains
§ Deserts
§ Ocean
o Land and labor were cheap and plentiful
o Most top studio executives were Jewish immigrants from eastern and central Europe
o Resentment towards new popular culture was widespread
· Postwar prosperity and its price
o Warren G. Harding won presidency in 1920
§ “return to normalcy”
o After World War I…
§ American economy underwent profound structural changes that guaranteed life would never be the same as before the war
§ Increase in the efficiency of production
§ Steady climb in real wages
§ Decline in work hours
§ Boom in consumer-goods industries
· The second industrial revolution
o Technological innovations made it possible to increase industrial output WITHOUT more labor force
o Electricity replaced steam in most industries
§ Older machinery replaced with more efficient electric machinery
§ Could be operated by unskilled and semiskilled workers
o By 1929, 70% of factories relied on electric power
o Machine industry supplied 35% of the world market
o Mass-production techniques used to make large profits while keeping prices affordable
o Double industrial production in the 1920s by…
§ Efficient management
§ Greater mechanization
§ Intensive product research
§ Ingenious sales and advertising methods
· The modern corporation
o John D. Rockefeller (oil) & Andrew Carnegie (steel)
§ Maintained both corporate control (ownership) and business leadership (management) in their enterprises
· Found in men such as Alfred P. Sloan of GM and Owen D. Young of the Radio Corporation of America
§ Stressed scientific management and the latest theories of behavioral psychology to make workplaces more productive, stable, and profitable
o Most successful in this era led in…
§ The integration of production and distribution
§ Product diversification
§ Explanation of industrial research
o In 1929, 200 largest corporations owned almost half the nation’s corporate wealth
§ Physical plant
§ Sock
§ Property
o Oligopoly
§ Control of a market by a few large producers
§ Was normal during this time
o Americans were increasingly members of national consumer communities
§ Buying the same brands all over the country, as opposed to locally produced goods
· Welfare capitalism
o Wartime gains made by organized labor troubled corporate leaders
§ Large employers promoted a variety of new programs to improve worker well-being and morale
· Encourage workers to acquire property through stock purchase plans
o Beneficial to workers of that company
· Offered workers insurance policies covering accidents, illness, old age, and death
o Similar to life insurance
· Plant managers worked to improve safety conditions, provide medical services, and establish sports and recreation programs for workers
o Encourage workers to identify personally with the company; stop complaining on the job
§ Welfare capitalism could not solve problems of:
· Seasonal unemployment
· Low wages
· Long hours
· Unhealthy factory conditions
§ The American Plan
· Meant to associate unionism with foreign and un-American ideas
· Backed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce
· Open shop
o No employee would be compelled to join a union
o Put organizers at a disadvantage
§ Large employers set up company unions (part of welfare capitalism)
· Substitute largely symbolic employee representations in management conferences for the more confrontational process of collective bargaining
o US Steel
o International Harvester
· Decline in the ranks of organized labor
· Endears companies to employees
· Gives workers a stake in the vision of the company
§ William Green
· President of the American Federation of Labor after the death of Samuel Gompers
· No interest in getting unorganized workers into unions
· Decrease in AFL influence
§ Federal government reverted to a more pro-business posture
· Supreme Court was unsympathetic toward unions; upholding the use of injunctions to prevent strikes
· The auto age
o Auto industry offered the clearest example of the rise to prominence of consumer durables
o 1929; 4.8 million new cars added to the roads
o Henry Ford
§ Continuous assembly line drastically reduced the number of worker hours required to produce a vehicle
§ More efficient factory shop and layout
· Maximize output
§ “Every piece of work in the shop moves”
