America

• Republican governments

  • Policy of non-interference (laissez-faire)
  • Lowered taxes on incomes to help people afford new goods
• Buying on the Margin

  1. Shares = a ‘share’ of a company, you own a small part of it

  2. People could buy shares on the margin by putting down a deposit and borrowing the rest

  3. If shares went up in value, they could sell for a profit, but if they fell, they lost money
• Advertising

  1. Mass advertising used for the first time during WW1

  2. Used to advertise cigarettes, clothes, and cars

  3. Encouraged people to buy new goods available
• Cycle of Prosperity

  1. Factories make lots of goods

  2. They need more workers

  3. These workers have good wages

  4. They can afford to buy the goods that factories are making

  5. More demand for goods leads to increased production and more profit

  6. People started moving to the cities for work

  7. This increased demand even more
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922 taxed foreign goods coming into America, making those goods very expensive
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922


  Foreign governments did the same to American goods being exported abroad, making it difficult to export American goods
• The Roaring Twenties was a period of adventure and prosperity
• New Adventures

  • 1927, Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly non-stop from America to Paris
• New Buildings

  • 1929, there were 400 skyscrapers in America
  • 1931, Empire State Building was finished, at 102 stories it was the tallest building in the world
• Sport

  • Sports events started to attract hundreds of thousands of spectators
  • Sports stars began to be paid huge wages
  • Babe Ruth was the star of the New York Yankees baseball team
  • Jack Dempsey was a boxing legend, in 1926, 120,000 people watched his championship fight
  • Top American football star was Red Grange
• Jazz Music

  • New style of music developed from early types of black music
  • Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were famous jazz musicians
  • It was often played in speakeasies
• Dancing

  • Dance marathons were popular
  • New dances included the Charleston, the Tango, and the Bunny Hug
• Films

  • 1927, ‘The Jazz Singer’ was the first full-length talking film
  • Nearly every town had a cinema
  • 110m Americans went to the cinema every week
  • Mid 1930s, Walt Disney made Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
  • Hollywood became the film capital of the world
  • Charlie Chaplin was a famous star
• Radio

  • In 1926, NBC set up the first national radio network
  • 40% of households had a radio
  • Made money by advertising new goods
• Many young women in the Roaring Twenties were called flappers
• Flappers had short, bobbed hair, wore knee-length dresses, makeup, smoked cigarettes, and drove
• The Anti-Flirt Association was set up to control 'wild' young people
• The Anti-Flirt Association thought flappers were acting immorally and banned indecent bathing costumes and petting
• After WWI, women were given the vote in 1920
• Most women still had menial jobs like cleaners, maids, and waitresses
• Women were paid much less than men, even for doing a similar job
• There was an increase in women nurses and teachers, but very few lawyers or doctors
• Introduction of birth control meant women could have fewer children
• Women were still expected to clean the house, look after their husbands and children
• New technology like vacuum cleaners and washing machines made housework easier for women
• The divorce rate doubled, suggesting women had more choices
• By 1929, 10m women had jobs, an increase of 24%
• Half of Americans were involved in farming
• Farmers grew more crops due to better technology like combine harvesters
• The government urged farmers to grow more crops during and after WWI, leading to oversupply and falling prices
• Effects of overproduction in farming

  • Falling prices of goods
  • Farmers making less money
  • Farmers unable to pay mortgages
  • 600,000 farmers lost their farms in 1924
  • Farmers living on $89 a year
  • Farmers living in shacks with poor conditions
  • Farm labourers losing jobs
  • Farmers moving to California to work on fruit farms
• Impact on Black People

  • Making up 10% of the population
  • 1 million black people losing jobs in the 1920s
  • Many black people moving to northern, industrial cities
  • Being lowest paid
  • Suffering from the impact of slavery ending 50 years before
  • Being uneducated and untrained
  • Many being farm labourers
  • Most suffering from racism
  • Fear of white people that they would take their jobs
  • Incident of race riots in Chicago in June 1919
  • Jim Crow Laws segregating black and white people in the southern states
  • Black people having separate and inferior facilities compared to white people
  • 70 lynchings in 1919
• Effects on Older Industries

  • Coal industry suffering due to new power sources
  • Overproduction leading to falling prices and mine closures in coal, cotton, and textiles industries
  • 60% of people living below the poverty line in the 1920s
• Prohibition introduced in the USA in January 1920
• Prohibition made making, selling, or transporting alcohol illegal
• Prohibition was part of the American constitution in the 18th Amendment
• The Volstead Act stated that drink with over 0.5% alcohol was illegal
• Reasons for Prohibition

  • Campaigning by Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League
  • Alcohol being blamed for poverty, broken marriages, crime, and insanity
  • Claim of 3000 children being smothered every year due to drunk parents
  • People not going to work due to being drunk or hungover
  • Support from industrialist Rockefeller
  • Half the states banning alcohol during WW1
  • Moral reasons during the war
• Moonshine was illegal alcohol made in people's homes
• Speakeasies were secret illegal drinking clubs