The Major of Characteristics of an increasingly consumerist society that was being developed in the 1920’s

• 
  Introduction of new products (eg gossip magazines, sodas, hot dogs)
  
• 
  Introduction of new leisure activities (eg live sport, music on the radio or gramophone, ‘window shopping’, long distance car trips, trips to the theatre)
  
• 
  Emergence of business magnates (eg Henry Ford [automobiles], James Duke [tobacco], George Eastman [cameras])
  

• 
  Widespread economic prosperity
  
  • 
    Due to growth in disposable incomes and the middle class
    
  • 
    Resulting in an increased demand for goods and better standard of life
    
  • 
    Access to electricity increased the amount of goods a typical home could use, without access to electricity they could not use many of the new consumer goods that were being produced during this period, electricity enabled Consumerism
    

• 
  Loss of self-identity
  
  • 
    Due to rapid social, economic change embedded in industrialisation and urbanisation, an increasing disparity between rural and urban culture and a post-war influx of immigrants
    
  • 
    Consumerism created ‘a form of identity and compensatory satisfaction’ Peter Stearns
    
  • 
    ‘Some immigrants also hoped to demonstrate their long journey had been worthwhile’ Peter Stearns
    
  • 
    ‘African American interest reflected a desire to... fight stereotypes of inferiority’ Peter Stearns
    

Consumerism became an important component of the US capitalist economy because modern Industrialised economies rely on consumers purchasing consumer goods to drive production and prosperity

• 
  ‘The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of the factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort’ Joseph A. Schumpeter
  

New consumer products appeared which encouraged more consumption, and more production.

• 
  Automobiles
  
• 
  Refrigerators
  
• 
  Radios- developed before the war, exploded in popularity, in October 1920 the first radio station began, covered the Presidential/Congressional elections later that year. By 1922 3 million households had radios, by the end of the decade 3 out of 4 were sold on credit
  
• 
  Electric Toaster, by 1929 one in five owned one
  
• 
  Vacuum Cleaners, by 1929 one in four owned one
  

• 
  Cigarette lighters
  

• 
  Wrist watches
  

• 
  Matches
  

• 
  Cooking utensils.
  

• 
  Americans also consumed a more varied diet, since there were fresh vegetables available all year round and higher incomes increased the demand for more luxury foods.
  
  • 
    In 1905 41 million cases of food were shipped, in 1930 it had increased to 200 million. As urbanisation increased; consumption of canned fruits increased, also canned vegetables, milk and other canned food products.
    
• 
  In 1916 the grocery store was invented, it rapidly expanded during this period, it allowed consumers to choose from a wider variety of goods that could be purchased from a single store, rather than going to many smaller specialty stores to purchase everyday goods, this created economies of scale in consumer goods and brought down the price, enabling more consumption by consumers.
  
• 
  Between 1917 and 1927 sales jumped
  
• 
  124% in drugstores
  
• 
  287% in groceries
  
• 
  425% in clothing
  

• 
  Higher disposable incomes and an inclining quality of life prompted the growth of consumerist activities as a means of leisure
  
  • 
    Sport and physical activity
    

• 
  The 1920’s was also a period of the expansion in spectator sports, this was because of the radio that was owned by 3 million households broadcasted sports and higher incomes gave people the ability to pay to attend sporting events.
  
• 
  Prompted increasing sales of sport equipment, the introduction of spectator sports such as baseball (1870-), football (1900-), horseracing (1860-), boxing (1860-) and the emergence of new sports heroes (eg Gene Tunney, Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bobby Jones)
  
  • 
    Baseball drew about 10m fans per year to games
    
  • 
    By the end of the 1920’s American football had gate takings of $21 million each year
    
• 
  Entertainment- During the 1920’s
  
  • 
    Music
    
    • 
      Prompted increasing sales of sheet music, phonographs and phonograph recordings, and an increasing volume of spectators of musical acts (eg vaudeville and jazz concerts)
      
  • 
    Cinema
    
    • 
      Over 20,000 movie theatres were constructed during the 1920’s, in 1922 40 million movie tickets were sold each week, this increased to 100 million in 1930
      
    • 
      23,000+ movie theatres across America in by late 1930’s
      

• 
  Introduction of new holidays supported increasing sales, consumer demand
  
  • 
    Eg proclamation of Mother’s Day by President Wilson in 1914 to support inclining consumerism and promote significant women’s issues
    
