Policy of Isolation [image] Isolationism

After the War

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  Isolationism – regarded itself as “New World” didn’t want anything to do with “Old World” i.e. Europe. Many fled from Europe to USA – so didn’t want anything to do with it.
  
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  Money – Didn’t want to waste money helping Europe anymore – L of N sanctions etc.
  
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  American Soldiers had been killed in WW1 – 115,000.
  
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  German immigrants formed part of population and weren’t happy with Treaty of America’s involvement.
  
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  Empires – USA had been colony, hated imperialism – T of V didn’t get rid of them but added to them in the form of mandates.
  

1. 
   Tariffs – A form of protectionism – tariffs meant European imports would always be more expensive than American goods and made sure people always bought them. Europeans also introduced tariffs on US goods in retaliation.
   
2. 
   Immigration – less WASPs coming in, more Catholics, southern and eastern Europeans – “wrong” sorts. Cheap labour competition and fear of communism which they thought immigrants might bring. Immigration Law 1917 – Required immigrants to pass a literacy test. Immigration Quota Act 1921 – Only allowed 357,000 immigrants each year and ethnic groups limited to 3% of those already in the USA which favoured WASPs as there were lots of them. 1929 Immigration Act reduced this to 150,000 per year.
   
3. 
   Attitude to immigrants – got lowest paid jobs and were forced to live in ethnic ghettos which were rife with crime and they weren’t trusted.
   
4. 
   Sacco and Vanzetti – Accused of armed robbery, Italian anarchists, judge biased against their political views. 61 eyewitnesses said they saw them there, 107 said they were elsewhere. Someone even came forward and confessed to the crime but they were still executed in 1927.
   

1. 
   Benefited from the first world war. Supplied arms and supplies to Europe and took over much of the export business while Europe was busy.
   
2. 
   Republican Policies. Low taxes and no government intervention in businesses as well as tariffs allowed businesses to grow and flourish.
   
3. 
   Consumer boom – people bought consumer goods, aided by things like hire purchase.
   
4. 
   Innovation in production methods – the assembly line e.g. motor industry and Ford. In 1910 Tin Lizzie cost $850  1920 = $295. Ford went from it taking 14 hours to make a single car to 93 minutes.
   
5. 
   Synthetics – first plastic (Bakelite) as well as nylon etc. played part in industry.
   
6. 
   Upsurge in car ownership – helped related industries too e.g. steel, oil, glass. Employed lots of people and with more people with cars, more roads needed to be built. Went from 8 to 23 million with cars in 1920s.
   
7. 
   Consumer durables – electrical goods e.g. washing machines, fridges, record players.
   
8. 
   Communications – radios increased from 60,000 to 10 million and number of people with phones doubled.
   
9. 
   Entertainment industry – big stars like Clara Bow and Charlie Chaplin  people went to the cinema just to see them.
   
10. 
    Stock market – lucrative, everyone got involved as there always money to be made, also “buying on the margin”  purchase shares at 10% of the price then pay back the other 90% when it went up in value. Made it very accessible but depended on it always going up.
    

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  40% were living under the poverty line.
  
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  60% were earning less than $2000 which is what is believed was the least you needed for basics.
  

1. 
   Farmers – were overproducing which led to rapidly falling prices – a bushel of wheat went from $183 in 1920 to 38 cents in 1929. In 1929, the average wage for a farmer was 40% of the national average.
   
2. 
   Low wage earners – only 3% owned a car. 5% of population got 33% of the income.
   
3. 
   Old industries – e.g. overproduction of coal. Their income was barely a third of the national average.
   
4. 
   Poor African Americans – Only got the lowest paying, menial jobs. Lived in ghettos.
   
5. 
   Cartels, trusts and monopolies – many companies owned by small group who engineered things to keep wages low and prices high.
   
6. 
   Unemployment – 2 million unemployed throughout 20s. Technology throwing people out of work.
   
7. 
   Tariffs – Retaliation of Europe made it hard for US companies to export products. Farmers especially hit hard by this.
   
8. 
   Stock market – people were overconfident. Would be a disaster if prices ever stopped rising what with loans etc.
   

1. 
   Film – The rise of the movie star, taught people new fashions like smoking and contributed to flapper culture as did “It” girl Clara Bow.
   
2. 
   Jazz – Exciting as it was often played in speakeasies by black musicians so it became very popular.
   
3. 
   Dance – Wild dances like the Charleston were adopted by flappers, conservatives fought they were immoral.
   

1. 
   Many took over jobs traditionally for men (e.g. manufacturing) and 25% more women were working from 1920 – 1929.
   
2. 
   In 1920 women got the vote. Maternity and Infancy Protection Act (1921).
   
3. 
   Flappers – short hair, short skirts, wild dancing etc.
   

1. 
   Women were in the low paying jobs and got paid less than men for the same job.
   
2. 
   Most suffrage campaigners gave up politics and went back to being housewives.
   
3. 
   Anti-flirt league and others formed by conservative women trying to get flappers to behave in the “decent” way. Most girls, especially in the country, weren’t flappers.
   

