Contents

Introduction

Core Topics
1

Were the peace treaties of 191923 fair?

To what extent was the League of Nations a success?

Why had international peace collapsed by 1939?

Who was to blame for the Cold War?

How effectively did the USA contain the spread of Communism?

How secure was the USSRs control over Eastern Europe, 1948c.1989?

How effective has the United Nations Organisation been?

Options
8

Germany, 191845

Russia, 190541

10 The USA,191941
11 China, 1945c.1990
12 Southern Africa in the 20th century
13 Israelis and Palestinians, 1945c.1994
14 How to succeed in IGCSE History

Whats on the CD-ROM?

Past papers and model answers

Revision checklists

Timelines of key events

Glossary

Contents

III

10

The USA, 191941

Introduction
During the 1920s the majority of Americans were able to enjoy the highest
standard of living ever seen. A startling array of consumer goods was available
and recreation time was enriched by the expansion of the leisure industries
such as cinema, radio, and sport. America appeared afuent and unstoppable
in its search for material improvement. Yet alongside these new-found riches
there was poverty, intolerance, and unprecedented levels of organised crime.
America was a country of stark contrasts.
The economic bubble burst in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash which signalled
the beginning of a nationwide slump that spread worldwide. Unemployment
soared and the hopes of the post-war generation were dashed. Roosevelts
NewDeal was a brave attempt to rescue America from this economic catastrophe,
but it proved only partially successful. Full economic recovery was not achieved
until the Second World War.
The aims of this chapter are to:

246

Look at the expansion of the US economy during the 1920s including mass
production in the car and consumer durables industries, the fortunes of older
industries, the development of credit and hire purchase, and the decline of
agriculture as well as looking at weaknesses in the economy by the late 1920s.

Consider society in the 1920s by examining the Roaring Twenties, lm and

other media, Prohibition and gangsterism, race relations, discrimination
against black Americans, the Ku Klux Klan, and the changing roles of women.

Examine the Wall Street Crash and its nancial, economic, and social eects, as
well as the reaction of President Hoover to the Crash.

Look at the Presidential election of 1932 including Hoovers and Roosevelts

programmes, Roosevelts inauguration, and the Hundred Days.

Consider the New Deal legislation, the alphabet agencies and their work, and
the economic and social changes they caused as well as opposition to the New
Deal among the Republicans, the rich, business interests, the Supreme Court,
and radical critics like Huey Long.

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the New Deal programme in dealing
with unemployment and the Depression.

The USA, 191941

How far did the US economy boom

in the 1920s?
FP

On what factors was the economic boom based?

Americas economic boom of the 1920s had solid foundations extending
back to the nineteenth century. By 1900 America was already one of the
worlds leading producers of oil, coal, iron, steel, engineering products, and
textiles. These thriving basic industries provided an excellent platform for
latereconomic growth.
The First World War presented the US with increased opportunities for export
as the warring European nations were unable to trade with their colonies and
required supplies of food, raw materials, and military equipment. Whereas
Germany, Britain, and France were exhausted by the war, the American
economy emerged strong and reinvigorated. But there were other factors
thatunderpinned the economic advances of the 1920s.
Invention and
innovation

Electrication

Mass production

The motor industry

Mass-marketing

Bakelite
An early plastic that did not conduct
electricity and was resistant to heat. As
a result of these properties it was used
in products such as saucepan handles
and electrical plugs and switches.
Line production
Most manufactured articles are the
result of a number of production tasks
or processes. In line production these
actions are performed in sequence
by specialist workers or tools as the
product passes through the factory.

After 1917 there were a number of important breakthroughs involving new products and
meansof production.

The building industry beneted from new machines such as concrete mixers, pneumatic
tools,and power shovels.

Communications were speeded up by automatic switchboards, dial phones, and teletype

machines.

Advances in chemicals and synthetics brought rayon, Bakelite, and cellophane into common use.

The widespread availability of electricity meant that homes and industry now had a clean,
cheap, and ecient power source.

Domestic appliances powered by electricity such as fridges, washing machines, and vacuum
cleaners became aordable to ordinary Americans.

This was made possible by adapting the line production techniques of a Chicago
slaughterhouse.

Henry Ford used assembly line production in the manufacture of cars but the same techniques
were applied to the production of many other items from radios to cigarette lighters.

Mass production led to a fall in prices.

The motor car was central to Americas economic success.

By 1929 one American in ve owned a car compared to one in forty-three in Britain.

The car industry, which employed up to half a million workers, stimulated road and hotel
construction, the building of roadside lling stations, and the development of suburbs
andholidayresorts.

It also boosted a range of other associated industries: plate glass, rubber, steel, leather,
andupholstery.

Mass production required ways of mass selling and advertising became a major industry
duringthe 1920s.