§ Integrated new wage:
· $5 per 8 hour day
· Reduced high turnover rate in his labor force
o If you pay the best, workers are less likely to leave
o By 1927, Ford faced stiff competition from General Motors
o Alfred P. Sloan
§ GM organized into separate divisions which appealed to a different market segment
§ Example: Cadillac for wealthy buyers; Chevrolet for working-class buyers
· Widely copied model for other large American corporations
o Auto industry provided a large market for makers of:
§ Steel
§ Rubber
§ Glass
§ Petroleum
§ Diners, motels, billboard advertising
o Auto industry:
§ Extended the housing boom to new suburbs
§ Showrooms, repair shops, and gas stations were abundant
§ New small enterprises sprang up as motorist took the highway
§ Made the exploration of the world outside the local community easier to reach
§ Allowed young people to gain privacy from their parents
· Cities and suburbs
o Cars promoted urban and suburban growth
o Steady increase in the number of big cities
o Cities promised…
§ Business opportunity
§ Good jobs
§ Cultural richness
§ Personal freedom
o Immigrants were drawn to cities because of already established ethnic communities
o Suburban communities grew at twice the rate of core cities
§ Automobile boom
· Exceptions: Agriculture, ailing industries
o Increased wartime demand had led to record-high prices for many crops
o With war’s end, American farmers began to suffer from a chronic worldwide surplus
§ Land values dropped, wiping out billions in capital investment
o The South:
§ Lagged farther behind the rest of the nation in both agricultural diversity and standard of living
§ Farmers found it extremely difficult to find reliable markets for:
· Vegetables
· Fruit
· Poultry
· Dairy
§ Black tenantry declined slightly as a result of the Great Migration
o McNary-Haugen bills
§ Complicated measure designed to prop up and stabilize farm prices
§ Basic idea was for the government to purchase farm surpluses and either:
· Store them until prices rose
· Sell them on the world market
§ Result…
· Higher domestic prices for farm products
§ However, Calvin Coolidge viewed these measures as unwarranted federal interference in the economy
· Vetoed the bill
o Some farmers thrived
§ Improved transportation and chain supermarkets allowed for a wider distribution of some foods
§ Wheat, citrus, dairy prospered
o Disastrous dust storms in the 1930s rolled across the grassless plains
o American coal mines became less important source for energy
§ Shrinking demand
§ New mining technology
§ Series of losing strikes
o United Mine Workers shrank drastically
o Number of miles of railroad track decreased after 1920
§ Automobiles and trucks began to displace trains
o Overcapacity was a chronic problem (too many factories)
o Women’s fashions of the 1920’s required less material than earlier fashions
§ Synthetic fibers such as rayon depressed demand for cotton textiles
o Textile manufacturers in New England and other parts of the Northeast began a long-range shift of operations to the South
§ Nonunion shops and sub standard wages became the rule
o Center of textile industry shifted permanently to the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina
§ Southern mills generally operated night and day
· Used the newest labor-saving machinery
· Cut back on the wage gains of the WWI years
· The new mass culture
o “Roaring Twenties”
§ Explosion of image and sound making machinery that dominated American life
o Culture changed
§ Habit, dress, language, sounds, & social behavior
§ New media altered the rhythms of everyday life
§ Redefined “the good life”
o Movie-made America
§ Movie industry centered in New York
§ Migration to Hollywood – cheaper, lots of land, scenery, great weather, etc.
§ Movie-going was a regular habit especially for immigrants & working class citizens
· Cheap theaters called “nickelodeons”
§ Paramount, Fox, MGM, Universal, and Warner Brothers dominated the business
· Feature films
· Founded and controlled by European immigrants
· Adoph Zukor – Paramount
· Samuel Goldwyn – MGM
· William Fox – Fox
§ Each studio combined:
· Production, distribution, & exhibition
§ “talkies”
· Movies with sound
§ Stars became vital to fans – Charlie Chaplain, etc.