  • 
    
    

• 
  The introduction of the department store actively promoted consumerism
  
  • 
    Goods, novelty items put on display; introduction of new luxury goods; promoted fashions and trends
    
• 
  Mail-order catalogues provided consumers w an opportunity to buy from home
  
  • 
    Eg Sears and Roebuck mail-order catalogues
    
  • 
    Popular products included toy soldiers, dolls, cuddly animal toys (eg ‘Teddy bears’), bicycles, snack foods, pianos
    

African Americans and Consumerism

• 
  Consumerist opportunities made available to AA in the 1920s w the Great Migration, inclining employment opportunities, rates of education and levels of skill
  
  • 
    Eg cosmetics were used to ‘make African Americans look less African’ Peter Stearns
    
  • 
    Believed by some to drive AA into poverty
    
  • 
    Provided AA w a chance to demonstrate newfound sense of national identity, culture, price
    
    • 
      Eg AA participation in vaudeville and the introduction and development of blues and jazz
      
    • 
      Eg AA participation in professional sports leagues (AA boxer Jack Johnson reigned as the national heavy weight champion between 1908 and 1915)
      

• 
  Suggested by economist Thostein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1898)
  
  • 
    Reached wide American audience by the 1920s and became colloquially known as ‘keeping up with the Jones’’
    
  • 
    Analysed psychology of American consumption
    

Evidence of conspicuous consumption in 1920s America can be seen in a substantial rise in the purchase of non-necessities

• 
  Eg Radio
  
  • 
    First public radio station aired from Wisconsin State University in 1920
    
  • 
    First commercial radio station, KDKA aired in Pittsburgh in 1920
    
  • 
    The National Broadcasting Company was established in 1927 (first national radio network)
    
  • 
    Programs featured sport, news, entertainment shows, advertisements
    
  • 
    A source of national unity, providing a common source of information and entertainment, and promoting certain trends or fads in popular culture
    
  • 
    By 1922, 3m American households had a radio
    
• 
  Motion pictures
  
  • 
    Highly influential force in shaping popular culture having encouraged consumerism and new patterns of leisure, and promoted national trends in clothing and hair
    
  • 
    One of the 10^th largest industries in the 1920s
    
  • 
    40m tickets sold each week in 1922 (this increased to 100m in 1929 and 115m by 1930)
    
• 
  New electrical appliances
  
  • 
    Guaranteed a better quality of life for middle class American housewives
    
  • 
    New products included: vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators
    

• 
  ‘Without the new Automobile industry, the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties would scarcely have been possible’ (Leuchtenburg)
  

• 
  Considerably impacted upon ordinary America, as it created:
  

• 
  A greater access to remote and rural communities thereby benefiting farmers
  
• 
  The processes of urbanisation and suburbanisation, and its consequent positive and negative effects
  
• 
  Growth in employment opportunities for the middle and working classes
  
• 
  An increase in range of recreational activities available to ordinary Americans
  
• 
  Pollution and other adverse environmental trends
  
• 
  The growth of conspicuous consumption, defined as leisure consumption, buying goods and services for the primary reason of showing them off and deriving status from these goods.
  

Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1903, which produced 100 cars per day in 1908

• 
  Ford served as an innovative force in the automobile industry
  
  • 
    Eg utilised vanadium steel from 1906
    
    • 
      Ford cars were thus made stronger and faster
      
  • 
    Eg introduced the assembly line approach to mass production or ‘Fordism’ in 1913-14
    
    • 
      This signifies a system in which each worker is assigned a specific task along a conveyor belt
      
    • 
      This effected an increase in industrial efficiency
      
      • 
        Eg decrease in the time taken to produce 1 car, from 12.5 hrs in 1913 to 1.5 hrs in 1920, or from, 1 car produced every 3 mins in 1913 to 1 car produced every 10 secs in 1920
        
    • 
      This effected a reduction in the cost of production and an increase in supply
      
      • 
        Cost of a Model T reduced from $1,290 in 1909 to $290 in 1928
        
      • 
        Increase in total cars registered from 8m in 1920 to 23m in 1929
        
  • 
    Utilised ‘instalment buying’ to extend demand
    
    • 
      Enabled consumers to purchase cars through the payment of periodic ‘instalments’
      

