America: A Concise History Fourth Edition

CHAPTER 23Modern Times

1920–1932

Copyright © 2010 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

James A. Henretta • David Brody

Introduction to Modern Times

• 1920s was a decade filled with contrasts.• Speakeasy nightclubs and prohibition.• Fundamentalist religion and economic boom• Heroes and villains.

– Hero: Charles Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis from NY to Paris. (May 1927)

– Villain; Samuel Insull… 1932- the Bernie Madhoff of his time.

(p.670)

Introduction to Modern Times

• Insull developed a small electrical power company and developed it into Commonwealth Edison Company in 1907 providing power for Chicago.

• Insull’s electrical empire along with Henry Ford’s mass production techniques, gave Americans the highest standard of living in the world and helped to produce a new consumer culture.

(p.670)

Introduction to Modern Times

• The collapse of the stock market in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression came suddenly and unexpectedly.

• 1932, Insull’s pyramid of utility companies collapsed in bankruptcy.

• Hundreds of thousands of investors lost their life savings.

(p.671)

TIMELINE

The Business-Government Partnership of the 1920s

• Politics in the Republican “New Era”

• Corporate Capitalism

• Economic Expansion Abroad

• Foreign Policy in the 1920s

The Business-Government Partnership of the 1920s

• There was a partnership between government and business that expanded throughout the 1920s.

• 1922-1929, the nations prosperity seemed to confirm the wisdom of allowing corporate interests to manage economic life.

• Middle-class Americans respected business leaders as esteemed public figures.

(p.671)

Politics in the Republican “New Era”

• The Republicans, now led by the conservative, probusiness wing of the party, chose Warren G. Harding of Ohio as their presidential candidate (vp: Calvin Coolidge).

• Harding promised “not heroics, but healing”.• On election day he won in a landslide,

starting a Republican dominance that lasted until 1932.

(p.671)

Politics in the Republican “New Era”

• Harding was not impressive but he was a ‘pliable’ candidate; genial, loyal and mediocre.

• Most active member of admin was Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce.

• Harding suddenly died of a heart attack on Aug. 1923, and VP Calvin Coolidge became President. Coolidge was an austere, unimpeachably moral, New England Yankee.

(p.672)

Democrat Deadlock

• Coolidge called for isolationism in foreign policy in the 1924 elections.

• The Democrats disagreed mightily over Prohibition, immigration restriction, and the growing power of the racist Ku Klux Klan.

• This resulted in a hopeless deadlock between Gov. Al Smith (NY) and William McAdoo (CA). After 103 ballots, the compromise candidate was John W. Davis, Wall St. Lawyer

(p.672)

Progressive Party

• A third-party challenge was mounted in 1924 by Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin.

• He mobilized farmers as was reformers and labor leaders.

• Nationalization of railroads, public ownership of utilities, and a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to overide the Supreme Court.

(p.673)

Politics in the Republican “New Era”

• Republicans won in a landslide. • Coolidge received 15.7 million votes to Davis

8.4 million and La Follette’s 4.9 million. • There was a significant drop in voting among

men. • Women received suffrage in 1920. • Al Smith and Robert Wagner were developing

a social-welfare agenda in New York.

(p.674)

Corporate Capitalism

• The revolution in business management that began in the 1890s finally triumphed in the 1920s.

• Large scale corporate bureaucracies headed by chief executive officers (CEO).

• Immediately after WW1 the nation experienced a series of economic shocks. There was rampant inflation in 1919.

• Then came a sharp two-year recession

(p.674)

Corporate Capitalism

• An abundance of new consumer products, such as the automobile, stimulated economic expansion.

• Manufacturing output expanded 64 percent during the decade, factories turned out millions of cars, refrigerators, stoves, and radios.

• Scientific management, introduced by Frederick W. Taylor (1895) was widely implemented in 1920.

(p.675)

Corporate Capitalism • The Economy had some significant

weaknesses. • Agriculture, employing one fourth of all

workers, never recovered from the postwar recession.

• The price of wheat dropped by 40%, corn by 32% and hogs by 50%.

• The farmer’s national share of income dropped from 16% in 1919 to 9% in 1929.

(p.676)

Corporate Capitalism

• In addition to agriculture, other ‘sick industries’ included coal and textiles

• The weakness of the coal mining, textile, and agricultural sectors in the economy foreshadowed economic problems that would help to cause the Great Depression.

• Like farmers, these businesses had over expanded output during the war and now faced overcapacity and falling prices.