· studio publicity
· fan magazines
· gossip columns
§ Movies generally emphasized sexual themes and celebrated youth, athleticism, & the liberating power of consumer goods
§ Americans (mostly rural areas) worried about Hollywood’s impact on traditional sexual morality
· States created censorship boards to screen movies before allowing them to be shown to the public
§ Movies promote consumerism
§ Will Hays
· Head the Motion Picture Producers and Distrubutors of America
· Former postmaster general under President Harding
· Lobbied against censorship laws
· Wrote pamphlets defending the movie business
· Began setting guidelines for what could and could not be shown on the screen
o Radio Broadcasting
§ Harry P. Davis
· Noticed that amateur broadcasts attracted attention in the local Pittsburgh press
· Converted the amateur broadcast to a stronger one
§ KDKA offered regular nightly broadcasts that were heard by only a few hundred people
· Before KDKA, wireless technology was only interesting to the military, and the telephone industry
§ Radio broadcasting begun as a service for selling cheap radio sets left over from World War I
§ By 1923, 600 stations had been licensed by the Department of commerce
· 600,000 Americans had bought radios
· Programs included…
o Live popular music
o Playing of the phonograph records
o Talks by college professors
o Church services
o News and weather reports
o Amos and Andy
§ Radios provided a new link to the larger national community
§ Toll broadcasting emerged in the late 1920s
· Sponsors were the customers
o Sponsors advertised to the audience through shows
· CONSUMERISM IN ADVERTISING
§ Dominant radio corporations…
· General Electric
· Westinghouse
· Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
· American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T)
§ AT&T leased a nationwide system of telephone wires to allow linking of many stations
· National Broadcasting Company (1926)
· Columbia Broadcasting System (1928)
§ NBC and CBS led in creating popular radio programs
· Relied on older cultural forms
§ Sports games were especially popular
§ Radio broadcasting created a national community of listeners
§ Had a powerful hemispheric impact
· Canada and Mexico, national broadcasting systems helped bolster cultural and political nationalism
§ American shows dominated Canada’s airwaves
§ Mexican radio stations partnered with American corporations
· Language barriers limited direct impact of US broadcasting
o New forms of journalism
§ Tabloid became popular in post-war years
· New York Daily News achieved this style first
o Founded by Joseph M. Patterson
· Folded-in-halfpage size made it convenient to read on buses and subways
· Devoted much space to photos and other illustrations
· Terse, lively reporting style
o Emphasized sex, scandal, and sports
§ Most new readers were poorly educated city-dwellers
· Immigrants or children of immigrants
§ Gossip column was popular
· Invented by Walter Winchell
· Described the secret lives of public figures
§ Journalism followed the larger economic trend towards consolidation and merger
o Advertising modernity
§ Thriving advertising industry encouraged importance of consumer goods
§ CPI suggested that new techniques could convince people to buy a wide range of goods & services
§ Advertising reached a higher level of respectability and economic power
§ Larger agencies:
· Moved toward a more scientific approach
o Sponsored market research
o Welcomed the language of psychology
· Focused on needs of the consumer, rather than the quality of the product
§ High-powered ad campaigns made new products that became known throughout the country
· Fleischmann’s Yeast
· Kleenex
· Listerine
§ New advertising ethic promised that products would contribute to the buyer’s physical or emotional well being
§ Strategies that were a success…
· Appeals to nature
· Medical authority
· Personal freedom
o The phonograph and the recording industry
§ Phonograph was a popular entertainment medium
· Success transformed the popular music business
· Displaced both cylinders and sheet music as the major source of music
§ Dance crazes boosted the record business tremendously
· Fox trot
· Tango
· Grizzly bear
§ Records provided the music for new popular dances
· The Charleston
· The black bottom
§ Record sales declined towards the end of the decade
· Competition from the radio
§ Many Americans began to hear musical styles and performers who had previously been isolated from the general population
o Sports and celebrity
§ In the 1920’s, sports grew in popularity and profitability
§ Athletes took their place alongside movie stars
· Defined a new culture of celebrity
§ Athletes themselves who attracted millions of new fans
§ Image of the modern athlete:
· Rich
· Famous
· Glamorous
· A rebel against social convention
§ Major league baseball was most popular
· Babe Ruth was its greatest star
o Hobnobbed with politicians, movie stars, and gangsters
o Regularly visited sick children in hospitals
o First athlete sought after for celebrity endorsement
§ Baseball suffered a PR disaster with the “Black Sox” scandal
· Players agreed to “throw” the World Series for money from gamblers
· Banned the players for life
§ Newspapers began including larger sports sections
§ William K. Wrigley
· Owner of the Chicago Cubs
o Discovered that by letting local radio stations broadcast games, new fans would emerge
§ African Americans were banned from baseball
· Developed a world of their own
o Professional and semiprofessional leagues
§ Negro National League, organized by Andrew Foster
o Josh Gibson & Satchel Paige – stars in the African American league
§ College football was also a big time sport
· Teams gained national following
o A new morality?
§ Elite figures in the new culture defined by the mass media
· Movie starts
· Radio personalities
· Sports heroes
· Popular musicians
§ The flapper
· “women who danced the Charleston”
· Portrayed as…
o a young, sexually aggressive woman with bobbed hair, rouged cheeks, and a short skirt
o Loved to dance to jazz music
o Enjoyed smoking cigarettes
o Drank bootleg liquor
o Competitive, assertive
· Not as new or widespread as the image would suggest
· Social role between women and men becomes less significant
· WTC
o Women’s Temperance Committee
§ Emergence of homosexual subcultures
· Previously been largely confined to working-class saloons associated with the urban underworld
· Middle-class enclaves of homosexuals began to take root in New York, Chicago, and San Fransisco
o Met in “speak-easies”; generally in Harlem
o Speak-easy: place that served liquor illegally
§ On fringe of “illegal, and who cares?”
