PERIOD 7 Part II
4) The Twenties
● Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” meant return to ​
laissez faire government and pro-business Republican ​
leadership
“The Business of America is Business” - Business Prosperity and Consumer Economy
Increased productivity due to efficiency of Progressive Era and new inventions like the assembly line
Leads to a new ​
Consumer economy ​
which also was fed by easy credit policies, the ability to buy on credit, and a rising
advertising industry
The automobile was a key promoter of economic growth and fed into all of the other trends occurring in the era shopping, traveling for pleasure, commuting (esp. from growing suburbs)
● Farm Problems - farmers never saw the prosperity of the 1920s - had borrowed to expand during the war; left with a lot of debt;
because of increased production during the industrial era (due to mechanization of farm equipment etc) farmers had difficulty with
falling prices and massive amounts of debt
● Values in conflict: ​
modernity v. tradition
→​
Secularism vs. Fundamentalism (ie. Scopes Trial )
→ Prohibition v. speakeasies, bootlegging, and gangsters
→ Nativism (the new KKK, Immigration quotas, Sacco and Vanzetti executions) v. growing diversity and cultural movements, ie.
Harlem Renaissance
● Other cultural developments in the 20s: consumer culture, the flapper, new technologies, new forms of entertainment (the Jazz Age),
spectator sports, the Harlem Renaissance, the Lost Generation (the name refers to the disillusionment felt after WWI; group of writers
who condemned the sacrifices of war as fraudulent, perpetuated by money interests, critical of materialism of the new business
culture
● With regard to foreign policy, the US took a largely ​
isolationist positio​
n during the 1920s and thd 1930s (response to WWII)
5) The Great Depression and the New Deal
CAUSES:​
Uneven distribution of income, stock market speculation, Overproduction, weak farm economy, laissez faire government policies,
global economic problems (ie. Dawes Plan to help cycle of debt in Europe), Wall Street crash (short term spark)
● Hoover’s response:
Belief in rugged individualism made Hoover hesitant to provide government aid
Hawley Smoot Tariff was meant to help business - instead deepened economic difficulties
Reconstruction Finance Corp. - Government money to big businesses and banks to stimulate economy and stabilize these
key businesses, which would then “trickle down” to smaller businesses
By 1932 Hoover was very unpopular - Americans used his name derogatorily ie. “Hoovervilles” and ​
the Bonus Army
March​
(WWI vets demanding their bonuses early) highlighted growing social unrest
● FDR and the First New Deal
→ FDR expanded the size of the federal government and presidential powers tremendously
→ New Deal philosophy based on “Relief, Recovery, Reform” reflected at first in his First Hundred Days
ie. FDIC (bank insurance), AAA (paid farmers to underproduce) , TVA (dams and electricity in poorest areas of
Appalachia), CCC (young men plant trees, improve park lands, etc)
● Second New Deal -​
more far-reaching than the first
→ WPA - largest scale public works projects ever; Social Security; Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)
→ Wagner Act and the NIRA led to increases in union membership and the rise of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organization), an
industrial union which joined the AFL (skilled workers) to form the AFL-CIO
● Critics of FDR
→ From the Right - attacked New Deal for giving govt to much power (this claim was exacerbated by FDR’s court packing scheme);
argued programs such as the WPA and labor laws bordered on socialism or communism; business leaders complained about
increased regulations, the New Deal’s pro-union stance and deficit financing (Keynesian economics)
→ From the Left - Socialist and other leftist Americans criticized the New Deal for doing too much for business and too little for
the unemployed and poor, ie. Huey Long (who proposed his “Share Our Wealth” program)
● The Dust Bowl ​
- severe drought, poor farming practices, high winds on top of depression made for very difficult circumstances in the
Great Plains (captured in the Steinbeck novel, The Grapes of Wrath)
● The New Deal Coalition​
- alignment of political interest groups supporting the New Deal and the Democratic party (under FDR and into
the future) : labor unions and blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious) who benefited from increased social
programs, farmers, white Southerners and intellectuals
6) World War II
● As fascism and militarism grew abroad, the US took an isolationist position through the 1920s and 30s (in large part an effect of WWI)
Isolationists pushed for Neutrality Acts (1935-37) to ensure that US would not get pulled into the conflict
● Breakdown of Neutrality: FDR’s Quarantine Speech 1937, outbreak of war in Europe 1939 (invasion of Poland), US added cash and
carry laws to neutrality acts 1940; FDR passed a peacetime draft, FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech, Lend Lease Act 1941, Atlantic Charter
drawn up by FDR and Churchill
● Bombing Pearl Harbor is what ultimately pushes US into war
● Atom bomb debate - Was the use of the atom bomb justified?​
(reference Socratic Seminar handouts)
● Social Impact of War on African Americans (start of Civil Rights movement - ie. Double Victory Campaign), Women (Rosie the Riveter),
Mexican Americans working in the West during the war stirred white resentment leading to the Zoot-Suit Riots), Japanese Americans
(Internment camps declared Constitutional in the​
Korematsu v. US case​
)
● Legacy of WWII:
Most devastating war
United Nations
US one of two world superpowers (USSR)
Cold War