• 
  Eg AA employed under Ford increased from 50 in 1916 to >2,500 in 1920m to >10,000 in 1926
  

Ford revolutionised working practices

• 
  May be considered fair in some respects
  
  • 
    Working week reduced from 48hrs, 6 days in 1920 to 40hrs, 5 days in 1926
    
    • 
      ‘Ford’s original labour policies made him the American god to employees... in 1914 the national wage was $2.40 a day. Ford paid a minimum of $5... By 1926... he had quadrupled the average wage to nearly $10’ (Alistair Cooke)
      
    • 
      Ford Sociological Department ensured that employees were healthy and that employee’s houses were sanitary through spot checks
      
    • 
      Leisure activities such as dances organised for workers
      
  • 
    May be considered poor in some respects
    
    • 
      Eg employee of River Rouge plant Mike Widman recalls;
      
      • 
        Opening gates locked at 8am
        
      • 
        Workers under constant surveillance by plain-clothes inspectors
        
      • 
        Permission had to be asked to be able to go to the toilet
        
    • 
      Eg employee of Highland Park plant Jim Sullivan recalls;
      
      • 
        ‘If you were on that line and you had a certain job to do... and you didn’t get your pat in there, you were in trouble’
        
• 
  The automobile industry significantly impacted upon American society
  
  • 
    Positive impacts include:
    
    • 
      Increasing car sales prompted economic prosperity
      
      • 
        Contributed >10% to manufacturing production and employed 4m workers in 1930
        
      • 
        Car manufacturing led to development of various other industries such as:
        
        • 
          Oil (95% used by car industry)
          
        • 
          Rubber (80% used by car industry)
          
        • 
          Plate glass (75% used by car industry)
          
        • 
          Leather (65% used by car industry)
          
    • 
      Encouraged suburbanisation and a subsequent incline in the quality of life of the middle class
      
    • 
      Prompted the construction of infrastructure such as new roads, state/national highways
      
    • 
      Prompted a change in leisure patterns, enabling road trips
      
    • 
      Assisted rural workers
      
      • 
        Eg the Model T or ‘Tin Lizzy’ (introduced in 1980) was highly practical and popular
        
        • 
          Suspension enable travel over dirt tracks and unmade roads
          
        • 
          Could be connected to farm machinery
          
        • 
          Easy to repair
          
        • 
          15m mass produced between 1908 and 1927 such that it was 1 in every 2 cars sold by the mid-1920s
          
        • 
          ‘Your car has lifted us out of the mud. It has brought joy to our lives’ wrote a farmer’s wife to Henry Ford in 1918
          
    • 
      Prompted the development of shopping centres and a consequent ship in shopping patterns
      
  • 
    Negative impacts include:
    
    • 
      Increasing levels of borrowing and debt, stimulating speculation and giving rise to the Great Depression
      
      • 
        60% of Automobiles were bought on instalment, 3 out of 4 radios also
        
    • 
      Fuelled real estate speculation
      
    • 
      Changing patterns of crime w the mobilisation of gangsters through use of the getaway car’
      

‘Ten years after the war, conspicuous consumption became a national obsession’ (Leuchtenburg)

‘The growth in popular culture and consumerism reflected economic changes that had important consequences for class structure and lifestyle. Within the decade, the radio and the movie nationalised popular culture’ (Leuchtenburg)

‘Old time values of Thrift and saving gave way to a new economic ethic that made spending a virtue’ (Tindal and Shi)

‘Inventions in communications and transportation, such as motion pictures, radio, telephones and automobiles not only fuelled the boom but brought transformation in society’ (Tindal and Shi)

‘Workers were paid the highest wages of any time in history’ (Leuchtenburg)

• 
  As with all of these essays, there will be a rapid change in the information and tone of the essay when explaining the effects after October 1929 and throughout the Great Depression.
  

• 
  Industrialisation- During the period there was the final period of the industrialisation of the US economy
  
  • 
    Large increases in productivity and output in the manufacturing sector producing consumer goods, needed to be complemented by increasing levels of consumption of consumer goods
    
    • 
      Leads to growth in Advertising, with the aim of increasing consumption by increasing the desire for consumers to obtain the goods being advertised
      
    • 
      ‘The key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction’ Charles Kettering, executive at General Motors 1929.
      
