1920s USA Boom

1920s USA Boom

1. Racism

   • KKK
     • Public Hangings
     • 500,000 members by 1925
   • Asians not aloud into US
   • Segregation widely used
     • Libraries, Buses, Hotels
   • Race Riot
     • Oklahoma, 1921
     • 25 Blacks and 9 Whites killed
   • Black and immigrant workers missed out on prosperity

2. Goverment

   • Republican
     • 1921-33
   • Kept taxes low
   • Calvin Coolidge
     • Laissez faire
       • No interfering with Business
   • Warren Harding
     • Fordney- MCcumber act
       • Added taxes on non- American products
       • 1922
   • Herbert Hoover
     • Rugged Individualism

3. New Technology

   • Factories became automated
     • Huge amount of goods, Fraction of time/price
     • Economic output up by 50%
   • Radios
     • 12 million households had one by the end of the 20's
   • Cars
     • 1 for every 5 people in 1929

4. Jazz

   • Cars let people travel to clubs
   • Dances
     • The Charleston
       • Widely known
     • The black botttom
   • Popular among the younger generation mainly
   • Some older people objected to it 'Vulgarity'

5. Prohibition

   • Volstead act
     • Banned alchol
     • Shut bars
     • January 16th 1920
   • Speakeasies
     • Illegal bars
     • Ran by gangsters

6. Women

   • More sexually free
     • Increased Birth control
   • 'Unladylike'
   • Flappers
     • Short hair and skirts
     • Drinks and smokes
   • New technology brought housework down

7. Hire Purchase

   • Aided Consumer boom
   • Times were good
     • No worries about keeping payments up
   • Highly Advertised

8. Henry Ford

   • Aimed to provide affordable cars
   • 1908- $850
   • 1925- $290
   • Production line
     • Lots of workers
       • $5 a day wage
   • Led to production of more roads
     • More jobs!

9. Farmers

   • Suffered due to over-production
   • Dust-Bowls of 1930
   • Not feeling the boom
     • In 1928 half of all US Farmers were living in poverty
   • Products like milk worthless
     • Paid by the government to produce less

10. Advertising

    • Catalogue shopping introduced
    • New Products
    • Lots of different Medias
      • Radio
      • Roadside
      • Newspaper

11. Core Goods

    • Used as supplies to create other products
    • Plentiful
    • Coal
    • Oil

12. WW1 Effect

    • Loans back from Europe
    • Plenty of money for investment
    • Good position in comparison to Europe

13. Cinema

    • 100,000,000 cinema tickets brought a week
    • Age of cinema
    • Stars
      • Charlie Chaplin
      • Rudolf Valentino
    • 1928- First Takie
      • The Jazz Singer

14. Shares

    • People made investements
      • Seemingly calculated
      • Usually with profit
      • Whole life savings some times put on shares
      • Shares brought 'On the Margin'
        • With slow monthly repayment

15. Gangsters

    • Al Capone
      • Earning $60 million a year from alcohol sales alone
        • Another $45 million from other income
      • Bribed police and politicians
      • Prison in 1933
        • 11 Years
          • Longest Tax evasion sentence ever
        • Tax Evasion
    • St. Valentines massacre
      • Killed by people dressed as Police Officers
      • 7 Members of the O'Banion gang killed