•I

(p.676)

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• United Fruit was one of the many American companies that found opportunities for investment in South America in the 1920s, it then had to “sell” tropical foods to the American consumer.

• To boost sales in the company published elaborate color advertisements.

• Bananas were sufficiently exotic that the adds explained to consumers how to tell when the bananas were ripe

welfare capitalism

• welfare capitalism arose in the 1920s, a system of management that stressed responsibility for employees well being.

• General Electric, U.S. Steel and other large corporation offered their workers health insurance, old-age pensions, and the opportunity to buy stock at a discount.

• Their goal was to create a loyal and long serving work force.

•

(p.676)

welfare capitalism

• welfare capitalism had a second goal of deterring workers from joining labor unions.

• Decisions by the conservative Supreme Court undercut union activism and government regulation of the labor market.

(p.676)

Economic Expansion Abroad• The growing power of U.S. corporations was evident in

the international arena. • General Electric set up factories in L.A., China Japan

and Australia. • General Motors expanded sales in Europe. • Swift, Armour, and Wilson set up meatpacking plants

in Argentina.• United Fruit developed in Costa Rica, Honduras and

Guatemala. • Standard Oil acquired oil reserves in Mexico and

Venezuela.

(p.676)

The Dawes Plan

• 1924, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the U.S. produced the Dawes Plan, named for Charles G. Dawes, a Chicago banker.

• The plan reduced the reparations that Germany was required to pay to the Allies

• It also provided for substantial U.S. loans to Germany to undergird European stability.

• Oct. 1929, This fragile system collapsed with the stock market crash.

(p.678)

!

Economic nationalism • The outflow of U.S. capital slowed and then stopped,

undermining the reparation payments.• The stock market crash also increased a policy of

economic nationalism resulting in• The Hawley-Smoot Act of 1930 raising tariffs to an

all-time high. • This made it impossible for the Allied Powers to pay

off the remaining $4.3 billion in war loans.

(p.678)

Foreign Policy in the 1920s

• American foreign policy in the 1920s and 30s was both isolationist and interventionist.

• Isolationist: Refusing to join the League of Nations and the Court of International Justice.

• Interventionist: Dawes Plan and a vigorous, internationalist economic policy.

• The Caribbean and Latin America held considerable U.S. investments.

(p.678)

Intervention in Caribbean and Central America

• To defend U.S. interests and quell civil unrest, the U.S. stationed troops in

• Dominican Republic, 1916 to1924. • Nicaragua, 1912 to 1933,• Haiti, 1915 to 1934.• There was considerable tension with Mexico

when it nationalized its oil, which had repercussions with Standard Oil.

(p.678)

The Kellogg-Briand Plan• While the U.S. maintained its dominance in

the Western Hemisphere, it reduced its commitments in East Asia and Europe.

• 1921, The Washington Naval Arms Conference won acceptance of a plan that placed strict limits on naval expansion.

• 1928, The Kellogg-Briand Plan condemned all militarism but provided no enforcement mechanisms. An “international kiss.”

(p.679)

!

A New National Culture

• A Consumer Society

• The World of the Automobile

• The Movies and Mass Culture

A New National Culture

• The 1920s marked the development of a mass national culture that emphasized leisure, consumption, and amusement.

• Automobiles, paved roads, postal service, movies, radios, telephones, magazines, chain stores took center stage.

• This culture linked Americans in diverse classes and regions to an expanding web of national experience.

(p.679)

A Consumer Society• In homes across the country in the 1920s,

American sat down to Kellogg’s corn flakes, and toast from a G.E. toaster.

• They got into a Ford Model T to go to Safeway, A&P, or Woolworths.

• In the evening the family listened to radio programs or read the latest issue of the Reader’s Digest.

• On weekends they might see Charlie Chaplin films in a local theater. Millions shared similar cultural experiences.

(p.679)

A Consumer Society• Nevertheless, many black, rural or working-class

Americans were unable to participate in the new national consumer culture, or accept its middle class values.

• Unequal distribution of income limited many consumers’ ability to buy the new products.

• The bottom 40% of American families had an average income of only $725 (about $8,300 today)

• Poverty in the 1920s prevented many people from participating fully in commercial mass culture.

(p.679)

!

Housewives and credit• In order to make consumer culture widely

available even to those with limited incomes, a newly devised installment plans allowed people to purchase cars, radios, and sewing machines “on time.” “Buy now, Pay later.”

• New Appliances had a dramatic impact on women’s lives.

