usa

• 50% lived in towns and cities
• New York and Chicago were symbols of prosperity, opportunity, freedom and excitement
• Wages rose and working hours fell, giving more leisure time
• Radio

  One for every one or two households. 1 radio station in 1921, 508 by 1922 and NBC was making $150 million a year by 1929
• Music

  The 1920s were known as the Jazz Age. Young people drank, parties and danced outrageous dances like the Charleston
• Cinema

  Hollywood turned it into a multi-million dollar industry. Even the poorest could afford to go and 'talkies' arrived in 1927
• Young women gained new freedom
• 'Flappers'

  • Parties, drank and smoked like their male friends
• Sex was openly discussed and there were male and female sex symbols like Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino
• Car ownership increased and gave people more freedom
• 7 million cars were registered in 1922 and 1.5million were produced each year
• Cities grew as people could move to the suburbs (The Queens suburb of New York doubled in size in 1920s)
• New leisure activities were possible
• Booming economy

  • US industries were producing more than the rest of the world put together and worked more efficiently
  • US exports continued but 123 million internal customers also bought
  • Wages were rising but prices remained stable giving an 115 increase in spending power
• WW1

  • The USA only joined in 1917 and made money supplying weapons and equipment
  • US banks made a fortune loaning money to European counties
  • The USA overtook European countries in the manufacture of chemicals when they were fighting
• Resources and transport

  • John D Rockefeller made money from oil as this became more popular than coal
  • Andrew Carnegie developed steel for skyscrapers
  • Andrew Mellon invested in aluminium that was required for planes
  • The Republican party initiated a major road-building programme that doubled the road network, created jobs and allowed businesses to transport goods
• New industries and methods

  • Companies invested in research universities and schools of business and engineering to get the best candidates into their businesses
  • Electricity was in almost all homes by 1929 and this sparked a boom in consumer goods
  • Mass production methods allowed them to be produced on mass and cheaply
• The car

  • 4,000 were made in 1900. 29 million were made by 1929 (one every ten seconds). This was possible due to the production line where each worker did a specific task.
  • Ford, General Motors and Chrysler made cars
  • Trucks also increased from 1 million in 1919 to 3.5million by 1929
  • The materials used boosted other industries; glass (75% of all glass made went into cars), leather, steel, rubber, road building
• One in five owned a car in the USA, one in 43 in Britain, one in 7000 in Russia
• Mass consumption

  • Radio advertisements, posters, travelling salesmen encouraged Americans to buy consumer items
  • Mail order companies encouraged Americans to buy good from catalogues (Sears/Roebuck)
  • Credit – Americans could 'buy now, pay later'. 80% radios and 60% of cars were bought on credit
  • Chain stores – the same products were now available across the USA
• Confidence and consumerism


  • Business leaders were trusted and admired
  • Americans believed they had a right to prosperity
  • Business leaders had confidence to invest in new ventures and ordinary people had the confidence to buy on credit as they knew they would be able to pay for them
• Wall Street and the stock market

  • New companies raised money from investors and soon ordinary Americans were investing in the stock market
  • Many took out loans to invest (buying on the margin)
  • In 1920 there were4 million share owners, by 1929 there were 20 million out of a population of 120 million
• Republican policies

  • President Warren Harding (Republican) promised a return to 'normalcy' after WW1
  • Businessmen were in key government positions
  • Laissez faire – the government should do as little as possible and allow 'rugged individualism'
  • Protective tariffs – import tariffs made it expensive to buy foreign goods
  • Low taxation – people kept their money and spent it on more US goods
  • Powerful trusts were allowed to dominate areas of industry because the government thought they knew best (Andrew Carnegie in steel and John D Rockefeller were captains of industry)
• Farming income dropped from $22billion to $13billion from 1919-1928
• Exports declined – Europe could not afford to import food from America and refused to buy anyway in response to US import tariffs
• Canadian wheat producers were more efficient and sold wheat cheaper
• Farmers produced too much food with new machinery and fertilisers. The price of goods dropped because farmers needed to sell the food
• In 1921 alone farm prices fell by 50% and 5 times as many bankruptcies in the 1920s as the previous two decades
• The Republican laisses faire policies meant that the government did little to help
• 50% of Americans lived in rural communities, meaning that 60 million people suffered
• Only farmers who supplied the cities did well during the 1920s by providing fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the year
• Coal was replaced by electricity and oil
• Leather and shoe making struggled
• Cotton industry in the south and textiles in the north collapsed
• Republicans put import tariffs on these goods but they could not actually increase demand
• Skilled workers were replaced by machines
• Labour unions organised strikes, which turned violent, and newspapers and business leaders were suspicious of unions
• 42% of Americans lived below the poverty line
• In 1928, coal workers were paid $18 ($9 for women) per 70 hour week when $48 was considered the minimum amount for a decent life
• 5% were unemployed throughout 1920s: mostly poor whites, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and other immigrants