Commercials were devised for the radio and the cinema while giant posters pasted onto
billboards became a familiar sight along the highways. Magazines, newspapers, and mail
ordercatalogues were also used to promote the new merchandise.
(table continued)
Chapter 10

247

Hire purchase

Government policy

Customers who could not aord to buy a product outright were able to pay by instalments
under a hire purchase agreement.

Since the cost of living was falling for many Americans, with wages rising and both food and
manufactured goods becoming cheaper, this seemed a sensible way to buy.

The Republican governments of the 1920s followed nancial policies that were considered
favourable to business: low taxation, high taris and an absence of regulation or government
intervention. This policy is sometimes known as laissez-faire.

Table 10.1

Taris
Cars
1919

Taris are taxes on imports. The eect

is to raise the price of the imported
item making it more expensive. Taris
are used partly to raise money and
partly to protect home industries from
foreign competition.

1929

9 million

26 million
Radios

1920

1929

60,000

10 million

1930

2
1

6
7
8

10 million

20 million
Fridges

1921

1929

For every one...

there were 167

Fig. 10.1 Sales of consumer goods, 191530

248

The USA, 191941

7
9

6
2
1

5
3

5
6

19213

Calvin Coolidge

19239

Herbert Hoover

192933

Table 10.2 Republican Presidents

ofthe USA, 192133

Telephones
1915

Warren Harding

FP

Why did some industries prosper while others did not?

While the 1920s saw economic expansion in many industries, some went into
decline. Overall growth never affects every part of the economy in the same
way. The increase in car ownership, for example, had a negative impact on the
number of people travelling by train. In general, the new industries ourished
while the traditional industries declined, but this was not always the case.
Steel, oil, and construction, for example, continued to expand during the
1920s even though they were all well-established industries.
Building and construction
The 1920s were the golden age of building and construction in America as
new businesses required factories, ofces, shops, and showrooms connected by
new roads. Many skyscraper projects were designed during this time including
New Yorks Chrysler Building and the 102-storey Empire State Building, both
completed during the early 1930s. Less eye-catching was the increase in the
number of homes, schools, hospitals, and other public buildings.
Cotton and woollen textiles
The general increase in the standard of living coupled with the increase in
the number of shops and department stores meant that there was increased
demand for clothes. But since these were often manufactured from synthetic
bres such as rayon and celanese (articial silk) there was actually less demand
for cotton and woollen textiles. The problem for the traditional textile industry
was made worse by the change in fashionsshorter hemlines for womens
skirts and dresses meant that less material was used. Textile operatives in the
cotton and woollen industries were among the lowest paid factory workers.
Steel
The steel industry did not share the fate of some other older industries, partly
because of the demands of the car industry which used 20 per cent of steel
output. Other demand came from the building industry which required steel
girders, while most new industries were equipped with machinery that made
use of steel or used steel components in its products.

Fig. 10.2 Construction workers attaching steel

beams to the framework of the Manhattan
Company Building, 1930s

Chapter 10

249

Coal
As with textiles the coal industry suffered from overproduction. Oil, gas, and
electricity were increasingly used as alternatives both in domestic homes and
in industrial premises. Existing users of coal could often burn the fuel more
efciently, so adding to the reduction in demand. The industry was plagued
bywage cuts, pit closures, and strike action.
Motor cars
This was the undoubted success story of the 1920s. The industry was dominated by
three rms: Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. Henry Ford led the eld, reducing
the cost of his Model T from $850 in 1908 to $290 in the 1920s. This was made
possible through the achievement of high volume sales15 million Model T Fords
had been manufactured by 1927. Workers at Fords Detroit factory were paid high
wages but they had to sign agreements to say that they would not join unions.

SOURCE 2

SOURCE 1

Fig. 10.3 The 15 millionth Model T Ford

car coming o the production line at
the Dearborn factory, May1927

Henry Ford writing about the Model T Ford car, 1922.

I will build a car for the great multitude ... It will be constructed of the
best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that
modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man
making a good salary will be unable to own oneand enjoy with his family
the blessing of hours of pleasure in Gods great open spaces.
Alistair Cooke writing about the Model T Ford car, 1973. Alistair Cooke was a
British/American journalist, television personality, and broadcaster. He spent
much of his life reporting on aspects of American life for the BBC.

It is staggering to consider what the Model T was to lead to in both industry and
folkways. It certainly wove the rst network of paved highways ... Beginning
in the early 1920s, people who had never taken a holiday ... could now explore
the South, New England, even the West, and in time the whole horizon of the
United States. Most of all, the Model T gave to the farmer and rancher, miles
from anywhere, a new pair of legs.

DISCUSSION
1. How useful is Source 1 as evidence of the qualities of the Model T Ford car?
2. What impact did the Model T Ford car have on the lives of the American people
according to the writer in Source 2?

