Chapter 8. Good Times and Bad

Lesson 1. The Roaring Twenties

1900 - 1930

The Boom Economy

• Factories started making new things– Vacuum cleaners– Washing machines– Radios– Other appliances

• People bought lots of consumer goods– Products made for personal use

• Installment buying– Take home and pay for it later

• Agriculture busted– Too many crops…not enough buyers

The Automobile

• Most important new industry• 1890 1st gasoline powered automobile• Henry Ford

– Lowered cost by using mass production– Moving assembly line– More than one made at a time– 1 worker = one task– Could make 6 cars instead of 1 CHEAPER

Life Changes and the Car

• Could travel farther and faster

• Could live further from work

• Could shop at stores and attend events farther from home

• Could go on vacations to distant places

Domino Effect

• Other Industries grew because of the Car

• Tires…Rubber industry

• Gas…Oil industry

• Roads…labor needed

• Gas stations…labor

Suburbs

• Community or neighborhoods outside a city grew because of the cars.

• People could move out of the crowded cities to raise their families because they could get to work more easily because of the car.

The Automobile Industry

Aviation

• Air transportation

• Orville & Wilbur Wright

• 1903 Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

• Used planes in World War I

• 1927…used for personal travel

• New York• Spirit of St. Louis• Goal was to fly across the Atlantic alone• 134 hours later landed in Paris, France• National hero• Led to commercial flights

– Run to make a profit– 1926 – 1930 People who flew went from 6,000 to over

400,000

Entertainment

• Radio • By 1929…800 stations…10 million families• Listened to Babe Ruth hit his 60th Homerun in

1927 season• Sports…football, basketball, and baseball drew

huge crowds• Tennis and Golf became popular• Swimming pools

Music

• Jazz– African-American

heritage

– Known as “The Jazz Age”

Movies

• Silent films

• 1927 Sound was added

The Harlem Renaissance

• New York City neighborhood• Center for African-American artists• Great interest in art• Poet, Langston Hughes• Claude McKay, Counter Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston• Louis Armstrong, jazz musician• Billie Holliday• Duke Ellington• Paul Robeson - actor

Lesson 2