America

• Mass Production


  Making lots of the same product
• Assembly lines


  • Goods are moved along the line, with each worker doing the same job over and over
• The car industry was one of the first to use mass production
• Ford Model T


  First mass produced car, made every 10 seconds by 1920s, cost $295
• Half of all cars sold were Model T
• Ford employed half a million people
• Ford paid same wages to black people and white people
• Impact of the car industry


  • Helped other industries grow (steel, rubber, glass, leather, oil)
  • Construction industry needed to build new roads
  • Enabled people to live in suburbs and commute to work
• Real wages for industrial workers grew by 26% during the 1920s
• Unemployment fell from 11.9% in 1921 to 3.2% in 1929
• Laissez-faire


  Republican governments' policy of non-interference
• Hire purchase


  Buying on credit, paying in instalments
• Shares


  A 'share' of a company, owning a small part of it
• Buying on the margin

  Putting down a deposit on shares and borrowing the rest
• 8 out of 10 radios were bought on credit
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922 taxed foreign goods coming into America, encouraging Americans to buy American goods
• The Roaring Twenties was a period of adventure and prosperity
• New Adventures


  • Charles Lindbergh's non-stop flight from America to Paris in 1927
• New Buildings


  • 400 skyscrapers in America by 1929
  • Empire State Building finished in 1931, 102 stories tall
• Sport


  • Sports events attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators
  • Sports stars paid huge wages
  • Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Red Grange
• Jazz Music


  • Duke Ellington
  • Louis Armstrong
• Dancing


  • Dance marathons
  • Charleston
  • Tango
  • Bunny Hug
• Films


  • 'The Jazz Singer' first full length talking film in 1927
  • Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
  • Charlie Chaplin
• Radio


  • NBC set up first national radio network in 1926
  • 40% of households had a radio
• Flappers


  Young women with short, bobbed hair, wearing knee-length dresses, smoking, driving
• Anti Flirt Association


  Tried to control 'wild' young people, banned indecent bathing costumes and 'petting'
• After WW1, women were given the vote in 1920
• Most women still only had menial jobs, paid much less than men
• 10m women had jobs by 1929, an increase of 24%
• Farmers

  • Half of Americans were involved in farming
  • Grew more crops due to better technology
  • Prices fell so they made less money and couldn't pay mortgages
  • 600,000 farmers lost their farms in 1924
  • Many lived in poor conditions
• Black people


  • 1m lost their jobs in 1920s
  • Suffered from racism and segregation
  • Lynchings, Jim Crow laws
• Older industries like coal, cotton and textiles suffered as new power sources were used
• Prohibition


  Making, selling or transporting alcohol was illegal in the USA from 1920
• Reasons for Prohibition


  • Women's Christian Temperance Union and Anti Saloon League campaigned for it
  • Claimed alcohol caused poverty, crime and insanity
• Prohibition failures

  • Moonshine
  • Speakeasies
• Prohibition ended in 1933 when Roosevelt repealed the 18th Amendment
• Gangsters


  • Used prohibition to make money through bootlegging and other criminal activities
  • Rival gangs fought for territory and bribed police and judges
• Al Capone


  Notorious Chicago gangster, had $60m annual income in 1927
• Immigration to the USA was restricted in the 1920s
• Al Capone's income was $60m