· 1927; Mae West presented an original play on Broadway that featured male drag queens playing themselves
o Protest forced authorities to padlock the theater
· Can be associated with:
o Troops in the armed forces during World War I were exposed to sex education
o New psychological and social theories stressed the central role of sexuality in human experience
§ Sex is a positive, healthy impulse
· Margaret Sanger
o Author of “Birth Control Review”
§ After 1910, likelihood of women being virgins when they got married dropped drastically
o Educated women in birth control
o Made contraception freely available to all women
· Resistance to Modernity
o Prohibition
§ Actually does reduce alcohol consumption
§ 18th Amendment: banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages (January 1920)
§ Culmination of campaign that associated drinking with the degradation of working-class family life and the worst evils of urban politics
§ Supporters of Prohibition believed it “a noble experiment”
· Group of women’s temperance group
· Middle-class progressives
· Rural Protestants
§ Enforcing the law was extremely difficult
· Volstead Act of 1919
o Established federal Prohibition Bureau to enforce the 18th Amendment
o Bureau was understaffed
o Only about 1500 agents in the entire country
§ Public demand for alcohol led to lawbreaking
· Especially in large cities
· Drinking was a routine for many Americans
· Led to bootlegging
· Illegal stills and breweries and liquor smuggled from Canada were bought by many Americans
· Almost every town and city had at least one “speakeasy” where people drank and enjoyed music or other entertainment
o Local law enforcement were easily bribed to overlook it
· Organized crime
o Al Capone
§ By the early 1920’s, many Eastern states gave up on enforcing the law
· Capone: “Everybody calls me racketeer. I call myself a businessman. When I sell liquor it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it’s hospitality”
o Immigration Restriction
§ Sentiment to restrict immigration began in the late 19th century
· Reached a peak immediately after WWI
§ Antiimmigrant feeling reflected growing prevalence after 1890 of “new immigrants”
· Those from southern and western Europe
o From 1891-1920 about 10.5 million immigrants had arrived from these areas
· Mostly Catholic and Jewish
· Darker-skinned than the “old immigrants”
o Immigrants seemed more exotic and foreign, and less willing to assimilate the nation’s political and cultural values
· Relatively poorer
· Lived in more physically isolated cities and less politically strong than earlier immigrants
§ 1890’s, anti-Catholic American Protective Association called for a curb on immigration
· Exploited the economic depression of that decade
o Reached membership of 2.5 million
§ Immigration Restriction League (1894)
· Formed by a group of Harvard graduates
o Henry Cabot Lodge and John Fiske
· Provided an influential forum for the fears of the nation’s elite
· League used newer scientific arguments based on flawed application of Darwinian evolutionary theory and genetics to support immigration restrictions
· Theories of scientific racism
o Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916)
§ Distorted generic theory to argue that America was committing “race suicide”
§ Inferior Alpine, Mediterranean, and Jewish stock threatened to extinguish superior Nordic race
§ Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
· Asians banned
o Labor shortage
· 1924 Immigration Act
o Aliens ineligible to citizenship
· Ozawa vs. US & US vs. Thind
o Asian Indians are racially ineligible to become US citizens
§ Wanted to maximize immigrants from Britain, etc. and minimize immigrants coming from Asia and smaller countries
§ Eugenicists
· Enjoyed vogue in those years
· Believed heredity determined almost all of a person’s capacities
o Genetic inferiority predisposed people to crime and poverty
o Thinking sought to explain historical and social development solely as a function of racial differences
§ War and its aftermath
· Provided final push for immigration restriction
· “100% American” fervor of war years fueled nativist passions
· Red Scare off 1919-1920 linked foreigners with Bolshevism and radicalism
· Postwar depression coincided with resumption of massive immigration
o Brought hostile comments on the relationship between rising unemployment and influx of immigrants
§ American Federation of Labor
· Proposed stopping all immigration for 2 years
· Press coverage of organized crime figures played a part
§ 1921, Immigration Act
· Set a maximum of 357,000 new immigrants a year
· Quotas limited annual immigration from any European country to 3% of the number of its natives counted in the census
· Restrictionists complained the law still allowed too many southern and eastern Europeans in
§ Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924
· Revised the quotas to 2% of the number of foreign-born counted for each nationality
· Maximum total allowed was cut to 164,000
· Quota laws did not apply to any country on the western hemisphere
· Included a clause prohibiting the entry of “aliens ineligible to citizenship”
o Excluding immigrants from the nations of East and South Asia
§ Most Asians had already been barred from legal immigration by Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or the “barred Asiatic zone”