1. 
   Hostile to immigrants – red scare, didn’t want jobs taken etc.
   
2. 
   American government – didn’t do anything to stop lynching, KKK or help black people despite appeals.
   
3. 
   Jim Crow Laws – Name for segregation laws in place in much of the south.
   
4. 
   Ku Klux Klan – White supremacy organisation, had 5 mil members by 1925 including many powerful men such as politicians. The law was on the side of the KKK and turned a blind eye at the injustices towards coloured people.
   
5. 
   Lynching – White people often hung coloured people if they suspected them of being responsible for a crime.
   
6. 
   Even in the North they ended up with the lowest paying, most menial jobs.
   

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  Role models – some became famous like Josephine Baker and Jesse Owens.
  
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  Harlem Renaissance – cultural flowering in black neighbourhood Harlem – jazz, artists, novelists – wanted to win equality by proving they were equal.
  
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  Identity – Black newspapers and magazine. The New Negro by Alain Locke tried to smash old perceptions of black people.
  
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  National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
  
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  One and a half million migrated from South to North and some of them formed a black middle class.
  

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  Campaigners like the Anti-Saloon League.
  
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  Insanity, crime, poverty and illness were blamed on alcohol.
  
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  Lots brewed in Germany – didn’t want money going there.
  
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  Fundamental Christians in favour of it  thought it was to blame for immoral behaviour.
  

1. 
   Drinking continued. Hard to enforce.
   
2. 
   Available in speakeasies etc.
   
3. 
   Made criminals of ordinary people.
   
4. 
   Adverse effects – illegal alcohol like Moonshine could kill people.
   
5. 
   Gangsters flourished – organised crime made a huge profit and grew.
   
6. 
   Ended which is proof that it failed.
   

1. 
   Alcohol destroyed – 50 million litres in 1929.
   
2. 
   Legacy – alcohol consumption fell and did not got back to Pre-1914 levels until 1971.
   
3. 
   Eliot Ness and the Untouchables set standards for police (??)
   

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  Not enough agents.
  
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  Hard to enforce.
  
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  People generally against it.
  
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  Many agents took bribes and were corrupt.
  

1. 
   Ran speakeasies and were bootleggers.
   
2. 
   Ran protection rackets, prostitution and drug dealing.
   
3. 
   Bribed judges, police and even senators.
   
4. 
   Al Capone, though to have murdered 200 opponents, had an army of 700 and earned millions through business above.
   
5. 
   Fought for territories e.g. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Capone’s people killed seven of Bugs Moran’s gang in 1929.
   

1. 
   Weaknesses in US economy: farmers, old industries, black people and many others did not gain from the boom. Some industries hindered by tariffs or European competition and trusts/cartels.
   
2. 
   Huge inequalities of wealth. 5% had 33% of wealth, 40% in poverty so not enough people could afford all the goods the USA was producing.
   
3. 
   Overproduction drove prices down.
   

1. 
   People were speculating not investing. Bought and sold shares to make a quick profit – 600,000 by 1929.
   
2. 
   Corruption and insider trading between banks and the brokers.
   
3. 
   People borrowed money to buy shares on credit.
   
4. 
   Companies forced to pay out profits rather than reinvesting money.
   

• 
  The above conditions depended on people’s confidence that the price of shares would continue to rise.
  
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  But in September 1929, share prices began to go down as more experienced stockbrokers realised the weaknesses in the economy and started selling their shares.
  
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  They went down slowly at first but when people realised the shares were worth less than the money they had borrowed to buy them they panicked and began selling shares at lower and lower prices as no one wanted to buy them.
  
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  The stock market collapsed and the 29^th October 1929, Black Tuesday, was the worst day in stock market history – 16 million shares were sold.
  

1. 
   People went bankrupt as they were unable to pay back loans taken out to buy their, now worthless, shares.
   
2. 
   Many lost homes as they couldn’t afford their mortgages.
   
3. 
   Banks and companies collapsed as many had depended on money from loans which couldn’t be paid back.
   
4. 
   People spent less which made more companies collapse, which then had to sack its workers, so even less were able to spend money so more companies collapsed etc.
   
5. 
   11,000 banks stopped trading between 1929 and 1933.
   
6. 
   Even people with savings lost money because of the banks collapsing.
   
7. 
   Unemployment rose dramatically.
   
8. 
   Farmers faced a double blow as land suffered from over-farming causing the dust-bowl.
   

• 
  In 1931 238 people were admitted to hospital suffering from starvation.
  
