Unit 5 Part 2

Prohibition

• 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, sale & transportation of alcoholic beverages.

• Why did we pass prohibition?• Began in January 1920 –

at first drunkenness and arrests declined

Speakeasies and Bootleggers• Prohibition became next to

impossible to enforce• Secret nightclubs opened in

otherwise normal looking stores– Called Speakeasies, because you

had to speak quietly to avoid detection

– EX: Pet Shops, tea houses, cellars, office building

• Booze was supplied by bootleggers which led to organized crime– Al Capone made over $60 million

supplying liquor

Science vs. Religion • Scopes Trial (1925)• In 1925 Tennessee passed a law that

made it a crime to teach evolution• John T. Scopes challenged the law, and

taught evolution anyways• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hire

Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes & William Jennings Bryan became a special prosecutor trying Scopes

• Darrow eventually gets Bryan to admit that the Bible maybe interpreted in different ways

• Scopes was still found guilty and fined $100, the case was eventually over turned.

Flappers & The Double Standard

• Flapper – an emancipated young woman who embraced new fashions & urban attitudes– Began to wear shorter skirts, wore

short hair, smoked and drank in public and openly discussed sex

• Many women began to put off marriage

• Double Standard – a set of principles granting greater sexual freedom to a man than a woman. Women were held to stricter standards

Education

• 1914 – 1 Million American Students• 1926 – 4 Million American Students

• Prepared students for college, as well as vocational training.

• Also helped educate immigrants, and teach them English

Radio Comes of Age

• Prior to 1920, radio only used to bring news of WWI

• By 1920 radio used to broadcast news, entertainment and advertisements

• Radio dance parties become common

New Heroes

• Charles Lindbergh made first non-stop, solo, trans-Atlantic flight.

• Amelia Earhart becomes first woman to make the same flight in 1932.

• By 1929 Americans spending $4.5 Billion on Entertainment

• Sport stars become American heroes – (ex. Babe Ruth – 60 Home

Runs in 1927)

Writers of 1920’s

• F. Scott Fitzgerald – coined the term “Jazz Age” to describe 1920’s– Wrote This Side of Paradise and

The Great Gatsby

– Ernest Hemingway writes A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises criticizing war.

The Harlem Renaissance

• By the end of the 1920’s 40% of African Americans lived in cities

• Harlem, NY becomes the center of black America

• Harlem suffers from overcrowding, unemployment and poverty

Harlem Renaissance Con’t.

• Harlem Renaissance helped create a distinctive African-American culture in the United States

• Writers and artists celebrated their culture.

• Harlem Renaissance was brief but remains a lasting tribute to the artistic creativity of African-Americans.

Economic Troubles on the Horizon

• Industries in trouble:– Mining and lumbering– Railroads– Radio– Steel– Automobiles

• All of these industrial weaknesses signaled a declining economy

Agriculture and the Farmers

• Prices for crops had been at an all-time high during WWI– Farmers had planted more and

taken out more loans to buy more equipment

– Government was buying food from the farmers at at a very high rate and cost

• After the war prices dropped by over 50%– A lot of farmers were unable to

repay their loans and lost their farms

Farmers cont…..

• Banks begin to fail because farmers couldn’t repay their loans

• McNary-Haugen Bill– Attempt by Congress to help farmers– Price-supports – the government

would buy surplus crops at guaranteed priced and sell them on the international market

• This bill was vetoed twice by President Coolidge

Living on Credit

• Credit – buy now pay later – usually with high interest rates

• Faced with rising debt, many consumers started cutting back on spending (slowed the economy)

Uneven Distribution of Income

• More than 71% of the population earned less than $2500 per year

• The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer

Hoover Takes the Nation

• Election of 1928– Herbert Hoover v. Alfred E. Smith– Hoover wins the election easily and becomes the

31st president of the United States

Stock Market

• Americans who could afford it (and some who couldn’t) invested in the market

• Dow Jones Industrial Average – most widely used barometer of the stock market’s health– Measure based on the

prices of stocks from 20 large companies

Stock Market cont…

• Speculation – people were buying stocks and bonds on the chance of a quick profit while ignoring risks

• Buying on margin – paying a small percentage of a stock’s price as a down payment and borrowing the rest

• Both speculation and buying on margin caused stock prices to rise– They caused over-investment

because people bought more than they could pay for

The Stock Market Crashes

• Black Tuesday– October 29, 1929– A record 16.5 million shares

were sold– Millions more could not find

buyers– People who had bought stock

with loans were stuck with huge debt and unable to pay

Financial Collapse

• The stock market crash was the first sign of the Great Depression– Period between 1929 and

1940 in which the economy plummeted and unemployment skyrocketed

– The Great Depression was not just isolated to America – it was felt around the world

Bank and Business Failures

• Banks also invested in the stock market – and they too lost their money

• In 1929 around 600 banks closed – people could not get their money from the bank

• By 1933 11,000 of the nation’s 25,000 banks had failed and lost their money– Millions of Americans lost

all they had

Unemployment

• 1 out of every 4 Americans did not have a job by 1933

• Those who did have a job were working for very little money with very little hours

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

• 1930• Established the highest

protective tariff in United States history

• Designed to protect American farmers and manufacturers from foreign competition

• But had the opposite effect…..

Hawley Smoot Tariff cont…

• By reducing the flow of goods in to the U.S. other countries lost revenue – which they were using to repay their loans to the United States

• Also made unemployment higher

• World trade declined almost 50%

Causes of the Great Depression

• Tariffs and war debt policies• Crises in the farm sector• Availability of easy credit• Unequal distribution of

income