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America in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

General features of Progressivism Characterizing the beginning of the 20th century in America, progressivism was a broad social movement that started in the 1890s and lasted through World War I. The entire American nation was changed by a large number of people who decided to solve the serious social problems which they saw around them. During these few decades, women won the right to vote, working hours shortened, political systems were altered and a plurality of other reforms were put to practice, a process that can be said to have gradually reshaped the country. Progressivisms main concerns were the effects of industrialization and urbanization upon society with a focus on the urban destitute, political corruption and other similar issues. The reformers relied at the beginning heavily on voluntarism as in their optimistic, confident view, the individual was fully capable to cure societys ills. Later, the social movement turned to the authority of the state to make operative some of their reforms.

a. Economic and social aspects of life in the 1920s; Industrialism At the beginning of the 20th century, America was going through a period of economic prosperity, due mostly to considerable advances in science and industry. Telephone, telegraph, phonograph, lift, as well as various motors were just some of the items that people were becoming more and more familiar with. There was a pervasive feeling of novelty - everything seemed to be new, from the century that was just beginning to cinema, art, morality or the fast developing urban environment. Another landmark of the age was the technological manufacturing of a growing number of products (the emerging mass production) aimed at an increasing urban population which was

eager to buy them in large amounts. This gradually transformed American people into mass consumers one of the most important features of the twentieth century. This was also the time when Henry Ford started designing his first automobiles. Attracted by the idea of democratizing production, Ford applied it to his cars. His use of assembly lines presupposed the moving of an unfinished car along automated lines from one worker to the next so that each could add a part to the vehicle. This considerably speeded up production and in time resulted in a greater number of cheaper automobiles. The American economy was dominated by large trusts such as Standard Oil, American Tobacco or Du Pont. They often merged, resulting into multibillion-dollar giant corporations such as U.S Rubber, Consolidated Tobacco, etc. Such control of a commodity by a small number of powerful companies is called oligopoly. Some financial groups owned large percents of the oil business (as it was the case with Rockefellers Standard Oil), others controlled steel or the railroad industry. Trusts were sometimes accused of suppressing individual opportunity, limiting competition and imposing high prices on the market. Some key concepts in the American industry at the time were size, marketing and system. The conveyor belt (or assembly line) brought essential changes in the industry of the time. As a result, what mattered was no longer the worker but the speed of production efficiency - and the resulting product. Uniqueness stopped being an essential quality of merchandize which became cheaper and more accessible to larger numbers of people. Things were no longer hand-made, as machines started replacing skilled craftspeople in a process that gradually imposed a whole new set of values in the modern American society. It was mostly about loss of individuality in the case of both products and the workers who became just anonymous parts in an automated structure (the factory). Also, factories were controlled by managers in central offices above as the only ones to set the rhythm of production, the system gaining primacy over the individual. The workers advantage of being better paid was often eclipsed by the disadvantage of having to execute repetitive dull tasks in a process that many failed to understand and that was often dangerous. In time, this led to the alienation of individuals from their own work. Despite all these, the labor force increased enormously as more and more people left the rural areas to come to cities or left Europe to come to America and businesses expanded demanding increasing
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numbers of workers in factories and mines. Immigration rose significantly, nearly nine million immigrants arriving in the United States between 1901 and 1910 only. The kind of life that was awaiting many of these people in the big cities was far from pleasant, as jobs were often exhausting when they were available, slums were crowded and pay was not always decent. As immigration continued to increase, the arrival of waves of immigrants from Asia, Mexico or Europe speaking languages that Americans often failed to understand led to the intensification of nationalist feelings. Related to this, racial theories such as eugenics maintained that since the newly arrived Japanese, Chinese, European and Mexican immigrants were inferior to both northern Europeans and old-stock Americans, their population growth had somehow to be kept under control.

Women and children at work In so far as women are concerned, an increasing number of them worked, but since they were denied access to highly qualified professions such as medicine or science they often had to accept training in stenography or typing as well as clerical jobs. In a womans case, family was considered to be her main concern and therefore incompatible with having a profession, as womens employment was supposed to endanger their reproductive functions and even their charm. Concerning child labor at the time, many children had full time or almost full time jobs, working long hours in harsh conditions especially in the cotton mills (girls) or in mining (boys). It was women reformers leagues that effectively petitioned the authorities demanding the investigation of childrens working conditions. Unfortunately, the Congress finally succeeded in approving the national child labor law no earlier than 1930. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, life standards were high in America, partly due to the abundance of jobs. Society was a young one as great numbers of young immigrants kept coming to the United States. Living conditions having improved and medicine having made significant progress, the average life span increased. With the help of advertising, mass
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production encouraged mass consumption which contributed to the general prosperity but which was also transforming America into a consumer society.