  • 
    Real Income increases- Real incomes grew 22% in 7 years from 1922-1929, due to declines in the cost of consumer goods because of industrialisation, increasing productivity and mass production.
    
    • 
      Reduction in cost of goods meant that ordinary people were now able to buy luxuries such as cars, radios, which drove a consumerist economy
      
    • 
      ‘The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for Queens but in bringing them within the reach of the factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort’ Joseph A. Schumpeter
      
• 
  Credit-Culture- However accompanying this increase in consumerism was the expansion in the use and availability of credit to buy consumer goods. This was due to the desire of ordinary people to ‘buy now, pay later’, which increased the level of debt in the economy
  
  • 
    60% of Automobiles were bought on instalment, 3 out of 4 radios also
    
  • 
    Increased the level of debt in the economy, in the long term weakened the economy and helped bring about the Great Depression
    
  • 
    Described by Tindall and Shi ‘Old time values of Thrift and saving gave way to a new economic ethic that made spending a virtue’
    
  • 
    ‘This was the first great economic boom: its impetus and direction came from the mass consumer market... American has a lot of money to lend and Americans were anxious to borrow’ J. Roberts
    

• 
  Consumption and consumer spending massively declined
  
  • 
    This caused businesses to lower production, lay off workers and further entrenched the downward economic spiral
    
    • 
      Thus it can be said that consumerism helped create the economic prosperity of the 1920’s and the end of consumerism brought the Depression of the 1930’s
      
  • 
    Significant decrease in the ‘consumerist’ ideals, primarily since most families were no longer able to afford to buy luxuries or sustain the consumerist lifestyle.
    

Most of the influences on US Society that consumerism made was in the period of 1919-1929.

• 
  Increasing urbanisation coupled with technological developments changed the lifestyle of the Average American
  
  • 
    More likely to live in a house in a major city with the following things
    
  • 
    Automobiles
    
  • 
    Refrigerators
    
• 
  Changes in Diet of the average American a more varied diet,
  
  • 
    Fresh vegetables available all year round
    
  • 
    Higher incomes increased the demand for more luxury foods.
    
    • 
      In 1905 41 million cases of food were shipped, in 1930 it had increased to 200 million.
      
    • 
      As urbanisation increased; consumption of canned fruits increased, also canned vegetables, milk and other canned food products.
      
• 
  In 1916 the grocery store was invented, it rapidly expanded during this period, it allowed consumers to choose from a wider variety of goods that could be purchased from a single store, rather than going to many smaller specialty stores to purchase everyday goods.
  
• 
  Entertainment and popular culture
  
• 
  Popular culture became nationalised, because of fast communication and dissemination of entertainment meant that trends, fashions were spread across the country
  
• 
  Modes of entertainment changed, from books and newspapers to:
  
  • 
    The 1920’s was also a period of the expansion in spectator sports, this was because of the radio that was owned by 3 million households broadcasted sports and higher incomes gave people the ability to pay to attend sporting events.
    
  • 
    Prompted increasing sales of sport equipment, the introduction of spectator sports such as baseball (1870-), football (1900-), horseracing (1860-), boxing (1860-) and the emergence of new sports heroes
    
    • 
      Gene Tunney
      
    • 
      Babe Ruth
      
    • 
      Red Grange
      
    • 
      Bobby Jones
      
    • 
      Baseball drew about 10m fans per year to games
      
    • 
      By the end of the 1920’s American football had gate takings of $21 million each year
      
  • 
    Music
    
    • 
      Prompted increasing sales of sheet music, phonographs and phonograph recordings, and an increasing volume of spectators of musical acts (eg vaudeville and jazz concerts)
      
  • 
    Cinema
    
    • 
      Over 20,000 movie theatres were constructed during the 1920’s, in 1922 40 million movie tickets were sold each week, this increased to 100 million in 1930
      
    • 
      23,000+ movie theatres across America in by late 1930’s
      

The Automobile resulted in:

• 
  A greater access to remote and rural communities thereby benefiting farmers
  
• 
  The processes of urbanisation and suburbanisation, and its consequent positive and negative effects
  
• 
  Growth in employment opportunities for the middle and working classes in the automobile and related industries
  
• 
  An increase in range of recreational activities available to ordinary Americans
  
• 
  Air Pollution and other adverse environmental trends
  
• 
  The growth of conspicuous consumption, defined as leisure consumption, buying goods and services for the primary reason of showing them off and deriving status from these goods.
  