§ Outraged Japanese government imposed a 100% tariff on goods imported from America
· This led the Supreme Court to hold that Japanese and Asian Indians were ineligible for US citizenship
o Ku Klux Klan
§ Most effective mass movement
§ Original Ku Klux Klan had been formed in the Reconstruction South as instrument of white racial terror against newly freed slaves
· Died out in the 1870’s
§ New Klan started in Stone Mountain, GA in 1915
· Inspired by DW Griffith’s racist The Birth of a Nation
o Film released that depicted the original KKK as heroic
· Patterned itself on secret rituals and antiblack hostility of predecessors
o Until 1920, limited to GA and AL
· Hiram Evans (Dallas dentist) became imperial wizard of the Klan in 1922, he transformed the organization
o Hired professional fundraisers and publicists that paid a commission to sponsor new members
o Advocated “100% Americanism” and “the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy”
o Supported prohibition
o Attacked birth control and Darwinism
o Made special target of the Roman Catholics
§ Labeled hostile and dangerous alien power
· Presented itself as righteous defender of embattled traditional values of small-town Protestant America
· To build its membership, relied heavily on publicity, public relations, and business techniques associated with modern urban culture
· By 1924, they had over 3 million members across the country
· Klansmen boycotted businesses, threatened families, and sometimes resorted to violence
· Targets sometimes white Protestants accused of sexual promiscuity, blasphemy, or drunkenness
· Most victims African Americans, Jews, and Catholics
· Prohibition united the Klan more than anything
· Popular social movement
o More attracted to spectacular social events and effort to reinvigorate community life than its attacks on “outsiders”
· Half a million women joined the Women of the KKK
o Women constituted half of the Klan membership in some states
§ The Klan’s power was strong in many communities because it fit into everyday life of white Protestants
§ Became a powerful force in Democratic Party politics
· Had strong presence among delegates in 1924 Democratic National Convention
§ Began to fade in 1925
· When its Indiana leader, Grand Dragon David Stephenson, was involved in a personal affair
o He got a young secretary drunk and assaulted her on a train
o The woman took poison and died
o Convicted of manslaughter
o Klan began to lose members
o Religious Fundamentalism
§ Congregations focused less on religious practice and worship than on social and reform activities in larger communities
§ By early 1920’s, fundamentalist revival had developed a reaction to these tendencies
§ Emphasized literal reading of the Bible, rejected tenets of modern science as inconsistent with work of God
· Believed origin of species by Darwin was an attack on Christian values and revealed word of God
§ Fundamentalist publications and Bible colleges grew
· Particularly among Southern Baptists
§ Special target of fundamentalists was theory of evolution
· Using fossil evidence, evolutionary theory suggested that over time many species had become extinct, and new ones had emerged through natural selection
· Ideas contradicted fixed creation of the Book of Genesis
· Clergymen have long since found ways to blend scientific theory with theology
o Fundamentalists launched attack on teaching of Darwinism in schools and universities
§ Young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, broke Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of Darwinism in 1925
· Trial drew international attention
· Called the “monkey trial” because fundamentalists trivialized Darwin’s theory that claimed humans descended from monkeys
· Most publicized moment of the decade
· Jury convicted Scopes, verdict later thrown out
· Prosecutions for teaching evolution ceased
· John Scopes is represented by ACLU
o Tennessee is wrong in disallowing the teaching of evolution
§ Fundamentalism continued to have a strong appeal for millions of Americans
· Cultural defense against uncertainties of modern life
§ William Jennings Bryan
· Don’t allow science communities to testify
· Bryan is allowed to testify as an “expert on the Bible”
· Wins case and Scopes loses
· Dies a week after the trial
· The State, the Economy, and Business
o 1920’s, Republican Party dominated national politics and believed they had ushered a “new era” in American life
o New, closer relationship between the federal government and American business became the hallmark of the Republican policy
§ Both in domestic and foreign affairs during the administrations of 3 successive Republican presidents
· Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover
o Republicans claimed their business-government partnership was responsible for the nation’s economic prosperity
o Warren Harding
§ Handsome, genial, well-spoken, however, he was shallow and weak
· Unfit to be a president
· During the campaign, publicists kept Harding out of the public eye because they did not want to expose his inability to be president
§ Harding chose his close friends, called the “Ohio gang,” for places of administrative power
