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Roaring 20s ®SAISD Social Studies Department Page Reproduction rights granted only if copyright information remains intact.
Roaring 20s - Economics ®SAISD Social Studies Department Page Reproduction rights granted only if copyright information remains intact. During the 1920s the U.S. economy experienced rapid growth. Increased industrial efficiency helped make this growth possible. A look at the Ford Motor Company offers an example of the industrial innovation that improved efficiency. In the early 1900s Henry Ford developed a car called the Model T. In 1913 he introduced the assembly line as a way to greatly improve the efficiency of his factory. On an assembly line each worker would perform a single simple task, such as adding a part to a car. A conveyor belt then moved the item to the next worker. This process would continue until the product was completed. Assembly-line work required less skill and was much faster than earlier methods of industrial production. Ford could therefore make more cars in less time and lower his prices. The automobile has also been a significant force for change in the United States. Since automobiles became commonplace in the 1920s, they have been a continual economic boost to the petroleum industry. The automobile industry is also one of the biggest customers of steel manufacturers and a major employer in the United States. Furthermore, the automobile has stimulated both tourism and outdoor recreation. The increase in mobility has influenced the development of businesses such as restaurants, gas stations, and motels. Many U.S. cities, such as Houston and Los Angeles, were designed with the automobile in mind. Each day millions of Americans commute from homes in the suburbs to workplaces in the city or in other suburbs. Finally, the automobile industry has affected government in that construction of highways and streets has become a significant area of government spending. Consumer spending was another factor that contributed to economic prosperity. In the 1920s many stores introduced installment plans, which allowed shoppers to pay for goods over a period of time rather than all at once. This made it much easier for many working families to buy household appliances and other goods. Advertisers also encouraged people to buy. As demand increased, companies manufactured more goods to keep up. More manufacturing meant more jobs and higher wages, which meant that more money was available to buy goods. During the 1920s investment in the stock market increased, and stock prices climbed higher. Many companies offered more shares of their stock for sale to the public to generate capital, or money that companies invest in their own businesses. Confident that the value of shares would increase, many Americans borrowed money to buy stock. Many of these investors got rich during the 1920s. However, on October 29, 1929, the stock market experienced a steep decline that affected nearly every company whose stock was traded. Stock prices did not return to their previous levels, even a year later. This stock market crash started a chain reaction that caused the failure of thousands of banks, leading to a decade-long economic downturn called the Great Depression. Roaring 20s - Tradition v. Modern ®SAISD Social Studies Department Page Reproduction rights granted only if copyright information remains intact. The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar consumer society. People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy mass culture; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. Many American writers and artists were embittered by World War I and, fed up with American idealism and the materialism of the 1920s, left the United States for refuge in Europe. Called ʺthe lost generationʺ by writer Gertrude Stein, they were responsible for one of Americaʹs most creative outpourings of literary achievement. Exemplified by Ernest Hemingway, the lost generation believed that they fought a doomed struggle with nature yet tried to live with ʺgrace under pressure.ʺ Writers who stayed home, like Sinclair Lewis, also attacked the American lifestyle while at the same time helped to produce some of Americaʹs most brilliant literature. One of the largest groups to respond to fears about modern life was the Ku Klux Klan, revived after Reconstruction in 1915 following the release of D. W. Griffithʹs Birth of a Nation. The Klan claimed itself to be the defender of family, morality, and traditional values against the threat posed by blacks, immigrants, radicals, feminists, Catholics, and Jews, and moved beyond the South to develop a national network of societies. By the 1920s, the Klan was a powerful political force throughout America, combining Americansʹ love of fraternal societies with violence against those different from themselves. At its peak, it boasted between three and four million members and had a significant impact on politics in several states. In the late 1920s, after social changes as well as a series of scandals surrounding its leadership, the Klanʹs membership declined, but the conditions that nurtured it remained very present. The conflict between the old faith in the Bible and the new science of evolution illustrated the resistance of many to modernism. In a Tennessee trial in 1925, John Scopes challenged the stateʹs ban on teaching Charles Darwinʹs theory of evolution in the public schools. William Jennings Bryan argued for the state and fundamentalism, and Clarence Darrow, a brilliant defense lawyer, argued for Scopes and evolution. Although Scopes lost the trial, Bryan and those who defied reason and science were humiliated in the eyes of modern, urban America. The Roaring Twenties: Scares, Isolation, and Nativism ®SAISD Social Studies Department Page Reproduction rights granted only if copyright information remains intact.   
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