• Electric appliances made housewives’ chores easier, and encouraged middle class housewives to do their own housework and laundry.

(p.679)

“necessities?”or “luxuries?”• In order to encourage consumption, a new

field of advertising developed by 1929. • The advertising industry focused around

NYC’s Madison Avenue. • Consumers were not passive victims of

manipulative advertising agencies, but were willing participants in a new culture.

• For many middle class Americans, gratification of personal desires became a key measure of self-worth.

(p.680)

The World of the Automobile

• The auto provides the perfect symbol of the new consumer culture.

• The auto was the showpiece of modern consumer capitalism and revolutionized American economic and social life.

• Mass production of cars stimulated the prosperity of the 1920s.

• Ford workers went from producing 1 car in 12 hours in 1913, to producing 1 car in 93 minutes.

• By 1927, Ford was producing 1 car every 24 seconds.

(p.680)

The World of the Automobile

• The auto industry rippled through the American economy. It stimulated the steel, petroleum, chemical, rubber and glass industries.

• Directly or indirectly it provided jobs for 3.7 million workers.

• Highway construction was a billion dollar buss. • Car ownership broke down rural isolation. • 1924, First suburban shopping center, Kansas

City, Country Club Plaza.

(p.680)

The Movies and Mass Culture

• New mass media – glossy magazines, radio and movies, formed the centerpiece of national culture.

• Silent films such as The Great Train Robbery. • 1910 the moviemaking industry located in So.

Cal. • By the end of WW1, Hollywood became the

movie capital of the world. • Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks

(p.681)

The Flappers

• Clara Bow, 1927• make-up, short

skirts, smoking and jazz.

(p.681)

• The Jazz Singer was the first talkie. • Jazz music captured the sensibility of the

1920s, especially creativity and sensuality• It was an African American art form. Most of

the early jazz musicians were black and they carried its rhythms to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

• Jazz often expressed black dissent and became popular with young intellectuals.

(p.682)

!

• The phonograph machine expanded the popularity of jazz, which now could be heard at home as well as in a city jazz joint.

• "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds sold a million records in 1920 and convinced record companies that there was a market among African Americans for what were called race records."

• By the 1950s, black music had become "American" music.

• Perry Bradford, the piano player composer of "Crazy Blues," was also the composer of "Keep A Knockin," which Little Richard made into major rock 'n' roll hit in 1957.

(p.683)

• Mass-circulation magazines and radio were key factors in the creation of a national culture.

• 1922, ten magazines each claimed a circulation of at least 2.5 million.

• Time• Saturday Evening Post,• The Ladies Home Journal• Good Housekeeping• Associated Press (AP), and the United Press

(UP) appeared on the national scene.

(p.683)

!

Redefining American Identity

• The Rise of Nativism

• Legislating Values: Evolution and Prohibition

• Intellectual Crosscurrents

• Cultural Wars: The Election of 1928

Redefining American Identity

• The rise of modern media such as radio, advertising and consumer products began to transform the country into a modern, cosmopolitan nation.

• Although some people welcomed this as progress, others were uneasy.

• Americans were also troubled by the flood of Catholic and Jewish immigrants in large cities and African American migrants from the South.

(p.684)

The Rise of Social Tension

• Social tension increased over conflicts around immigration, religion, prohibition and race relations.

• At stake was the definition of what it meant to be an “American.”

• Tensions between urban dwellers and rural folk escalated sharply during the 1920s.

• During the 1920s about 6 million people left farms for the cities.

(p.684)

The Rise of Nativism

• Despite the explosive growth of cities, rural districts continued to control most state legislatures.

• Cities needed more services and tax dollars from state governments thus generating conflict between the two regions.

• Race and ethnic pluralism also intensified social tension between white protestants and Catholic immigrants and African Americans.

(p.684)

– Patriotic Protestant Nativism

– While the Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s and 1870s stood for the cause of Confederate nationalism and white racism, the new KKK of the 1920s embraced the values of American patriotism and Protestantism. In its view, neither Catholics nor Jews could be real "Americans."

– This powerful image of a hooded knight on horseback, replete with the symbolism of Flag and Cross, conveys not only the movement's ideology but also its latent violence..

(p.685)

Immigration• Native animosity fueled a new drive against

immigration. Congress banned Chinese in 1882.• 1907: An agreement was negotiated under

Roosevelt to restrict Japanese immigration.• 1924: Congress passed a National Origins Act.• 1929: Congress passed more restrictive quotas,

setting a cap of 150,000 immigrants per year from Europe and banned most immigrants from Asia.