250

The USA, 191941

FP

Why did agriculture not share in the prosperity?

The most striking example of an industry that was unable to share in the
prosperity of the 1920s was agriculture which employed more than a quarter
of the working population. During the First World War American agriculture
had boomed as grain from the Midwestern and southern states had been
exported to Europe. With the aid of new machinery, such as combine
harvesters, production increased, prices rose, and American farmers were
able to make substantial prots. But the good times came to an abrupt end
following the armistice.
Why was this?
There were a number of reasons that agriculture missed out on the growth
experienced elsewhere.

Demobilisation in Europe meant that former agricultural workers returned

to their farms and began producing food again. American imports were no
longer needed.

American tariffs made selling to Europe even more difcult. European

countries found it hard to sell in American markets thereby earning the
dollars with which to purchase American produce.

American agriculture also began facing competition from Canada and

Argentina who began supplying grain to the world markets.

American patterns of food consumption were changing. An increasingly

prosperous population preferred more luxurious foods, such as fresh fruit
and vegetables, to cereal products. Furthermore, the banning of alcohol
under the Prohibition laws meant that the consumption of barley in
making beer fell by 90 per cent.

All this meant that American agriculture was suffering from overproduction
and prices fell. Prots were squeezed and many small farmers could no longer
afford their rents or mortgage payments. Evictions and forced sales followed.
There were one million fewer farms in 1930 than in 1920.
It was the small farmers and labourers who suffered the most. The larger
operators, equipped with modern machinery, were still able to make prots.
These included some of the fruit growers of California and Florida together
with the cereal farmers of the Midwest.
The plight of the farming sector was bad for the whole economy. This was
partly because so many Americans, approaching half the total population, lived
in rural areas with their livelihoods dependent on the well-being of the farming
community. As agricultural incomes dropped, so demand for manufactured
goods dropped also, creating unemployment in the industrial areas.
FP

Did all Americans benet from the boom?

We have already seen how the economic boom failed to improve the lives of
farmers and agricultural labourers and those who worked in certain traditional
industries such as coal and textiles.
Unemployment was an obvious problem but low wages also prevented
a signicant part of the labour force from joining in the new prosperity.

Chapter 10

251

12
10
Percentage

Female cotton operatives, for example, could be

paid as little as $9 a week at a time when $48 was
considered to be the minimum necessary to maintain
a basic standard of living. Estimates of the number
of Americans living beneath the poverty line vary,
but some put it as high as 60 per cent of American
families in the late 1920s. In addition to the groups
already mentioned were three particularly vulnerable
groups in society who found it difcult to nd work.

8
6
4
2
0
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
Year

Black Americans

Fig. 10.4 American unemployment 19209

Until the end of the First World War the population

of black Americans was concentrated in the states
of the South such as Texas and Louisiana. Here they worked as labourers
or sharecroppers. With the onset of the agricultural slump of the 1920s,
approximately 750000 of these black workers were laid off by their white
landlords. Those who remained experienced poverty and extreme forms of
racial discrimination.

Many took the decision to try to nd alternative work in the northern cities.
While the cities provided greater employment opportunities many of the jobs
available were in the lowest paid sectors: domestic service, casual labouring,
and building work. Most of the new industries which offered higher wages
operated a whites-only employment policy. Blacks met with considerable
discrimination, especially with regards to housing where they were segregated
into slum areas such as Harlem in New York. It is fair to say that the vast
majority of black Americans were excluded from the benets of the boom.
Native Americans
During the nineteenth century, American Indians had been gradually forced off
their land and by the early 1920s were living in reservations specially provided
for them by the American government. The reservations were located in areas
with poor soil so that growing crops was difcult. Those who remained on
the reservations lived a primitive way of life compared to western standards,
suffering from poverty, poor education, and ill health. Those who left and
tried to mix with white society met with prejudice and discrimination, nding
that the main job opportunities lay with low-paid work. As with the black
Americans, the new prosperity largely passed them by.
New immigrants
With the exception of the American Indians, America is an immigrant society.
The population arrived from Europe and elsewhere over three centuries. The
earliest immigrants, largely from northern Europe and Scandinavia, together
with their descendants, came to resent the later waves of immigration from
southern and eastern Europe and Russia. The new immigrants found that only
the lowest-paid jobs were available to them and as with the black Americans
and American Indians they suffered from discrimination on account of their
religion (many were Jews or Catholics), lack of education, and ability to drive
down wages. Unemployment rates among new immigrants remained high
throughout the 1920s.

252

The USA, 191941

Sharecropper
An agricultural worker who passes on
a share of his crop to the landowner
inreturn for land to farm.

How far did US society change in

the1920s?
FP

What were the Roaring Twenties?

