The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression

Dr. John Holmes

History 121, U.S After 1877

Diablo Valley College San Ramon

Summer 2013

WWI: the Watershed of Modernity Before: a different world 1920s: many features of

contemporary society modern literature and art sexual mores dress

Signature: the automobile Basis: economic transformation Backlash to modernity the other

story of the 1920s. Dualities.

The Age of the Automobile From a luxury good to mass

ownership 1900 4,000 cars in America; 1914

half a million 1929, 23 million car owners,

including half of all factory workers America, the first automotive

society

Economic transformations Urbanization and the farming crisis Automotive age created by:

Mass production, the assembly line Mechanization of factories

US producing more electricity than rest of world combined

“Fordism”: the affordable car 1920s prosperity includes workers

1922 to 1928: production +70%; GNP 40%; average income +30%; wages +22%, workweek -4%

But social inequality increases

Birth of the Consumer Society US the first society geared to mass

production of consumer goods From “producerism” to

“consumerism” Workers can participate in the

consumer economy Profileration of advertising Pro-business policies of government

Coolidge document, 23-1 Critics: Niebuhr, doc. 23-2

Social transformation and women Birth of suburbia Changes in the family Suffrage and women in the workforce

Revolution in housekeeping Separate spheres and womens’

professions Women enter public life

Changes in sex norms The automobile back seat Contraception: doc. 23-4

Sanger: from the IWW to “eugenics” The “flapper”

Prequel to the “Roaring ‘20s” 1920-22 economic depression

From labor offensive to business counteroffensive

1919: The Great Steel Strike Immigrant strike broken by US

army William Z. Foster and the U.S.

Communist Party David Montgomery: The Fall of

the House of Labor Company Unionism and the Red

Scare

The Great Backlash WWI repression and “100%

Americanism” Anti-immigrantism: from anti-

Germanism to anti-Communism Anti-Semitism in the 1920s

Fear for traditional American values Anti-Catholicism and Prohibition Scopes trial: the symbol

Outdoor media circus Town picks Scopes for ACLU

Social Darwinism vs. Protestant fundamentalism

The Ku Klux Klan Birth of American fascism

Lynching of Leo Frank “Birth of a Nation”

“American values,” doc. 23-3 Based in Midwest and West No longer tied to Democratic Party

Indiana and California Republicans Demos: 1924 “Klanbake

Convention” An urban Catholic party? From Al Smith to FDR

Transformation of Black America The “New Negro.” doc. 22-5 Immigration cutoff, Great Migration Blacks and immigrants in 20th

Century American culture The “Jazz Age” Black culture and American music Jews as “New York intellectuals”

Birth of Harlem from Jewish to black neighborhood

“Harlem Renaissance.” Claude McKay (p. 748), Langston

Hughes, Zora Neale Thurston

The Garvey Movement First mass black movement Values of Garveyism: doc. 23-5 Reaction to:

White violence vs. the Great Migration Garvey speech after St. Louis riot

Republican repudiation of blacks “Back to Africa” as expression of

despair Garvey and KKK: “call me a

Klansman if you will, but potentially every white man is a Klansman”

The Great Depression and the Mood of America

From optimism to despair Not rebellion but paralysis

Suicides among the rich Silence on the breadlines

Failure of all American institutions banks -- 24 to 15,000! company unions & benefits Foreclosures and homelessness Huge unemployment--average 20% Lack of public services Rotting food amid widespread hunger

Depression Causes: External Results of WWI: US economic

domination, but not military League of Nations and isolationism Europe: the Dawes Plan and the

debt triangle Success until US bankers stop

investing in Germany… US entanglement in world economy

leads to crash US influence in world only

economic/financial Smoot-Hawley and Hitler

Domestic Roots of the Depression Genuine internal growth, but also

era of wild speculation Marx Brothers and “Coconuts”

4 million investors in stock market Rich-poor gap: 3/4 of income gains

to top 1% of population Consumerism and debt Uneven prosperity: farm crisis,

higher wages plus unemployment Coal and textile

Stock market crash sign of developing overproduction crisis

Depression Economic Theories Traditional explanation: it’s cyclical

Grover Cleveland and Hoover Monetarism: Milton Friedman

Interest rates too high under Hoover Was universally accepted …

Keynesianism: Underconsumption Solution: government spending Dominant interpretation then … and

again now Marxism: overproduction basic to

capitalism

The Hoover Administration Elected as expert in disaster relief

… in Europe Opposes relief for American poor

“Hoovervilles” Relief for banks in 1931 “Bonus Army” of 1932

Hoover sends US army against it Final crisis of American system?

Communists in the Great Depression Attraction of the Soviet model

100,000 US workers apply to emigrate to the Soviet Union

Only party of social rebellion Unemployed leagues Physical resistance to foreclosures Farmworkers in California Wins a following among blacks

Only anti-racist party in America Wins a following among intellectuals

Capitalism bankrupt?

Next Class The New Deal and the Great Labor

Upheaval of the 1930s Readings: Foner Chapter 21, and

Johnson Chapter 24 Video of Flint Sitdown Strike