(p.685)

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Immigration• New laws tended to permit unrestricted immigration

from countries in the western hemisphere and Latin Americans arrived in increasing numbers.

• 1 million Mexicans entered from 1900 to 1930. • Nativists lobbied Congress to limit the flow of

Mexican migrants. • American employers (larger farmers Texas and

California)persuaded Congress to allow Mexicans to provide cheap labor.

(p.685)

Klu Klux Klan• Another expression of nativism in the 1920s

was the resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan. • 1915: Birth of a Nation. A popular film that

glorified the role of the Klan in the Reconstruction era.

• The new Klan did not limit its attacks to blacks but also included urban Catholics and Jews.

• 1925, the Klan had 3 million members. • 35 minute version http://youtu.be/vPxRIF1c2fI

(p.685)

Legislating Values• Other cultural conflicts - religion and alcohol. • Debate between modernist and revivalist

protestants came to a head in the 1920s. • Modernists reconciled their faith with evolution.• Fundamentalists insisted on a literal reading of

the Bible and clashed with modernists over science and the Bible.

• Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson used open-air revivals to popularize their brand of charismatic Christianity.

(p.687)

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The Scopes “Monkey” Trial.

• Religious controversy resulted when fundamentalists wrote their beliefs into law.

• 1925: TN made it illegal to teach evolution.

• This resulted in what was called by the media, the “Scopes Monkey Trial”

(p.687)

The Scopes “Monkey” Trial. • The ACLU intervened

in the trial of John T. Scopes, a high school biology teacher, who faced a jail sentence for teaching evolution.

(p.687)

• Clarence Darrow, defended Scopes, and William Jennings Bryan spoke for the prosecution.

Inherit the wind

• Inherit The Wind Full Movie Part 1 of 13

• Aimee McPherson founded the Foursquare Gospel Church, which now claims a worldwide membership of over three million. Born as Aimee Kennedy in Ontario, Canada, she married missionary Robert Semple in 1907. After his death in China, she married Harold McPherson and eventually settled in Los Angeles. By 1923, McPherson was preaching to a radio audience and to crowds of 5,000 at her massive Angelus Temple. (p.687)

Media Bias• H.L. Mencken, of the Baltimore

Sun, wrote trial reports were heavily slanted against the prosecution and the jury

• He mocked the town's inhabitants as "yokels" and "morons". He called Bryan a "buffoon" and his speeches "theologic bilge". In contrast, he called the defense "eloquent" and "magnificent".

“monkey trial”• The press dubbed the trial with the pejorative

term “monkey trial.”• The trial began as a publicity stunt.• The jury took only 8 minutes to deliver a guilty

verdict. The TN Supreme Court overturned Scope’s conviction, but the law remained on the books for 30 more years.

Prohibition• Another attempt by the state to enforce social

values was the ‘noble experiment’ of prohibition.

• Many Americans drank less, but many others continued to drink illegally and gave the decade the name the “roaring 20s.”

• Some people brewed their own homemade beer or “bathtub gin.” Others attended illegal “speakeasies”. There were 30,000 in NY.

(p.687)

Prohibition

• There were liquor smugglers operating with ease along the Canadian and Mexican borders.

• The Untouchables Trailer• Organized crime took over the bootleg trade.• The Untouchables Season 1 Episode 1

Part 1• The “noble experiment” was a dismal failure

and came to an end in 1933.

(p.688)

Intellectual Crosscurrents• Americans celebrated the end of the “Great

War” but not all intellectuals agreed.• Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time (1924) The

Sun Also Rises (1932) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) portrayed the dehumanization of war.

• T.S. Elliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922) showed the despair of ruined civilization.

• Writers offered stinging critiques of what they saw as materialistic, moralistic and anti-intellectual tone of American life.

(p.689)

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Cultural Wars: The Election of 1928

• Cultural Issues set the agenda for the election of 1928. The Democrats nominated Alfred E. Smith of New York. (Irish Catholic)

• Smith had a heavy New York accent and wore a brown derby, emphasing his working class background.

• Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover, an administrator and engineer.

• Hoover won 58 % of the vote. 444 electoral votes to 87.

(p.690)

The Onset of the Great Depression, 1929–1932

• Causes and Consequences

• Herbert Hoover Responds

• Rising Discontent

• The 1932 Election

The Onset of the Great Depression, 1929–1932

• Booms and busts are characteristic features of the business cycle in capitalist economies and they were familiar features of the American landscape.