Cities Cities developed at an amazing speed and scale, the largest ones being New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. They were organized in rings, with the central ring occupied by immigrant and working class houses. Prosperity increased as one moved towards the external circles of the grid, the suburbs being the wealthiest areas. Such a neat organization of cities was known as zoning and in time it also came to dictate the strict placement of buildings and of ethnic minorities within certain areas in the cities (keeping factories out of the suburbs, for example, but also keeping African Americans together). Leisure time. Art As life standards increased due to technology, people had more leisure time at their disposal and places of entertainment began to flourish as a result. A favorite one was the movie theatre with millions enjoying the comedies and dramas of the beginning of the 20th century. People were also able to listen to music in their own homes with the help of increasingly fashionable phonographs. With huge numbers of records being sold especially by the ever popular Columbia Records, music turned into a real business. The authentically American style of music called ragtime became a dance fad that everybody enjoyed, regardless of the social class, from office workers to members of the Rockefeller family. So was vaudeville which consisted in colorful, vivid performances by acrobats, comics, magicians, singers, etc that mass audiences simply loved. Blues and jazz were growing in popularity also due to the wide circulation of records. Jazz, representing the harmonious synthesis of African and European music, was brought to the north of the US from the New Orleans area and was to become in time one of the most popular music genres ever. More and more people had access to culture as everyone could visit art galleries, listen to music, read the new literary magazines or go to the cinema. What characterized art at the beginning of the 20th century was a feeling of novelty but also one of rebelliousness and turmoil. Greenwich Village in New York, the place where many artists,
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poets and writers were living, became the breeding ground for new ideas of experimentation and transformation in the arts. Paintings by European painters such as Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh and Brancusi were exhibited for the American public in 1913 in New York so that everybody could see them and understand the new spirit that animated modern art. Many American modernist painters amongst whom Arthur Dove, John Marin, Georgia OKeeffe - rebelled against 19th century realism, choosing instead to experiment with color and form, just as their avant-garde European confreres were doing at the time. Some of them found inspiration in the ever-changing, busy American cityscape. Reform measures: abolition of alcohol and the womens right to vote An important step taken by the social- justice reformer groups of the Progressive Age was that of pressing for the abolition of alcohol. Employers were discontent with drinking workers and so were families whose husbands would spend away their wages on spirits. Drunkenness affected a high percentage of American population. As a result of campaigns launched by various progressive unions, the Eighteen Amendment to the Constitution was issued in 1920, prohibiting the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors. The Amendment was believed to do away with social instability and morally unacceptable behavior although things proved to take a rather different course in time. In their turn, women were concerned about their rights ever since the Civil War. In time, the suffrage movement had to put up with male opposition, resistance from the Catholic Church, lack of unity and opposition from liquor interests. Without the right to vote, women who worked actively for reform were denied the power to influence elected officials to support their efforts. In 1890 two major suffrage organizations came together, unity and firm control starting to characterize the movement from that moment onwards. Invoking such reasons as the desire to create a better society through temperance, as well as their support of laws for the workers protection, a clean government and a host of other reforms, suffragettes finally succeeded in gaining the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment which was officially in force in 1920.

The political situation Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States from 1901 to 1908. He was selfconfident, frank and honest and rejected the idea of presidential isolation. Although believing in African American inferiority, he still appointed several African Americans to important federal offices and condemned lynching. He advocated a greater control of trusts and is famous for sometimes openly attacking them and even taking legal action against some of them. Faced with a complex society, Roosevelt always sought the help of professional, educated citizens to give him expert advice. Theodore Roosevelt was followed by the Republican William Howard Taft and in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson who was reelected in 1916. Just like Roosevelt, Wilson believed in strong presidential leadership. He had oratorical abilities that helped him easily communicate with the crowds. He is seen as one of the most effective presidents because of the laws that he issued. He sympathized with labor movement and defended union recognition, also supporting reform as well as womens suffrage. Still, in 1916 progressivism entered a phase of decline. Although reformers tried to solve many problems, they did not always succeed in dealing with all of them: some issues, such as race problems, were not even taken into consideration. Yet most of their reforms such as city improvements, child labor laws and direct election of candidates for governmental positions changed the American society for ever.

