Chapter 15 – Years of Crisis

Main Points

Postwar Uncertainty

Worldwide Depression

Fascism Rising in Europe

Aggressors Invade Nations

Postwar Uncertainty

• New Revolutions in Science

• Albert Einstein – German Born – Theory of Relativity; Speed of light, time, space theories of gravity and motion

• Sigmund Freud – psychology; believed human behavior is irrational – beyond reason -- this was the “unconsciousness;”

Literature in the 1920s• Devastation of World War I

caused writers to question accepted ideas of reason and doubt of traditional religious values

• T.S. Eliot, 1922, American poet living in England – Western society lost its spiritual values; Postwar world a “barren wasteland” drained of faith and hope;

• William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, wrote about a sense of dark times - “The Second Coming” (1921);

• “Lost Generation” writer who wrote the “Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Existentialism

• Jean Paul Sartre

• Belief that there is no universal meaning to life. People create their own mean in life through their choices and actions; rejects the ideas of universal values

• Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher, was influenced by Existentialism; • Western ideas like reason, democracy, and

progress stifled creativity. He urged return to ancient heroic values – pride, assertiveness, and strength;

Existentialism

Literature in the 1920s

• Czech-born author, Franz Kafka, The Trial, (1925), The Castle, (1926) – people caught in threatening situations they cannot understand nor escape;

• James Joyce, Irish author, stream of consciousness novel, Ulysses (1922);

• Novelists

Kafka and Joyce

Revolution in the Arts

• Artists Rebel against Tradition;

• Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky – used bold colors and distorted or exaggerated forms;

Surrealism

• Surreal – means “beyond or above reality” Used unconscious part of their minds – had an eerie, dreamlike quality to depict objects in unrealistic ways; Surrealism

• Movement that tried to link the world of dreams with real life – inspired by Freud’s ideas.

• Salvador Dali, Spanish painter, “The Persistence of Memory,” (1931);

The Persistence of Memory

Cubism

• Transformed natural shapes into geometric forms;

• Objects broken down into differnet parts with sharp angles and edges;

• Creator of Cubism; Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter, Guernica; and

• Georges Braque, French painter, The Violin and the Candlestick;

Cubism – Guernica and Violin of Candlesticks

Music

• Classical• Movement away from traditional styles;• Russian Composer - Igor Stravinsky, “The Rite

of Spring,”—irregular rhythms and dissonances; harsh combinations of sound;

• Austrian composer, Arnold Schoenberg – rejected traditional harmonies and musical scales;

Jazz

• Emerged from the United States, from most African American artists in New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago.

• Lively, loose beat captured the new freedom of the age;

• New freedom of the postwar years

Jazz

New Orleans Jazz

Society Challenges Convention

• Change in Women’s Roles• Women worked in men’s jobs and in war

effort, and wanted the right to vote;• Many countries granted women’s suffrage into

law such as the US, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Austria.

• Women abandoned restrictive clothing and hairstyles; shorter looser garments and short “bobbed” hair;

Women’s Changes in Fashion

Women’s Roles Change

• Women wore make up, drove cars, drank and smoked in public;

• Most women followed traditional paths of marriage and family;

• Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman risked arrest, speaking out in support of birth control;

• Women began to seek careers in medicine, education, journalism, and clerical fields;

Margaret Sanger/1920s women

Technological Advances Improve Life

• Automobiles – after war were more affordable; people traveled for pleasure;

• People moved to suburbs and commuted to work in cities;

• Airplanes transform travel; International air travel;

• Charles Lindbergh – 33-hour solo flight from New York to Paris – Spirit of St. Louis;

• Passenger airlines established during 1920s.

• Amelia Earhart, American – in 1932 was first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic;

Aviation Advances

Radio and Movies Dominate Popular

Entertainment• Guglielmo Marconi – first successful experiments

with radio in 1895;

• Radio developed mostly through World War I;

• By 1920 the first commercial radio station --- KDKA in Pittsburgh was broadcasting;

• Radio swept the nation and soon every major city had stations broadcasting news, plays and live sporting events;

• Soon most families would own a radio;

Radios

Hollywood

• Motion pictures began with Nickelodeons in working-class, immigrant neighborhoods;

• Movie makers were charged with corrupting the youth, movie makers tried to make their movies more respectable.

• Movie makers had to find a way to make their product more in line with the dominant culture of a more conservative middle class society.

Hollywood

Hollywood “Big Eight Movie

Companies”• Paramount studies was the first of the studios at this time.

• The “Big Eight”

• Paramount

• Fox

• MGM

• Universal

• Warner Brothers

• Columbia

• United Artists

• RKO

Postwar Europe

• Unstable New Democracies• With the end of WWI, the last of Europe’s

absolute rulers were overthrown;• Provisional Government – Russia’s brief

democratic government;• Weimar Republic – Germany’s new democratic

government;• After WWI most European nations had

Democratic rule even if only temporary

Weimar Republic

• Set up in 1919;

• Named for the city where the national assembly met;

• Weak from the start;

• Germany lacked a strong democratic tradition;

• Germany had several major political parties and many minor ones;

• Millions of Germans blamed the Weimar government for the defeat and postwar humiliation by signing Treaty of Versailles

Inflation Caused Crisis in Germany

• Germany did not increase wartime taxes -- Germans just printed more money;

• After the war, Germany printed even more money to pay war reparations;

• Paper money lost its value and the German mark’s value fell sharply.