America in the 1920s was not just a land of economic prosperity. For a
minority it was a country of glamour, glitz, and partying. This life of excess
and frivolity was projected across the nation through the mass media so that
few Americans were totally unaware of the new age and the daring new ways
of the younger generation. This was the decade of short skirts and make-up,
bobbed hair, cocktail drinks, nightclubs, the Charleston, the saxophone, jazz,
and Hollywood. In many ways it was a time of rebellion against the starchiness
of nineteenth century standards of dress, morals, and social behaviour. But
millions of Americans were envious or disapproving spectators of the racy
lifestyles enjoyed by the young, rich city-dwellers. The Roaring Twenties
wasmore an image than a reality for the majority of the population.
Movies

Jazz

Radio

Cars

Cinema provided an opportunity for escapism for many Americans and audiences more than doubled
during the 1920s reaching 95 million in 1929.

Hollywood launched stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolf
Valentinowho became some of the worlds rst celebrities.

Talkies arrived in 1927 and millions ocked to watch and hear Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.

The hairstyles, clothes, make-up, perfumes, and mannerisms of the stars were copied by
impressionable Americans.

There were concerns, however, that lms were corrupting public morals so the industry introduced a code
ofpractice which, among other restrictions, limited the length of on-screen kisses and banned nudity.

Jazz music was the popular music of the 1920s giving rise to the term Jazz Age.

Along with Blues music it originated in the African American community of the south. It was often performed
by black musicians who had migrated to the northern cities of New York, Philadelphia, andChicago.

Jazz was linked to dance music and led to the formation of many nightclubs such as the Cotton Club of
Harlem, New York which launched the career of Duke Ellington.

Jazz appealed to young whites who found it exciting, dynamic, and modern. Older Americans found it
threatening as it broke with tradition and was seen as a corrupting inuence.

By 1930, 40 per cent of American households possessed a radio.

The rst national network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), was set up in 1926 following the
establishment of more than 500 local commercial radio stations.

Radio was used to broadcast light musical entertainment to a mass audience, producing the age of the
great dance bands. Orchestras led by Joe Candullo, Meyer Davis, and Jean Goldkette would play tunes
such as Swanee River Blues, Black Bottom or Gimme A Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?

Radio also provided a fresh start for some of the artists such as comedians, impersonators,
instrumentalists, and vocalists of the declining vaudeville or variety theatres.

The car made possible much of the activity that characterised the Roaring Twenties by giving many
Americans a freedom of movement they had never known before.

It provided an easy means of visiting clubs, cinemas, and restaurants and created opportunities for
takingday trips and other holidays.

Table 10.3

Chapter 10

253

 Fig. 10.5 Poster for The Jazz Singer, 1927

Fig. 10.7 Advertisement for a Buick car, 1928

254

The USA, 191941

Fig. 10.6 King Olivers Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong kneeling in the centre
foreground, 1920s

KEY POINTS
O The economic boom of the 1920s: why it happened, its main features and
why it did not benet all industries and all Americans.
O Social changes in the 1920s including intolerance, Prohibition and the
apparent revolution in the role of women.
O The causes and economic and social consequences of the Wall Street Crash.
O The 1932 Presidential election.
O The New Deal: what was it, how was it introduced, why did it give rise to
erce opposition, why did it fail to eliminate unemployment, how successful
was it?

Revision tips

272

The role of the automobile industry and mass production is a particular

favourite when questions are set on the 1920s boom. Remember that the
term boom is a generalisation and there were plenty of exceptions including
agriculture and the older industries.

You must be familiar with the nature of the Roaring Twenties. But, as
with changes in the role of women, you must appreciate that it affected
a tiny minority in American society. Most Americans were not partying
throughout the 1920s and most young American women remained unliberated.

You must understand why America sometimes appeared an intolerant society

during the 1920s. Why did the WASPS feel so threatened and how did they
try to preserve their supremacy? Questions on Prohibition are popular and
you need to know why it was introduced, how it affected American society
and why it was repealed after 13 years.

The Wall Street Crash does not need to be a difficult topic. Remember
that Wall Street was simply a market place for company shares. Try to
work out what types of American would (a) lose heavily (b) remain largely
unaffected and (c) gain from the Crash. What is the difference, if any,
between the Crash and the onset of depression?

When answering questions on why Roosevelt won the 1932 Presidential

election remember that the outcome reflected Hoovers weaknesses as well as
Roosevelts strengths.

Questions on the New Deal are very common and there is a lot of detail
to master. Dont let this overwhelm you. Break it up into manageable
sections such as the First Hundred Days or Second New Deal and so on.
Keep on going back over material you have already revised. Only rarely does
information sink in thoroughly after one reading. Detail is important but
so also is the big picture. Make sure that at the end of your revision
you are equipped to answer the general questions on the New Deal such as
whether it was an overall success or failure.

The USA, 191941