As a result of consumerism, it became necessary to merge Business and Government interests together, since businesses were the providers of goods and jobs to Americans, with the interest of maintaining the consumerism of the period. The Government had an interest in maintaining the prosperity of the 1920’s, partially brought on by a consumerist attitude thus the two ambitions became merged, and thus the government and business worked together

• 
  Promoted the integration of Government and Business interests, becoming almost identical
  
  • 
    An example of this is the quote provided by Charles Wilson, former CEO of General Motor and later Secretary of Defence, ‘I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa’
    
  • 
    Can be seen later in the NRA, in which the Government and major businesses co-operated in order to maintain higher wages, prices and employment to stimulate consumption, a return to consumerism and economic growth.
    

There was a short yet severe recession from 1921-22, but by 1923 that was behind the nation. The Roaring 1920’s was a period of unparallel economic prosperity.

American prosperity at the time was centred on what Herbert Hoover called ‘rugged individualism’, believing in the success and power of the individual to change society and achieve prosperity through their own individual merit and success.

A key component of this 1920’s American capitalism was the relationship between US Society and the Businessman, in which the Businessman achieved even greater prominence and status, which was accompanied with the perceived prosperity brought by the Businessman throughout the 1920’s.

• 
  ‘a climate of prosperity and optimism, the businessman began to look upon himself as the Lord’s anointed’ (American Heritage, 1970)
  
• 
  ‘The man who builds a factory builds a temple, The man who works there worships there’ (Calvin Coolidge)
  
• 
  ‘Ford personified the legend of the resourceful American, who by making it to the top on his own, benefits mankind... he was in short the Good Businessman’ (Leuchtenburg)
  

Welfare Capitalism was a common belief in the 1920’s, that the businessmen and industrialists would provide benefits and welfare-like services to employees.

• 
  Paid Holiday Leave
  
  • 
    1926 International Harvester created the two week annual vacation with pay for its employees
    
  • 
    High pay, 1914 Henry Ford’s $5 a day at a time when most industrial workers were paid $11 a week
    
  • 
    Reasonable working hours and the 5 day week
    
  • 
    Life Insurance
    
  • 
    Old-age Pensions
    
  • 
    Employee stock or profit sharing systems
    
  • 
    Education and social clubs
    
  • 
    Sports teams
    
  • 
    Housing
    
  • 
    Childcare
    

• 
  Satisfy employees, as to discourage unionisation
  
• 
  Retain good employees, reduce turnover in staff which would increase productivity
  
• 
  Henry Ford, the aim was more Paternalistic:
  
  • 
    Discourage ‘unhealthy and antisocial vices’, such as alcohol
    
  • 
    Encouraged dance classes and other productive and pleasant activities
    

Throughout the 1920’s the Republican administration increasingly set their agenda in line with that of Big Business. This was the ‘Hamiltonian’ approach, named after Alexander Hamilton the first Secretary of the Treasury, that the government and business would work together, through tariffs and favourable treatment to promote economic growth and prosperity.

• 
  Taxes were lowered on businesses
  
• 
  Tariffs were raised, protecting industrial sector businesses from foreign competition
  
• 
  The Federal Government supported Business in strikes
  
  • 
    In September 1919 the Boston Police went on strike and violence broke out in the city, The Governor of Massachusetts Calvin Coolidge sent a telegram to Samuel Gompers, the leader of the strike saying ‘There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime’
    
  • 
    There were major strikes by steel workers and coal miners, in September 1919, organised by William Foster 340,000 steelworkers, factory and dock workers went on strike.
    
  • 
    1920 Alabama Coal Strike, National Guard helped end the strike by arresting a Union Leader
    
  • 
    1921, Battle of Blair Mountain, President orders the US Army to intervene to end strike by 15,000 coal miners in West Virginia, fierce gun battle breaks out, dozens killed and hundreds wounded
    
  • 
    Great Railroad Strike 1922, President Harding reached a compromise that heavily favoured the government and railroad companies, National Guard actively patrols and prevents further strikes and pickets by railroad workers.
    
