Reasons groups were excluded

• Retaliatory tariffs imposed by some foreign governments on US goods

  Farmers sold less abroad, leading to an estimated loss of $300 million of income
• Some workers in traditional industries managed to retrain and find employment in booming industries
• Farmers over-produced due to new technologies


  Prices they could charge fell as there was more supply than demand
• Impact of synthetic materials and fashion trends on textile workers

  Changes led to decreased cloth sales, falling profits, reduced wages, hours, or job loss
• Discrimination faced by Immigrants

  Immigration quotas, 'Red Scare', discrimination in jobs, wages, housing
• Consequences for coal miners

  Low wages, living in badly built shacks, trapped in a cycle of poverty
• Discrimination faced by Black Americans

  Segregation, discrimination in jobs, wages, housing, Ku Klux Klan involvement
• Consequences for farmers

  Incomes declined steeply, many couldn't pay their mortgages and were evicted from their farms
• Impact of electricity on coal miners

  Less coal needed, sales fell, profits declined, companies reduced wages, cut hours, or fired workers
• Some individuals in excluded groups managed to escape poverty and improve their lives substantially
• Groups excluded from the cycle of prosperity

  • Farmers
  • Coal miners
  • Textile workers
  • Black Americans
  • Immigrants