Politics and Prosperity
New Ways of Life
Roaring Twenties
Nation Divided
Politics and Prosperity

Republicans in Office

 Recession sets in
 Economy booms
during war, now less
demand
 2 million soldiers
returning – jobs?
 Harding takes office
 Pro-business
 Corruption and
scandals
 “Ohio Gang”
 “Teapot Dome”
 Coolidge takes office
 “Silent Cal”
Harding Administration

 “return to normalcy”
 Landslide victory
 Scandals!
 Teapot Dome
 Attny Gen. – accepted
bribes
 Often considered one of
worst presidents
 Few good things
 Treaty to repay Columbia
for Panama
 Pardon of Eugene Debs &
other protesters
1.
2.
3.
4.
What were Harding’s goals?
How did the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 change government?
What was a foreign policy success of Harding?
What ruined Harding’s reputation?
Coolidge
Administration

 Harding dies, VP
Coolidge is Pres
 “Cool Cal” or “Silent Cal”
 Restored integrity to WH
 “The business of
Americans is business”
 Lower taxes
 Spoke for civil rights
 Economic prosperity
 Kellogg-Briand Pact 1929
1. What is a unique characteristic of Coolidge?
2. What were Coolidge’s budget goals/actions?
3. Why did Coolidge miss the signs of economic trouble?
Hoover Administration

 Efficiency Movement
 Encouraged volunteerism
over regulation
 End Roosevelt corollary &
reduce intervention in Latin
Amer.
 Called for a halt to
reparation payments from
Germany “Hoover
Moratorium”
 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in
1930
 Depression hit…
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Act, 1930

FOR
 Protect American
workers and farmers
AGAINST
 Undermine
commitment to
international
cooperation
 Trade wars
The tariff failed – exports dropped by 61% and
imports dropped by 66%. It quadrupled the
cost of some 3200 items. It helped ruin the
world economy.
Similarities Among the Republican
Administrations of the 1920s

 Laissez-faire economic policy
 Pro-business
 People responsible for themselves
 Small gov’t
 Generally isolationist foreign policy
 Conciliatory
 Utilized new media to communicate – radio, film
New Ways of Life

Increased Standard of
Living

 By 1929 annual average
wages increased from
$500 to $700 a year
 Typical worker made
$5 a day (up from $1 a
day previous decade)
Increase in the standard of
living

CAUSES
 Cheap food prices from
highly productive farms
(WW 1)
 Easy credit for mortgages
and consumer products
 Wages rose during the war
and continued
 Technology
 Cars
 Create jobs for roads, motels,
service stations, etc
 Mass production
EFFECTS
 Culture of consumerism
is born
 Borrowing beyond means
 Weak regulation = weak
banks and corrupt
financial dealings
 Stock market crash 1929
Prohibition

Evading the law
Rise of organized crime
repeal
Economic Effects of
Prohibition

 illegal market for the
production, trafficking
and sale of alcohol.
 economy took a major
hit, thanks to lost tax
revenue and legal jobs.
 Prohibition nearly
ruined the country's
brewing industry.
Social Effects of
Prohibition

 Deaths caused by cirrhosis
of the liver in men dropped
 Contaminated liquor …
>50,000 deaths & many
cases of blindness and
paralysis.
 Alcohol consumption
during Prohibition
declined between 30 and 50
percent.
 By the end of the 1920s =
were more alcoholics and
illegal drinking
establishments than before
Prohibition
 Rise in organized crime
Political Effects of
Prohibition

 Bootlegging
 No means nor desire to
enforce
 Corruption – organized
crime
Roaring Twenties

New Fads & Fashions

 Following latest fads
 Dance crazes
 Flagpole sitting
 Dance marathons
 Flappers
 Rebellious young
women
Fads

 Flapppers
 Jazz
 Dance marathons
 Pole sitting
Rights for Women

 Women voters
 Equal rights
amendment
 Changes for working
women
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Changing Social
behavior

Decrease birth rate
Increase divorce rate
Un-chaperoned dating
More permissive society in
general – flappers, youth
culture
Women enter workforce and
can vote
Friendship in marriage
matters
New inventions change home
life
First time 50% live in cities
Greater diversity in cities
Harlem Renaissance

 Writers, artists, jazz
and blues musicians
 Langston Hughes
 Bessie Smith
 The Cotton Club
 Duke Ellington
Jazz Age

 Jazz
 New Orleans
 West African rhythms,
African American work
songs & spirituals,
European harmonies
 Louis Armstrong
 Conservatives: it’s a
bad influence!
Automobile

 Cheaper cars = more cars
 Created jobs

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Auto production
Parts
Maintenance
Roads
Oil
Motels and restaurants
Growth of suburbs
Women drivers
New mass culture as ppl
less localized
Mass Culture

Radio
Movies
Motion Pictures & radio

 Radio in every home
 Hollywood
 Silent films until 1927
 Mass culture
 Avg movie goer once a
week
Heroes

 Bobby Jones – golf
 Bill Tilden & Helen
Willis – tennis
 College football
 Baseball!!
 Babe Ruth
 Charles Lindbergh
A Nation Divided

Red Scare

Hunting up radicals
Sacco and Vanzetti
Intolerance and
Xenophobia

1. immigration
policy,
2. KKK
membership,
3. eugenics
movement,
4. Sacco and
Vanzetti trial
Race Relations deteriorate

 New Klan
 Racial tensions north
 Marcus Garvey

Perils of Prosperity

Trouble on the farm
 Overproduction =
prices drop
 Prices drop = farmers
cannot make enough to
repay debts
 By end 1920s, farmer’s
share of national
income shrunk by 1/2
Setbacks for labor
 During war, inflation ahead
of wages
 OK with unions for war
effort
 After war – want raises –
managers say no – strikes
 Violence turns public opinion
against strikers
 Fear of Communists
 Union membership drops
 5 million in 1920
 3.4 million in1929
Limiting Immigration

 Quota system
 Emergency Quota Act
1921
 Favored immigrants
from Northern
Europe
 No Asians!
 Newcomers from Latin
America
Scopes Trial

 Clash between
old and new
values
 Dayton, TN
 1925 John Scopes
 William Jennings
Bryan
 Clarence Darrow
Election of 1928

Al Smith
 Catholic
 NY
 City values
 Reveals tensions in
American life beneath
surface
 Won the 12 largest
cities
Herbert Hoover
 Self-made millionaire
 Mid-west
 Big business and rural
Americans support
 Landslide victory
Stock Market Crash 1929

CAUSES
 Speculation
 Buying on margin
 Loose regulation
 Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Act
EFFECTS
Precipitated bank crisis
contraction of credit,
business closures,
firing of workers,
bank failures,
decline of the money
supply,
 Decline of consumer
purchasing
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