First World War The I World War was a complex conflict that, without taking a very long time (from 1914 to 1918), involved complicated military strategies and took part along several fronts. It resulted in enormous losses in human lives (40 million casualties) and huge economic costs. The following lines are only a very brief presentation of the American contribution to it. At the beginning of the I World War, Americans were little concerned with foreign policy. The optimistic progressive viewpoint based on confidence in human progress did not easily accept
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the idea of war. This was one of the reasons for Americas policy of isolation and avoidance of conflict in 1914. At that time, tensions were increasing in Europe. Having military pacts with Turkey and Austria-Hungary, Germany yearned to possess an empire similar to those of Britain and France. The continent was dominated by alliances between nations, such as those between Germany, Turkey and Austria-Hungary and those linking England, France and Russia. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, set the whole of Europe afire. In the shortest of times war started between the Central Powers (Germany, Turkey and Austria- Hungary) on the one hand, and the Allied Powers or Entente (Russia, England and France) on the other. The Western Front was opened by the German army by invading Belgium and Luxembourg. Its advance was stopped with the Battle of the Marne. The Western Front line of trenches stretched from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. Although there were several major offensives along this front, no important advances were made on either side of the conflicting parts. Yet, towards the end of the war it represented a decisive line as the unstoppable advance of the Allies showed the Germans that they could not avoid defeat. The eastern Front, which will not be discussed here, was a theatre of war in Central and Easter Europe. President Wilson, appalled by the news of war in Europe, took haste to declare America neutral, a decision that met the nations almost unanimous agreement. It was especially progressives who opposed the idea of America entering the war for fear this might put an end to reforms that society needed so much. While neutral, America still traded with the Germans and also with the Allies whose war orders stimulated American economy. It was mainly arms, grain and cotton that Britain and France bought from the U.S., the loans for such expenses being also provided by American bankers. This led to a significant expansion of American economy during war time. An important factor contributing to the US entry into the war was the sinking by German submarines, the famous U-boats, of the British liner Lusitania and then of Arabic which both had Americans aboard. President Wilson demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships and Germany complied. Yet U-boats continued sinking ships. Also, in 1917, the British intercepted a telegram in which the German foreign minister, Zimmermann, was asking Mexico for an alliance with Germany in case of war with the U.S. What Germany was offering in exchange was the
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recovery of certain territories that Mexico considered it had lost to the U.S. (New Mexico, Texas and Arizona) and financial support. After this episode, president Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war. The Americans entered a war that the Allies were not far from losing, at a point when Germany sank a huge number of Allied ships. Despite the all-present German U-boats, a total of 2 million men, black as well as white American soldiers, were successfully sent to Europe, the first ones arriving in France in 1917. In 1918, a massive German attack in Western Europe forced the Allies to reach the Marne River in France. But this was the moment when the Americans intervened, forcing the Germans out of an important strategic place in France (Belleau Wood). A few months later, in July, the Germans focused all their energy and determination on a last military attack on Paris but the Allies together with the Americans managed to stop them at the Marne. The Germans realized that all was already lost. That was the moment when the Allies started their counterattack along the entire front. In September 1918, 500,000 Americans and a smaller number of French soldiers drove the Germans from a place not far from Verdun, after which the Americans attacked between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest. Succeeding in cutting a railroad supply line for the Germans, the American troops drove the Germans back along the entire front. In October 1918, the Germans asked president Wilson for an armistice which they signed in November. Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were already out of the war. Although American contribution to war was small compared to that of the European nations, it was essential: apart from providing important military help, it also had benefic psychological effects on the Allies whom it encouraged not to give up fighting.

Americas economic and social situation during I WW During I WW, since Americas war expenses were enormous ($32 billion), drastic measures had to be taken by the government in order to re-organize wartime economy. Decisions were taken in every domain of the economy. People were encouraged to economize food by refraining from consuming meat and wheat during certain days of the week and also by planting their own, small
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gardens behind their houses. Prices were fixed in order to boost production. Corporations as well as employers had to pay higher taxes on their incomes. Daylight saving time was introduced and gasless days when drivers could not drive their cars were imposed in an effort to save up coal and oil which were also rationed. A newly founded Railroad Administration was in charge of rail traffic, as a result of which passenger travel got limited and arms shipments were speeded. The steel and aluminum industries developed significantly. Since government took all these decisions, thus becoming directly involved into peoples immediate lives, its authority increased and as a result peoples expectations concerning it changed. An important social phenomenon that occurred in America during I WW was related to wartime jobs. Being in urgent need of workers, labor agents encouraged black people from the South to come to the northern cities, promising them high salaries and a secure working place. Consequently, almost half a million African Americans left the South to work in cities such as Detroit, Chicago or St. Louis. They received jobs in factories, steel mills, coal mines, etc. and had to accept a style of life that was totally different from the one they had been accustomed to in the South. Being now integrated into the mass production industry with its exhausting routine and long hour programs, they often found northern cities hostile and alienating.