• Severe inflation set in;• In 1918, a loaf of bread cost less than a mark; In

1922 it was over 160 marks, and in 1923, more than 200 billion marks; ($10,000 American dollars)

• As a result – many Germans questioned the value of the Weimar Republic;

Hyperinflation

Dawes Plan

• In 1924, International Committee headed by American banker, Charles Dawes, provided for a $200 million loan from US banks to stabilize German currency and strengthen its economy;

• Plan set more realistic schedule for payment of Germany’s reparations;

• The plan helped slow inflation, the German Economy began to recover, and factories were at prewar production by 1929;

The Dawes Plan

Lasting Peace

• With German prosperity, Germany’s foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann and France’s foreign minister, Aristide Briand met to sign a treaty promising France and Germany would never go to war against each other;

• Germany agreed to respect the existing borders of France and Belgium;

• Germany was then admitted to League of Nations;

Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact

• US Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg, and France’s Aristide Briand arranged an agreement to “renounce war as an instrument of national policy.”

• Almost all nations signed this agreement;

• The League of Nations – the obvious group to enforce this treaty, had no armed forces ;

Kellogg Briand Pact

Financial Collapse

• The US economic prosperity largely sustained the world economy;

• In 1929, US factories turned out nearly half the world’s industrial goods;

• This productivity led to enormous profits but the new wealth was not evenly distributed;

• The richest 5% of the population, received 33% of all personal income in 1929;

Financial Collapse

• 60% of all American families earned less than $2,000 a year;

• Most families were too poor to buy the goods being produced;

• Unable to sell all their goods, store owners would cut back their orders from factories;

• Factories reduced production and laid-off workers;

• This began a downward economic spiral;

Financial Collapse

Financial Collapse

• Overproduction affected US farmers also;

• Scientific farming methods and new farm machinery dramatically increased crop yields;

• US farmers were producing more food, but faced new competition from farmers in Australia, Latin America, and Europe;

• There was a worldwide surplus of agricultural products which drove prices and profits down;

Financial Collapse

• Unable to sell their crops at a profit, many farmers could not pay off their bank loans;

• These unpaid debts weakened banks and forced some to close;

• This overproduction by factories and farms should have been a warning to those gambling on the stock market -- but no one heeded the warning;

The Stock Market Crashes

• 1929 – New York City’s Wall Street – financial capital of the world;

• Investors were optimistic about the booming economy;

• In order to invest in the boom economy – many middle-income people bought stocks on “margin” (on credit).

The Stock Market Crashes

• In September, 1929, some investors thought the stock prices were unnaturally high and started selling their stocks;

• By Thursday, October 24, the gradual lowering of stock prices became an all-out slide downward;

• This resulted in a panic! Everyone wanted to sell stocks and no one wanted to buy;

• On Tuesday, October 29, “Black Tuesday,” a record 16 million stocks were sold and the market collapsed. This was the beginning of the Great Depression

Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929

The Great Depression • Investors who bought stocks on margin could

not pay what they owed and the stocks were now worthless.

• Within months of the crash, unemployment rates began to rise and industrial production, prices, and wages declined;

• This long business slump would be called the Great Depression;

• The stock market crash alone did not cause the Great Depression but quickened the economy’s collapse.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression

• By 1932, factory production was cut in half;

• Thousands of businesses failed and banks closed;

• 9 million people lost the money in their savings accounts from failed banks;

• Many farmers lost their lands because they could not make mortgage payments;

• In 1933, one-fourth of all American workers had no jobs;

Breadlines

The Great Depression

Global Depression• The collapse of the American economy sent shock

waves around the world;

• US bankers demanded repayment of their overseas loans and American investors withdrew their money from Europe; the country hardest hit by this was Germany due to unpaid war debts and inflation of the German Mark.

• The US market for European goods dropped sharply and Congress placed high tariffs (taxes) on imported goods so US dollars would stay in the US;

• This policy backfired – other countries imposed higher tariffs and world trade dropped by 65%!

• Unemployment rates soared!

Depression

The World Confronts Crisis

• Britain takes Steps to Improve its Economy;• Voters elected multiparty coalition known as National

Government;• Passed high protective tariffs;• Increased taxes• Regulated the currency;• Lowered interest rates to encourage industrial

growth;

These measure brought a slow and steady recovery;

By 1937, unemployment was cut in half and production was above 1929 levels;

Britain avoided political extremes and preserved democracy;

France Responds to Economic Crisis

• France’s economy was more self-sufficient – it was heavily agricultural and less dependent on foreign;

• Still, by 1935, one million French workers were unemployed;

• This contributed to political instability – In 1933, 5 coalition governments formed and fell;

• Political leaders were frightened by the growth of antidemocratic forces in France and other parts of Europe;

France Responds to Economic Crisis

• In 1936, moderates, Socialists, and Communists formed a coalition – The Popular Front;

• The Popular Front passed a series of reforms to help the workers;

• Price increases quickly offset wage gains;

• Unemployment remained high;

• France also preserved a democratic government;

Socialist Governments Find Solutions

• Socialist governments in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway met the challenge of economic crisis successfully; Their recovery programs on existing tradition of cooperative community action;

• In Sweden government sponsored massive public works projects that kept people employed and producing;

• All Scandinavian countries raised pensions for elderly, increased unemployment insurance, subsides for housing, and other welfare benefits;

• These were paid for by taxes;

• Democracy remained intact;

US Recovery

• In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected;

• His confidence reassured the millions of Americans who felt bewildered by the Depression;

• New Deal – large public works projects to provide jobs for unemployed; increase in government spending

• Government agencies gave financial help to businesses and farms;

• Large amounts of public money spent on welfare and relief programs.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

US Recovery• The Roosevelt administration believed

government spending would create jobs and start a recovery;

• Regulations were imposed to reform the stock market and banking system;

• The New Deal did eventually reform the US economic system;

• Roosevelt’s leadership preserved the country’s faith in its democratic political system and established him as a leader of democracy in a world threatened by ruthless dictators;