america

• African Americans and women made significant contributions in the 60s and 70s.
• The term 'the boom' refers to when a country enters a period when most businesses are doing well, sales are high, wages increasing and unemployment is low.
• Isolationism is when a country blocks themselves off as they don’t need any political or economic help.
• America was keen to follow a policy of isolationism as they didn’t want to be involved in 'expensive foreign wars' which could cost them American lives.
• In the 1920s, new things were in fashion like bobbed hair, short skirts etc, known as a flapper wardrobe.
• Women were allowed to smoke, drink, said things that weren’t seen as 'lady-like', and women were more sexually free.
• The increased availability of birth control made it possible for women to have less kids.
• Women could finally vote.
• Millions of women worked in blue/white collar jobs and could then afford to participate in the consumer economy.
• New technology like vacuum cleaners and washing machines eliminated the hard, dull household work.
• Technological process: mass production of goods like radios, cars, refrigerators, telephones etc brought more money into the economy.
• New mass marketing techniques, cheap credit and increased employment created a huge amount of consumers.
• Isolationism: the usa wasn’t involved in foreign war so no damage was done to land, allowing the us economy to prosper as there was no need to spend extra money on fixing land, weapons etc.
• The usa also had Britain buying weapons and food from them.
• The jazz age: many young people wanted to dance, the charleston, the cake walk, the black bottom, the flea hop.
• Jazz bands played at venues, leading to 100million records sold in 1927 alone.
• Many young people felt free on the dance floor.
• Later immigrants: came from russia, poland, italy, hungary etc looking for work, increasing employment and bringing more money to the growing economy.
• The wall street crash happened on 28th october 1928, due to several factors: inequalities of wealth, problems abroad, and lack of confidence.
• On 24th october 1929, 13 million shares were sold on the new york stock exchange on wall street, leading to the depression.
• In 1929 alone, 659 banks went bust.
• Ordinary shareholders lost a fortune due to the crash.
• Many rich people lost part of their wealth due to the crash.
• Farmers had suffered even before the crash.
• Farmers with bank loans for equipment had to pay back the money.
• Many farmers couldn’t afford to pay their debts or mortgages and faced losing their farms and sacking their workers.
• By 1932, 1 in 20 farmers had been evicted.
• A combination of drought and poor farming had turned the land into a ‘dust bowl’.
• Huge dust storms blew away millions of acres of dry topsoil, making it impossible to farm.
• Many businesses and their workers overproduced and suffered after the crash.
• Bank managers lost their jobs when banks went bust.
• Unemployment was a major problem during the depression.
• Hobos and hoovervilles were a common sight during the depression.
• President Hoover was convinced that America would recover soon and believed in ‘rugged individualism’ where people can overcome problems with hard work, not government help.
• President Hoover tried to improve things by lending money to businesses in trouble and making small loans to farmers.
• President Hoover set the army on the Bonus Army, who drove the ex-soldiers away with guns, tanks, and tear-gas.
• President Hoover was a republican and believed it wasn’t the government’s role to interfere in the daily lives of citizens (‘laissez-faire’).
• President Hoover’s ideas for dealing with the depression were: thought of americans as rugged individuals, able to overcome any problems without any government help and achieve success through their own hard work.
• President Hoover lent money to troubled companies and farmers, made cash available for states to help their unemployed and started large-scale construction projects after a few years of depression.
• President Hoover wasn’t a good public speaker and his belief in rugged individualism made him look uncaring, which made him unpopular.