The Treaty of Versailles The Paris Peace Conference at the end of I WW lasted from January until May 1919. It was led by the American president Wilson, the British prime minister David Lloyd George, the Italian prime minister, and the prime minister of France. Wilson had designed a list of Fourteen Points which he would try to impose upon the Allies but they disagreed with most of them as they had their own demands after the War. Among the things that Wilson listed in his Fourteen Points were: the independence of Poland and its free access to the sea (fulfilled), the acceptance of Russia as one of the free nations and the evacuation of all Russian territories, the restoration and the evacuation of Belgium which had been occupied by the Germans.

After the IWW relationships with Russia


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Americans had a negative response to the 1917 Russian Revolution also because they dreaded Lenins anti-capitalism. President Wilsons anti-bolshevism became apparent in his sending of a great number of American troops into the Soviet Union in 1918, under the pretense of protecting Allied supplies from the Germans. In reality, being afraid that the Bolsheviks might spread their ideas and doctrine around the world, Wilson wished to force the Bolshevik government to give up ruling. Apart from taking part in an economic blockade to Russia and sending anti-Bolshevik rebels weapons, the American president refused to recognize Lenins government. Moreover, he discouraged Russian participation in the Paris Peace Conference.

The German minority in the US after I WW Back in America, First World War stirred strong anti-German feelings. Measures taken locally against German Americans showed the unpopularity of the Germans among ordinary Americans and the extent of their hatred which led to absurd vigilantism. Thus, certain schools refused to offer instruction in German, while saloonkeepers did no longer offer customers pretzels from the bar. The music of German composers such as Beethoven and Brahms was not performed for a long while in the U.S. Some German American citizens were beaten and there were also cases of lynching.

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS (1929 1936) There are multiple causes of the Great Depression or the Economic Crisis affecting America between 1929 and 1936. One of them was the sudden crash of the stock market in New York which was, broadly speaking, the result of excessive speculation. Although various signs had already been pointing to it, all possibility of decline was dismissed and no serious analyses of the underlying flaws of the market were performed. People were only concerned about buying and selling stock, confident that the market could only go up. Suddenly, on the 24th of October (Black Thursday as it was known later), stocks lost their value by almost half and the ensuing panic caused them to decrease even further. In consequence, the whole American economy was affected. Banks could no longer lend money for consumer purchases. As a result, factories had to
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reduce production, dismissing workers which in turn led to an even lower purchasing power. Eventually, some plants closed entirely. The whole situation lasted for four years. Another cause of the crisis was overproduction - the fact that people could not consume such a large amount of goods as that produced by the American factories. Even if many people still needed cars or various home appliances, they could not afford them. The reasons for this situation are complex and are related to the general decline of the world economy at the time. Anyway, in America wealth was not evenly distributed among people. Even if the factories productivity had increased for a decade, yet the workers salaries were still low, not allowing them to buy enough products. Nothing had been done to increase purchasing power, therefore production and consumption were unbalanced. During the Economic Crisis, millions lost their jobs, becoming unable to provide food and shelter for their families. Many started living in improvised houses made of wood and scrap metal, surviving on soup and beans mostly. The lines for bread lasted for hours. In the countryside, crops were abandoned in the fields, as, because of the low prices, harvesting was no longer profitable. Minorities were themselves badly affected. Many African Americans were amongst the first to lose their jobs although they had believed that their lives in the industrialised North would far better than the South they had left behind. The immigration of the Mexicans was put an end to during this period as native Americans feared they might lose their remaining jobs because of competition. Many Mexicans were even deported in the 1930s. Better adapted to living in harsh conditions, the poor were less affected by the Depression than the middle class. Having lost everything they owned, many committed suicide. The number of vagabonds increased as many Americans took to the road in the hope of finding jobs in other parts of the country. They started living in communities along the main railroads, sharing with each other everything they had. Herbert Hoover was the president of America during the Great Depression. Fully confident that the economic system would somehow recover by itself, he was unable to take bold action to stop the crisis. Generally speaking, he was against the idea of direct federal help which he saw as opposing the principles of American independence and pride. Still, he adopted some (but very
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few) federal projects for public works to provide jobs for the unemployed. As a result of Hoover administrations failure to overcome Depression, banks came very close to a generalised crisis.