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  International trade slumped from $10 billion to $3 billion 1929 – 1932.
  
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  In 1932 250,000 Americans had their homes repossessed and a fifth of farmers lost their farms.
  
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  In 1932, 20,000 companies went out of business.
  
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  By 1933 a quarter of Americans were unemployed.
  
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  23,000 committed suicide in 1932.
  

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  Believed in rugged individualism so he didn’t have much sympathy for poor.
  
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  Said: “Prosperity is just around the corner.”
  
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  People said: “In Hoover we trusted, now we are busted.”
  
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  He didn’t do much because that was his policy but he set up:
  
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  The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to lend money to banks, industries and agriculture.
  
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  And he tried to encourage exports (but wasn’t very successful).
  
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  Homeless went to live in shanty-towns nick-named “Hoovervilles”
  
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  20,000 ex-soldiers (Bonus Army) went to live in a Hooverville in Washington, demanding to be paid their war pensions early. Hoover set the army on them.
  
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  Set up schemes to provide work e.g. Hoover Dam.
  
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  Set up committee for Unemployment relief.
  
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  Lowered taxes.
  
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  Also, many who kept their jobs were wealthier as prices were lower.
  
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  “New” industries such as films, planes and electronics continued to expand and didn’t suffer like farmers and the old industries.
  

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  Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidential election by a large margin after promising voters “a new deal” and a way out of the depression. (1933)
  
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  In his first hundred days he pushed through a lot of legislation which didn’t face much scrutiny at first because people were so desperate but many acts were later deemed “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court.
  

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  Fireside chats – explained what he was doing in a simple way for the American people.
  
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  No letter he was sent went unanswered.
  
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  Ended prohibition.
  
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  Cut the pay of government employees by 15% (made it worse).
  

1. 
   Business leaders were unhappy because of the huge cost of the welfare programs, the reduced working hours, increased workers rights and the increased power of trade unions e.g. Henry Ford.
   
2. 
   The states were opposed as they believed things like the TVA were giving the federal govt too much power over individual states.
   
3. 
   Politicians, especially Republicans, hated it because it went totally against republican policy.
   
4. 
   Rich people accused Roosevelt of “betraying” his own class and hated the higher taxes imposed on them.
   
5. 
   Activists like Huey Long and Francis Townsend didn’t think it was extreme enough.
   
6. 
   The Supreme Court consisted of elderly and conservative judges who were against Roosevelt’s radical policies.
   

• 
  The Supreme Court ruled the NRA and AAA “unconstitutional” because it was too much govt interference and took away the individual states’ right to deal with things in their own way.
  
• 
  This led to...
  

1. 
   Social Security Act 1935 introduced pensions, support for handicapped and dependant mothers and help for individual states to provide unemployment pay.
   
2. 
   Wagner Act 1935 introduced after the NRA was banned and gave workers the right to join trade unions and not be punished as well as setting up a watchdog – National Labour Relations Board to make sure workers weren’t mistreated.
   
3. 
   Workers Program Administration replaced PWA and provided more long term construction jobs as well as more artistic jobs such as commissioning photographers to take pictures of the depression.
   
4. 
   Soil Conservation Act replaced AAA.
   

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  Roosevelt won the 1936 election by a landslide, showing the American people supported him.
  
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  Also won the 1940 and 1944 elections – was the only president re-elected for 4 terms.
  

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  Much of it was temporary e.g. CCC, CWA and PWA.
  
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  These schemes mostly favoured young men and the “new unemployed” not those who had been unemployed for a long time.
  
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  When he tried to cut govt spending in 1937, a new depression hit as this govt expenditure had been the source of any success showing that industry was dependent and hadn’t truly recovered.
  
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  The worst groups weren’t helped, e.g. black people, migrants, sharecroppers and tenant farmers.
  
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  Black people sacked when wages go up.
  
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  There was nothing much for women, who were often excluded from social security and only 8000 were part of the CCC.
  
• 
  World economy didn’t improve.
  

• 
  Depression didn’t lead to extremes like Communism or Nazism but restored people’s faith in democracy.
  
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  Agriculture, society and industry benefited from infrastructure e.g. improved roads and communication as well as schools, theatres etc.
  
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  Provided help and relief for millions.
  
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  Millions of jobs created.
  
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  Banks rescued.
  
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  Unemployed reduced from 14 million to 8 million in 1933 – 37.
  
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  No Hoovervilles by 1939.
  
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  Workers given more protection  trade unions stronger.
  

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  It was the real solution to the depression.
  
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  USA supplied GB and France at the beginning of the war, then all the allies when they joined the war.
  
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  By 1945 they were spending $100 billion a year and unemployment was at 1 million.