§ President conducted business as if he were in the environment of a small-town saloon
§ Summer of 1923, scandals his administration were best known for began
§ After Harding’s death from a heart attack in 1923, congressional investigations revealed a deep pattern of corruption in Harding’s administration
· Attorney General Harry Daugherty received bribes from violators of the Prohibition statutes
o Also failed to investigate graft in the Veterans Bureau when Charles Forbes had stolen $250 million spent on hospitals and supplies
· Teapot Dome Scandal
o Involved Interior Secretary Albert Fall
§ Fall received hundreds of thousands of dollars in a payoff where he secretly leased navy oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California to two private oil developers
§ Became the first cabinet officer to go to jail
§ Positive points of Harding’s administration
· Andrew Mellon, influential Pittsburgh banker, served as secretary of the treasury under all 3 Republican presidents of the 1920s
o Leading investor in the Aluminum Corporation of America and Gulf Oil
o Believed government should be run based on conservative principles in corporations
o Trimmed the federal budget, cut taxes on incomes, corporate profits, and inheritances
§ Cuts would free up capital for new investments and promote general economic growth
§ Sharply cut taxes for higher income brackets and for businesses
§ By 1926, a person with an income of $1 million a year paid 1/3 less income tax than in 1921
o Policies succeeded to reduce much of the progressive taxation associated with Woodrow Wilson
o Calvin Coolidge
§ Temperamental opposite of Harding
§ “Silent Cal” was the quintessential New England Yankee
§ Cold, refined, and honest, Coolidge believed in the littlest amount of government possible
§ “The business of American is business”
· Captured core of philosophy of Republican era
§ In awe of wealthy men like Andrew Mellon
· Thought these men best suited to make society’s key decisions
§ Easily won election of 1924
· Benefited from prosperity and the contrast he provided against Harding
· Defeated Democrat John Davis
o Compromise of his party
o Democrats badly divided between its rural and urban wings
§ Coolidge showed most interest in reducing federal spending, lowering taxes and blocking congressional initiatives
§ Saw his primary function as clearing the way for American businessmen
· Agents of the era’s unprecedented prosperity
o Herbert Hoover and the “Associative State”
§ Secretary of commerce, dominating the cabinets of Harding Coolidge
§ Became president in 1929
§ Successful engineer, administrator, and politician
§ Effectively embodied the belief that enlightened businesses that were enlightened and informed by the government would act in the public’s interests
§ Believed the government only needed to advise private citizens groups about what national or international policies to pursue
§ Fused a faith in old-fashioned individualism with a strong commitment to the progressive possibilities offered by efficiency and rationality
· Wanted to assist the business community
o Spoke of creating an “associative state”
§ Government would encourage voluntary cooperation among corporations, consumers, workers, farmers, and small businessmen
o Became central occupation of the Department of Commerce
o Bureau of Standards
§ Became the nation’s leading research center, setting engineering standards for key American industries such as machine, tools, and automobiles
§ Helped standardize the styles, sizes, and designs of consumer products such as canned goods and refrigerators
§ Actively encouraged the creation and expansion of national trade associations
· By 1929, about 2000 of them
§ Industrial conferences called by the Commerce Department
· Government officials explained advantages of mutual cooperation in figuring prices and costs and then publishing the information
o Idea was to improve efficiency by reducing competition
o To some, the process violated the spirit of antitrust laws
o In 1920s, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division took a relaxed view of responsibility
o Supreme Court consistently upheld the legality of trade associations
o Government provided climate for the concentration of corporate wealth and power
§ By 1929, the 200 largest American corporations owned almost half the total corporate wealth and about a fifth of the total national wealth
§ Concentration strong in manufacturing, retailing, mining, banking, and utilities
§ Number of vertical combinations increased
· Large integrated firms that controlled the raw materials, manufacturing processes, and distribution networks for their produces
· Common in automobile, electrical, radio, motion picture, and other industries
· War debts, reparations, keeping the peace
o US emerged from WWI as the strongest economic power in the world
§ War transformed US from the world’s leading debtor to its most important creditor
§ European governments owed the US government about $10 million in 1919
§ In private sector, the war ushered an era of expanding American investment abroad
· In late 1914, foreign investments in the US were about $3 billion more than the total of American capital invested abroad
· By 1929, surplus was $8 billion
§ New York replaced London as the center of international finance and capital markets
