History

• Talkies

  Movies used to be silent until 1927
• sport


  Radio brought sport a mass audience

  60mil listened to Jack Dempsey & Gene Tunney box 1927

  Babe ruth earned 80k (7mil today)
• The hays code


  Self-imposed rules for Hollywood media content instituted in 1930 with the goal of creating "wholesome entertainment"

  Limited kiss scene times etc
• star system


  an operation designed to find and cultivate actors under long-term contracts, with the intention of developing those actors into famous "stars" who would enhance the profitability of the studio's films
• Output of American industries

  Doubled in 20s
• What caused the boom?

  Ww1 caused a rise in demand internationally for American goods

  Mass production & assembly line

  Advertising, chain stores, mail-ordering services

  Policies of American presidents were pro business - restrictions & regulations were removed and taxes were lowered

  Credit kept up demand

  New tech
• Laissez-faire economics


  Theory that opposes governmental interference in economic affairs beyond what is necessary to protect life and property.
• Rugged Individualism


  Herbert Hoover's belief that people must be self-reliant and not depend upon the federal government for assistance.
• When was Hoover president?

  1929-1933
• New Immigrants


  immigrants who had come to the US after the 1880s from southern and eastern europe
• Early Immigration


  - 1820 Mostly Protestants

  - 1840 Roman Catholic Irish

  - WASPs
• Open Door Policy


  America wanted a steady flow of immigrants as the economy expanded rapidly after the end of the civil war in 1865
• Immigrants 1891-1924


  12 million
• 1917 Immigration Law


  -Immigrants over 16 must pass a literacy test in their own language
• 1921 Immigration Quota Act


  Law that ended unlimited population to the United States. Set quotas for countries based on 1910 census (3%)
• 1924 Immigration Act


  Whitaker reduced to 2% and banned Asians
• 1929 Immigration Act


  Restricted to 150,000 a year.
• KKK


  Stands for Ku Klux Klan and started right after the Civil War in 1866. They masked themselves and burned black churches, schools, and terrorized black people. They are anti-black and anti-Semitic

  Intimidated opponents with violence - lynching & beating up
• Why did people join the kkk

  Influence by media - The Birth Of A Nation

  Religious

  Influential people were members

  Claimed to be against crime

  Anonymous

  
  

  1920 - 100k, 1925 - 5mil
• Sacco and Vanzetti Case

  Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants charged with murdering a guard and robbing a shoe factory in Braintree; Mass. The trial lasted from 1920-1927. Convicted on circumstantial evidence; many believed they had been framed for the crime because of their anarchist and pro-union activities.
• Red Scare (1919-1920)


  Fear among many Americans after World War I of Communists in particular and noncitizens in general, a reaction to the Russian Revolution, mail bombs, strikes, and riots.
• Volstead Act (18th Amendment)


  Prohibition - jan 1920
• Antisaloon League


  In 1893, this organization became a powerful political force and by 1916 had persuaded twenty one states to close down all saloons and bars.
• Al Capone the celebrity criminal


  Interviewed by journalists

  Photographs

  Body guards and a flashy car

  Made 2 mil a week, showed off his wealth

  Employed 700 men
• Bars


  1919 - 15k

  1930 - 32k, over double
• Prohibition


  Ignored and irregularly enforced

  1500 prohibition officers - not nearly enough

  Mafia - unregulated alcohol was untaxed and required organised crime networks

  US give lost 11bil in tax revenue
• When was Roosevelt president?

  1933-1945
• dividend


  Money paid by a company to a person who owns stock in that company.
• buying on margin


  paying a small percentage of a stock's price as a down payment and borrowing the rest
• speculation


  Gambling on the stock market with borrowed money
• Wall Street Crash


  October 1929 crash of the American stock market that marked the beginning of the Great Depression.
• Effects the depression had on unemployment 1928-33


  Industrial & farm production fell by 40%

  Avg wages fell by 60%

  14mil unemployed 1933

  Hooverville
• Hoovervilles


  a shantytown built by unemployed and destitute people during the Depression of the early 1930s.

  Showed they blamed hoover for their financial distress
• Impact of Depression on farmers

  Had equipment loaned from banks and demanding money back

  - less money led to people who couldn't afford mortgages/debts, they lost farms and sacked their workers and in 1932, 1 in 20 farmers have been evicted

  100s of landowners moved away

  Headed towards farming states of California and Oregon, hoping to work on the fruit farms

  Total income reduced to 5mil
• Impact of depression on businesses

  100k went bankrupt

  International trade 10bil-3bil
• Breadlines and Soup Kitchens


  Places where people waited in line for free or low priced food during the Great Depression.
• Dust Bowl, 1935


  a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon.
• Voluntarism


  Hoover believed that individuals should help each other not rely on the gov't. There was alot of voluntarism but it wasn't enough to overcome the economic Depression
• Balancing the budget


  Ensuring government spent no more than it earned in taxes
• Hoovers actions 1930-32


  Raised tariffs, interest rates, and taxes, all lf which made depression worse