• Beginning with the panic of 1819, the U.S. had experienced a recession or panic about every 20 years. But the Great Depression was the most severe.

• To be fair, in socialist economies there has often not been much ‘boom’ but mostly ‘bust’.

(p.692)

Causes and Consequences• The economy began to turn down in 1927. • Americans spent less money and housing

construction slowed. Inventories piled up.• There was a rapid rise in the stock market. • On “Black Thursday” of Oct. 24 and again on

“Black Tuesday” Oct. 31 the bubble burst and panic selling set in

• Practically over night stocks fell from $87 Billion, to $55 Billion.

(p.692)

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The Great Depression, • The crash revealed long standing

weaknesses in the economy. • Agriculture• Railroads and coal had fallen on hard times.• Unequal distribution of wealth. • 1929, the top 5% of Americans received 30%

of the wealth, while the bottom 50% received only about 20% most of which was spent on food and housing.

(p.692)

Herbert Hoover Responds

• Hoover predicted a “final triumph over poverty.” Even after the crash, he stubbornly insisted that it was temporary.

• “The Depression is over” Hoover told business executives in 1930.

• Herbert Hoover’s original response to the depression was optimism in the nation’s ability to recover quickly.

(p.693)

!

• built makeshift homes in Central Park, or lived at the city dump.

• This photograph, taken near the old reservoir in Central Park, looks east toward the fancy apartment buildings of Fifth Avenue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at left.

(p.693)

Hoovervilles

By 1930, homeless people had built shantytowns in most of the nation's cities. In New York City, squatters camped out along the Hudson River railroad tracks,

(p.693)

Hoovers strategy

• Hoover attempted to deal with the depression by encouraging business men to take voluntary measures to maintain wages and jobs and to rebuild confidence in the system.

• He cut federal taxes in an attempt to boost private spending.

• He also increased Fed spending for public works.

• He mistakenly raised taxes in 1932 to balance the budget.

Rising Discontent• As the depression continued, Herbert Hoover

became increasingly unpopular. “Hoovervilles” were shanty towns were people lived in packing crates. “Hoover blankets” were newspapers.

• Rising discontent led for violence. • 1931-32 Civil disorder erupted in the cities.

Unemployed citizens demanded jobs and bread from local authorities.

• The Communist Party hoped to use the depression to overturn the capitalist system.

(p.694)

• Vivid images from the depression are of long lines of men standing outside soup kitchens and of well-dressed men on street corners selling apples and giving shoe shines.

• Most of the people in this line are white men but there are a few blacks. • Some of the men wear worker's caps but almost as many wear fedoras, the

stylish hat favored by the middle and upper classes. (p.694)

The Soup Kitchen

Rising Discontent• March of the Bonus Army - Part 1 • March of the Bonus Army - Part 2• March of the Bonus Army - Part 3

(p.694)

The 1932 Election• The Democrats nominated Gov. Franklin

Delano Roosevelt of New York. • Roosevelt had persuaded his state legislature

to operate a budget deficit to finance innovative relief and unemployment programs.

• Roosevelt’s campaign in 1932 promised vigorous action but without giving specifics of what that might be.

• He won the election easily.

(p.696)

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The 1932 Election• Roosevelt was elected in November but did not take

office until March 1933. As FDR waited to take office, Americans suffered though the worst winter of the depression.

• Nationwide unemployment stood at 20 to 25 percent but in some major industrial cities it was far worse, 50% in Cleveland, 60% in Akron and 80% in Toledo.

• By March 1933 the nation hit rock bottom. • Presidents in Our Backyard -- Franklin D.

Roosevelt 8 mins 26 secs

(p.696)

Summary• By the 1920s the U.S. had become a modern,

urban society with corporate businesses and mass consumption.

• The Republican Party controlled the national government and had a close partnership with business interests.

• Movies, radio, and other mass media encouraged the development of a national culture.

(p.698)

Summary• In order to enjoy leisure, consumption and

amusement, families needed a middle class income.

• The middle class lifestyle required a middle class income. Farmers, workers and African Americans were unable to afford the middle class lifestyle.

• Cultural disputes over prohibition, evolution, and immigration led to the creation the new Klu Klux Klan.

(p.698)

Chapter 23 Modern Times

1920–1932• Map 23.1 Ku Klux Klan Politics and Violence in the 1920s (p. 673)• Map 23.2 Presidential Election of 1928 (p. 691)