o 1920s, war debts and reparations were single most divisive issue in international economics
o France and Great Britain both owed US large amounts in war loans
§ Many concluded that while US had loaned large sums during the war, they were really loan sharks in disguise
§ Many Americans viewed Europeans as ungrateful debtors
o In 1922, US Foreign Debt Commission negotiated an agreement with debtor nations that called for them to repay $11.5 billion over a 62 year period
§ By late 1920s, European financial situations became so bad that America cancelled a large amount of their debt
§ Insistence of Americans for Europeans to repay some of their debt increased anti-American feelings in Europe and isolationism in America
o Germans believed the war reparations unfairly punished them and prevented them of any means to repay
§ Dawes Plan
· Herbert Hoover and Chicago banker Charles Dawes worked a plan to aid the recovery of the German economy
· Reduced Germany’s debt, stretched out the repayment period, and arranged for American bankers to lend funds to Germany
· Measures helped stabilize Germany’s currency and allowed it to make reparations payments to France and Great Britain
· Allies, in turn, were better able to pay back the US
o US never joined the League of Nations
§ It still maintained an active, but selective, involvement in world affairs
§ US joined the league-sponsored World Count in 1926
· Represented at numerous league conferences
§ Pact of Paris (aka Kellogg-Briand Pact)
· US and 62 other nations signed it in 1928
· Grandly and naively renounced war in principle
· Peace groups hailed the pact for formally outlawing war
· Critics said the pact was essentially meaningless since it lacked powers of enforcement and relied on the moral force of world opinion
· Within weeks of ratification, US Congress had appropriated $250 million for new battleships
o Commerce and Foreign Policy
§ In 1920s, Secretary of State Charles Hughes and other Republican leaders pursued policies designed to expand American economic activity abroad
§ Understood capitalist economies must be dynamic
· Markets were to be expanded if they were to thrive
· focus on friendly nations and investments that would help foreign citizens to buy American goods
§ Republican leaders urged close cooperation between bankers and the government as a strategy for expanding American investment and economic influence abroad
· Insisted that investment capital not be spent on US enemies (like the Soviet Union) or nonproductive enterprises (like weapons)
§ Investment bankers routinely submitted loan projects to Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Hoover for informal approval
· Reinforcing close ties between investments and foreign policy
§ American oil, auto, farm machinery, and electrical equipment supplied a growing world market
· Much expansion took place through establishment of branch plants overseas by American companies
· America’s overall direct investment abroad increased from $3.8 billion in 1919 to $7.5 billion in 1929
· Leading the US to domination of the world market were General Electric, Ford, and Monsanto Chemical
§ American oil companies, with the support of the State Department, challenged Britain’s dominance in oil fields in the Middle East and Latin America, forming powerful cartels with English firms
§ Maximum freedom for private enterprises with limited government advice and assistance boosted the power and profits of American overseas investors
· Central and Latin America, aggressive US investment fostered chronically underdeveloped economies, dependent on a few staple crops for export
· American investments in Latin America doubled
o Large part of the money went to taking over vital mineral resources
§ Growing wealth and power of US companies made it more difficult for 3rd world countries to grow their own food or diversify their economies
§ US economic dominance in the hemisphere hampered the growth of democratic politics by favoring autocratic, military regimes that would protect US investments
· Promises Postponed
o Prosperity of the 1920s unevenly distributed
§ Older, progressive reform movements had pointed inequities, faltered in the conservative political climate
o Republican new era inspired a range of critics troubled by unfulfilled promises in American life
o Feminism in Transition
§ Achievement of the suffrage removed central issue that had given unity to the forces of female reform activism
§ Female activists had political idealism
§ 1920s, women movement split into two main wings over disagreement about female identity
· Split between if women should stress women’s differences or equalities to men
§ 1920, NAWSA reorganized into the League of Women Voters
· Represented the historical mainstream of the suffrage movement
· Believed that the vote for women would bring nurturing sensibility and reform vision to American politics
o View rooted in politicized domesticity, the nation that women had a role to play in bettering society
o Improving conditions for working women, abolishing child labor, humanizing prisons and mental hospitals, and serving urban poor
o Encouraged women to run for office and supported laws for the protection of women and children
