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 made in 1911, cost $1200. By 1920s, made every 10 seconds, cost $295. Half of all cars sold were Model T
• Ford employed half a million people and paid the same wages to black people and white people
• The car industry helped other industries to grow - steel, rubber, glass, leather and oil
• The construction industry was needed to build new roads for the cars
• Cars enabled people to live on the outskirts of town and commute to work, so suburbs grew
• Real wages for industrial workers grew by 26% during the 1920s
• America started new industries - artificial silk, Bakelite, electricity and cellophane
• Unemployment fell from 11.9% in 1921 to 3.2% in 1929
• Laissez-faire


  Republican governments had a policy of non interference
• They lowered taxes on incomes so people could afford to buy the new goods
• Hire purchase


  Buying on credit, paying in instalments
• 8 out of 10 radios were bought on credit
• Shares


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

  Putting down a deposit on shares and borrowing the rest
• Mass advertising was used for the first time during WW1
• The Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922 taxed foreign goods coming into America, making them expensive, but foreign governments did the same to American exports
• The Roaring Twenties


  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
• 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
• 110m Americans went to the cinema every week
• In 1926, NBC set up the first national radio network, 40% of households had a radio
• Flappers


  Young women with short, bobbed hair, wearing knee length dresses, making up, smoking and driving
• The Anti Flirt Association tried to control the 'wild' young people
• After the First World War, women were given the vote in 1920
• Most women still only had menial jobs, paid much less than men
• The divorce rate doubled, suggesting women had more choices
• 10m women had jobs by 1929, an increase of 24%
• Half of Americans were involved in farming
• Farmers grew more crops but the price of their goods fell, so they made less money and 600,000 lost their farms in 1924
• Most farmers lived in poor conditions, with diseases common
• 1m black people lost their jobs in the 1920s, they were the lowest paid and suffered from racism
• In 1919, there were 70 lynchings (hanging black people without trial)
• Older industries like coal, cotton and textiles suffered as new power sources were used