F. D. Roosevelt and New Deal The new president elected in1933 was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. An educated man and a Democrat with a strong, decisive personality, Roosevelt decided that it was high time he put an end to the disastrous economic situation. The system of measures taken by him are known as the New Deal and supposed a program of government action that, even if moderate, would restore the economic system in America without radically changing it. The first set of initiatives he took included the very ambitious Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA sought to bring prosperity in the very poor area along the Tennessee Valley which crosses North Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. Here as well as in other states several dams were built which produced electricity and also helped control floods. Some other New Deal programs were intended to restore American industry and agriculture. The National Recovery Administration (NRA), for example, encouraged companies to set realistic limits for production and firm rules for prices. Maximum working hours and a clear limit for minimum wages were established as well as unions that would ensure collective bargaining. Yet, the NRA did not prove very successful in the end. On the one hand, minimum wages were so low that many workers could barely survive on them. On the other hand, unions did not represent the real needs of workers as they were created by companies. In so far as farms in the rural areas were concerned, the problem of overproduction was partially solved by setting limits of production for the main crops (cotton, wheat, corn). Farmers were also encouraged to take land out of production which resulted in smaller harvests which in turn led to an increase in farm prices. Subsidy payments were also provided. On the whole, farm income rose from $2 billion in 1933 to $5 billion in only two years. Those who benefited most from the program were the large farms rather than the small ones. Affording the necessary machinery as well as fertilizer, they were able to develop a system of efficient farming even on less land. Many small farmers saw themselves forced to leave for the cities. Other attempts at economic
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restoration were made by offering loans which, even if they enabled tenants to buy land of their own, still proved insufficient. The situation was much better in the urban areas where large amounts of money ($500 million) were given through direct federal support to those in need unemployed and destitute citizens. Another very important program was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which recruited young males from cities and sent them to work on the public lands where they planted trees, built bridges and paved roads amongst other things. As a result, they were able to help both their own families, who were receiving state assistance because of need, and the nation. Later on, through the Civil Works Administration (CWA) that Roosevelt created, a few million people, even if some of them unskilled, built roads, schools and playgrounds. Despite Roosevelts efforts, he could not completely overcome depression. His greatest mistake was that of not spending enough, although many critics accused him of spending too much. Because of this, people were still unable to purchase enough consumer goods to set American economy back to motion. Some more radical measures were therefore necessary such as the corporations, labor unions and farm groups demanded. Roosevelt decided to adopt more effective reforms.

Roosevelt and reform At the beginning of the 20th century, America was the only modern industrialized country that did not possess a welfare system to care for the disabled, the aged and the unemployed. This is why of the series of reforms designed by Roosevelt in 1935, the Social Security Act was one of the most important. Through it, elderly people were given pensions financed by a tax on employers and workers. The blind, the handicapped, and dependent children received in their turn payments provided through direct federal aid to the states. Yet, not everybody was included in the system: some of those who needed it most, such as farmers and domestic servants or nurses were not taken into account. All these were jobs dominated by minorities or women. The other important reform passed in 1935 was the National Labor Relations Act (or the Wagner Act) which ensured collective bargaining for unions. The Wagner Act stated that, provided that
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the majority of workers in a company voted for a union to represent them, the management had to negotiate with the respective union on all matters concerning working conditions as well as wages. Such a measure, apart from being very popular, also gave new life to the American labor movement leading to a permanent change in relationships between labor and management.

Racial minorities and New Deal Although they were most affected by the economic crisis, minorities of all kinds were not seriously taken into consideration by the New Deal. Many African American left the rural South hoping that the wealthy cities in the North would provide different life standards but they were the first to lose their jobs when it came to making redundancies. Also, since a great percentage of African Americans worked as farmers or domestic servants, hey were not taken into account by Social Security system. Yet, many blacks worked for the Public Works Administration where they had construction jobs, they taught or occupied artistic positions. During New Deal, 40 percent of the American blacks received some form of help, which is more than any other president since Lincoln had done for them. Yet, New Deal never attacked the concept of racial difference that generates injustice. Mexican Americans had an even more difficult situation. As most of them were engaged in the farming system, the disastrous situation of agriculture during the Depression deeply affected them. Some Mexican Americans were even shipped back to Mexico. Yet some of them still received work as part of the Public Works Administration programs but only before 1937. New Deal came to an end in 1936 with Roosevelts reelection.

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