§ National Woman’s Party (NWP) 1916
· Founded by Alice Paul
· Downplayed significance of woman’s suffrage and argued women were still being treated as insubordinate to men
· Opposed protective legislation for women
o Claimed legislation reinforced sex stereotypes
· Focused on passage of a brief Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution (ERA 1923)
§ Older generation of women disagreed with ERA, arguing more women benefited from its passage than hurt by it
· Mary Anderson, director of the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor
§ Small number of women made gains in the fields of real estate, banking, and journalism
§ Less than 18% of employed women worked in clerical, managerial, sales, and professional areas
· By 1930, the number was 44%
· Studies show most women were clustered in the low-paying areas of typing, stenography, bookkeeping, cashiering, and sales clerking
§ Men still dominated high-paid and managerial white-collar occupations
§ 1921 Sheppard Towner Act
· Established the first federally funded health care program
· Provided matching funds for states to set up prenatal and child health care centers
o Centers provided public health nurses for house calls
· Act aroused opposition
o NWP disliked the assumption that all women were mothers
o Birth control advocates (Margaret Sanger) complained contraception was not part of the program
o American Medical Association objected to government-sponsored health care and to nurses who functioned outside the supervision of physicians
· By 1929, mostly due to the AMA, government cut off funds for the program
o Mexican Immigration
§ 1920s brought influx of Mexican immigrants to US
§ Mexicans not included in the immigration law of 1921 and 1924
§ Immigration picked up substantially after the Mexican Revolution in 1911
§ US Immigration Service estimated 459,000 Mexicans entered the US between 1921 and 1930
· More than double the number for the previous decade
· Underrepresented true number of Mexican immigrants
§ Many Mexicans shunned main borders to avoid the $8 a head tax and $10 visa fee
§ Primary pull was agricultural expansion occurring in American Southwest
· Irrigation and large-scale agribusiness begun transforming California’s Imperial and San Joaquin Valleys from arid desert to lucrative fruit and vegetable fields
§ More immigrants were staying in the country than before, and moving into cities
· Party due to unintended consequence of new policies designed to make immigration more difficult
o Border Patrol (est. 1924) made border crossing more difficult
§ Many immigrants alternated between agricultural and factory jobs
§ Women often worked in the fields with their husbands
§ Racism and local patterns of residential segregation confined most Mexicans to barrios
§ Housing conditions poor
§ Disease and infant mortality rates much higher than average
§ Most Mexicans worked low-paying, unskilled jobs with inadequate health care
§ Many felt ambivalence about applying for American citizenship
· Loyalty to their old country was strong, and many dreamed of returning to Mexico
§ Mutualistas
· Key social and political institution in Mexican communities of the Southwest and Midwest
· Provided death benefits and widow’s pensions for members and served as centers of resistance to civil rights violations
· Federation of Mexican Workers Unions formed in response to farm strike in California
o The “New Negro”
§ Harlem was the largest and most influential black community
· Attracted middle-class African Americans in prewar years
· Emerged as demographic and cultural capital of black America
· ¼ of population came from Barbados, Trinidad, and the Bahamas
· A large number carried entrepreneurial experience
· Intraracial tensions between American born blacks and islanders reflected on Harlem
§ Demand for housing led to skyrocketing rents, but most Harlems had low-wage jobs
· Led to overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, disease and death
· Harlem was on its way to becoming a slum
· Still boasted a large middle-class population and supported a array of churches, theaters, newspapers, etc.
· Became political and intellectual center
§ Harlem Renaissance
· Assertion of cultural independence
o Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston, Jessie Fauset, etc.
o Political side
§ Newly militant spirit that black veterans brought home from WWI matured and found a variety of expression in Harlem
o New leaders and movements began to appear
o Intellectuals and Alienation
§ Hemingway and Fitzgerald most influential novelists of the era
§ Fitzgerald joined the army during WWI, but did not serve overseas
· Works celebrated the “Jazz Age”
§ Writers engaged in attacks on small-town America and what they viewed as its provincial values
§ Aftermath of the postwar Red Scare
· Radicalism found itself on the defensive throughout the 1920s
o Election of 1928
§ Served as similar to a national referendum on the Republican new era
§ Revealed how important ethnic and cultural differences are to defining American politics
§ Al Smith (Democrat) and Herbert Hoover (Republican)
§ Hoover easily won the nomination
· Epitomized the successful and forward0looking American
· Stood for a commitment to voluntarism and individualism to advance public welfare
