History Ch 20: From Business Culture to Great Depression: The Twenties, 1920, 1932 03/03/2014 The Business of America A Decade of Prosperity Economic growth Cooperation between business and government New industries Automobile production tripled, expanded steel, rubber, and oil production By 1929, half of the American people owned a car American multinational corporations General Electric International Business Machines (IBM) American companies: 85% of the world s cars, 40% of the world s goods A New Society Consumer Goods Marketing and advertising Products met needs and satisfied desires Changed everyday life Vacations, movies, sporting events New celebrity culture, rise of Hollywood The Limits of Prosperity Signs of future economic trouble
Economic concentration (in corporate sector) 1929, 40% lived in poverty 1929, most families had no savings 5% drop in manufacturing workings Deindustrialization The Image of Business Prominent businesspeople were cultural heroes Numerous firms established public relations departments Counteract public s distrust of big business Changed popular attitudes toward Wall Street Rise of the stock market By 1928, 1.5 million Americans own stock The Decline of Labor Welfare capitalism The American Plan Open shop workplace free from government intervention/regulation or union regulation Union membership declined The Equal Rights Amendment Suffrage in 1920 saw splintering between activists Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) supported by Alice Paul Elimination of all legal distinctions based around sex
What is freedom for women? Maternalism vs. individual and economic autonomy Women s Freedom Female liberation as a lifestyle The flapper Female freedom as marketing tool New freedom for women stopped at marriage Business and Government The Retreat from Progressivism Leisure and consumption replaced politics Drop in voter turnout Shift from public to private concerns Middletown by Robert and Helen Lynd (1929) The Republican Era Government policies were pro business Lower taxes Higher tariffs Anti unionism Conservative Supreme Court Laissez Faire approach Corruption in Government
Harding administration Teapot Dome scandal The Election of 1924 Calvin Coolidge Robert La Follette, Progressive candidate (1/6 of vote) Economic Diplomacy Retreat from Wilson s internationalism: isolationism Unilateralism Increase exports and overseas investments U.S. remained outside League of Nations American tariffs raised to highest levels Foreign policy Loans to European & Latin American governments American industrial firms overseas plants American investors controlled raw materials in Latin America The Birth of Civil Liberties New appreciation and legal protection for freedom of speech Wartime repression A Clear and Present Danger ACLU, est. 1920 rights revolution
Schenck v. United States 1919, Supreme Court upholds the espionage act constitutionality The Supreme Court and Civil Liberties Oliver Wendell Holmes & Louis Brandeis Involved political and literary expression Start of a judicial defense of civil liberties The Culture Wars Challenging Modern, Secular Culture Evangelical Protestants Felt threatened by decline of traditional values Worried about visibility of Catholicism and Judaism Christian fundamentalism: Bible s literal truth as the basis of Christianity Billy Sunday, well known Fundamentalist Christian Fundamentalists supported it Others viewed it as a violation of individual freedom Speakeasies and bootleggers Corruption among police and public officials The Scopes Trial: Division between Traditionalism & Modern, Secular Culture John Scopes, public school teacher Arrested for teaching evolution Scopes trial
Reflected tensions between two definitions of American freedom moral liberty v. right to independent thought and self expression Lawyer Clarence Darrow, William J. Bryan Christian fundamentalists retreated, movement for anti evolution state laws waned Battle over teaching of theory of evolution in public schools resurfaced in late 20 th century Matter of intense debate The Second Klan: Limiting freedom to Religion & Ethnicity Reborn to Atlanta in 1915 Spread to the North and West Claimed more than 3 million members Most members white, native born Protestants who were respected in their communities Targeted blacks, Jews, Catholics, feminists, unionists, immorality Influence faded after 1925 Closing the Golden Door: Restricting Immigration Before WWI, few restriction for white persons to immigrate and become citizens After WWI, wholesale restriction Fears of immigrant based political radicalism 1921 law restricted immigration from Europe to 1/3 of the annual average before the war 1924, Congress permanently limited immigration for Europeans and banned it for Asians (except Filipinos) No limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere (seasonal Mexican labor critically important to the building of the West) Established illegal alien and the Border Patrol
Race and Immigration Law Race policy Who is an American? James J. Davis, secretary of labor Biologically ideal population Progressives Improve quality of citizenship Pseudoscientific assumptions of racial superiority/inferiority Promoting Tolerance Immigrant groups Tolerating diversity = American freedom Ethnic Americans Helped broaden definition of liberty Best advocates of a pluralist America Supreme Court struck down Americanization laws Horace Kallen, cultural pluralism Society that is celebrating ethnic diversity not oppressing it Anthropologists Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict The Emergence of Harlem Rising self consciousness among black Americans Great Migration: 1 million blacks left South
Urban North neighborhoods Harlem the capital of black America Dance halls, jazz clubs, speakeasies Depicted as site of primitivism Poverty, low wage work, housing discrimination The Harlem Renaissance Artistic flowering among black Americans New Negro Rejection of racial stereotypes Search for black values Politics of place: Africa: roots; Rural South: folk culture; North and Midwest: Urban ghetto Protest Claude McKay, If We Must Die Short poem The Great Depression The Election of 1928 Herbert Hoover Against government regulation Public interest over self interest Associational action Private agencies would direct welfare policy
Alfred E. Smith, Democrat Spokesman for new immigrants Supported Progressive social legislation His Catholicism became focus Won support of urban voters and farmers The Coming of Depression Real estate speculation Bank failures Prolonged depression in farm regions Reduced purchasing power European demand for American goods declined The global financial system ill equipped Americans and the Depression Bread lines and Hoovervilles Suicide rate rose to highest level, birth rate dropped to its lowest The image of big business collapsed
03/03/2014
03/03/2014