• 
  The Republicans appointed Conservatives to the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Courts
  
  • 
    Lenient on Anti-trust prosecutions
    
  • 
    Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co, Supreme Court Ruled that the 1919 Child Labour Federal ban was unconstitutional
    
• 
  In Foreign Policy the Republicans supported the ‘Banana wars’, wars in Central America during this period to maintain American security and business interests :
  
  • 
    The operation of the Panama canal by the United States
    
  • 
    US Business interests
    
    • 
      The repeated interventions of the USA in Honduras and Nicaragua, to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company
      
    • 
      US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, who fought in the Banana wars said in his 1935 book War is a Racket ‘I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism
      

• 
  ‘A president’s only function was to see that the government interfered with industry as little as possible’ (Leuchtenburg, talking about Coolidge)
  
• 
  ‘Calvin Coolidge... aspired to be the least President the country had ever had; he attained his desire’ (Irving Stone, quoted in Leuchtenburg)
  
• 
  ‘By allying Government with Business, the Republicans believed that they were benefiting the entire nation’
  

• 
  ‘Government looked only to the single interest of business’ (Leuchtenburg)
  
• 
  ‘The Chief Business of the American people is Business’, Calvin Coolidge
  
• 
  ‘Coolidge’s prescription for government was simple. All prosperity rested on business leadership’ (Leuchtenburg)
  
• 
  ‘the Republican right wing was determined to call to a halt the social welfare measures and to push legislation favourable to big business’ (Leuchtenburg)
  
• 
  ‘No political party, no national administration, could conceivably have been more co-operative with big business’ (Leuchtenburg)
  

The Government had an interest in maintaining the prosperity of the 1920’s, partially brought on by a consumerist attitude thus the two ambitions became merged, and thus the government and business worked together to maintain the prosperity of the USA, whilst serving corporate interests.

‘Detroit became the Mecca of the Modern world’ (Leuchtenburg), of course now it is a shithole

‘the chief index of a man’s worth was his income’ (Leuchtenburg)

The US Agricultural sector experienced a ‘golden age’ from about 1900-1914. This became a reference for rural politicians, hoping to enact legislation to return farm prices and profits to the golden age era.

The Agriculture sector of the US economy struggled in the 1920’s; most farmers did not share in the general prosperity of the 1920’s.

Prices for agricultural goods fell consistently throughout the 1920’s for a number of reasons, generally related to an excess of supply, which was the thesis behind the New Deal’s attempts to improve the agricultural sector by decreasing output.

• 
  Developments in farm technology increases output, creating an excess of supply and falling prices, this technology included:
  
  • 
    Tractors
    
  • 
    Automated Harvesters
    
  • 
    Better fertilisers and seeds
    
• 
  The US government encouraged farmers to increase production during WWI, to compensate for lost European production and to provide exports to European markets, once again creating a post-war glut of agricultural capacity and output leading to low prices
  
• 
  Agricultural prices during the War were high
  
  • 
    Thus relative to WWI conditions, American farmers were doing poorly
    
  • 
    Many farmers took on large amounts of debt during the war, after the war and as farm incomes declined, leaving farmers severely strained to pay back debts
    

Effects

• 
  600,000 farmers went bankrupt in the 1920’s
  
• 
  Number of farms declined from 6.4 million to 6.2 million from 1920-1930
  
• 
  Farm acreage fell by 13 million acres
  
• 
  ‘Many farmers simply gave up’ (Freeman, 1990)
  
• 
  Massive internal migration from rural areas to urban areas
  
  • 
    In 1920, 11.39 million Americans were employed on farms, 27% of the total workforce
    
  • 
    By 1930 it was 10.32 million Americans, 21.2% of the labour force
    

Farming communities banded together to increase their political clout.

• 
  The Progressive party was popular among farmers due to their policies of government intervention to increase agricultural prices
  
• 
  The ‘Farm block’ of rural Republicans was formed, many were conservative Republicans including Arthur Capper and William S. Kenyon
  

• 
  
  Directory: wp-content -> uploads
  uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10
  uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It?
  uploads -> For want of a nail
  uploads -> Police Militarization
  uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014
  uploads -> 2017 afoCo Landmark Scholarship Program
  uploads -> Instructions for the Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to the Conference Proceedings
  uploads -> Medical Radiography Program
  uploads -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter
  uploads -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter
  
  
  
  Download 191.99 Kb.
  
  Share with your friends: