U.S. History II

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U.S. History II

• The Roaring Twenties

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Main Points
The Great Depression The Dust Bowl The Jazz Age
Prohibiton
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The Great Drepression
The Great Depression began in October 1929, when
the stock market in the United States dropped
rapidly. Thousands of investors lost large sums
of money and many were wiped out, lost
everything. The 'crash' led us into the Great
Depression. The ensuing period ranked as the
longest and worst period of high unemployment and
low business activity in modern times. Banks,
stores, and factories were closed and left
millions of Americans jobless, homeless, and
penniless. Many people came to depend on the
government or charity to provide them with food.
The Depression became a worldwide business slump
of the 1930's that affected almost all nations.
It led to a sharp decrease in world trade as each
country tried to protect their own industries and
products by raising tariffs on imported goods.
Some nations changed their leader and their type
of government. In Germany, poor economic
conditions led to the rise to power of the
dictator Adolf Hitler. The Japanese invaded
China, developing industries and mines in
Manchuria. Japan claimed this economic growth
would relieve the depression. This militarism of
the Germans and Japanese eventually led to World
War II (1939-1945).
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The Great Drepression
In the United States, President Herbert Hoover
held office when the Great Depression began. The
economy continued to slump almost every month.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President in
1932. Roosevelt's 'new deal' reforms gave the
government more power and helped ease the
depression. The Great Depression ended as nations
increased their production of war materials at
the start of World War II. This increased
production provided jobs and put large amounts of
money back into circulation.
When President Roosevelt took office in 1933, he
feverishly created program after program to give
relief, create jobs, and stimulate economic
recovery for the U.S. These programs were called
"alphabet soup" as well as the "New Deal."
Hoover Roosevelt
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CAUSES
The main cause for the Great Depression was the
combination of the greatly unequal distribution
of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the
extensive stock market speculation that took
place during the latter part that same decade.
The misdistribution of wealth in the 1920's
existed on many levels. Money was distributed
disparately between the rich and the
middle-class, between industry and agriculture
within the United States, and between the U.S.
and Europe. This imbalance of wealth created an
unstable economy. The excessive speculation in
the late 1920's kept the stock market
artificially high, but eventually lead to large
market crashes. These market crashes, combined
with the misdistribution of wealth, caused the
American economy to capsize.
A major reason for this large and growing gap
between the rich and the working-class people was
the increased manufacturing output throughout
this period. From 1923-1929 the average output
per worker increased 32 in manufacturing. During
that same period of time average wages for
manufacturing jobs increased only 8. Thus wages
increased at a rate one fourth as fast as
productivity increased. As production costs fell
quickly, wages rose slowly, and prices remained
constant, the bulk benefit of the increased
productivity went into corporate profits.
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CAUSES
Three quarters of the U.S. population would spend
essentially all of their yearly incomes to
purchase consumer goods such as food, clothes,
radios, and cars. These were the poor and middle
class families with incomes around, or usually
less than, 2,500 a year. The bottom three
quarters of the population had an aggregate
income of less than 45 of the combined national
income the top 25 of the population took in
more than 55 of the national income.
The problem of the vast majority of the
population not having enough money to satisfy all
their needs was to let those who wanted goods buy
products on credit. The concept of buying now and
paying later caught on quickly. By the end of the
1920's 60 of cars and 80 of radios were bought
on installment credit.
The federal government favored the new
industries as opposed to agriculture. During
World War I the federal government had subsidized
farms, and paid absurdly high prices for wheat
and other grains. The federal government had
encouraged farmers to buy more land, to modernize
their methods with the latest in farm technology,
and to produce more food. This made sense during
that war when war-ravaged Europe had to be fed
too. However as soon as the war ended, the U.S.
abruptly stopped its policies to help farmers.
Farmers fell into debt farm prices and food
prices tumbled. Although modest attempts to help
farmers were made in 1923 with the Agricultural
Credits Act, farmers were generally left out in
the cold by the government.
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Q A

• What Americans suffered during the Great
  Depression?
• How did the Great Depression affect Germany?
• What were some of the causes of the Great
  Depression?

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The Dust Bowl
"Dust Bowl" was a term born in the hard times
from the people who lived in the drought-stricken
region during the great depression. The term was
first used in a dispatch from Robert Geiger, an
AP correspondent in Guymon, and within a few
short hours the term was used all over the
nation. The "Dust Bowl Days", also known as the
"Dirty Thirties", took its toll on Cimarron
County. The decade was full of extremes
blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt
storms. Early Thirties Economy In 1930 and
1931, the decade opened with unparalleled
prosperity and growth. NATION'S BUSINESS magazine
labeled the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas as
the most prosperous region. The Panhandle was a
marked contrast to the long soup lines of the
Eastern United States.
Farming in the Panhandle Wheat was a real good
thing. The world needed it and was paying a good
price for it. Wheat farmers with tractors, one
way plows and combines purchased by most farmers
after the phenomenal crop of 1926, began plowing
and planting wheat as never before. The lands
were planted to wheat year after year without a
thought as to the damage that was being done.
Grasslands that should have never been plowed
were plowed up. Millions of acres of farm land in
the great plains were broken.
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The Dust Bowl
1930 was dry but most of the farmers made a wheat
crop. In 1931 the wheat crop was considered a
bumper crop with over twelve million bushels of
wheat. Wheat was everywhere, in the elevators, on
the ground and in the road. The wheat supply
forced the price down from sixty-eight
cents/bushel in July 1930 to twenty-five
cents/bushel in July 1931. Many farmers went
broke and others abandoned their fields. With
continuing hard times and dry years, the farmers,
who still had a lot of pioneering spirit and
faith in the land, made ready to weather the
storms. The old survival methods of pioneering
were brought out of storage, dusted off and put
into practice. Many farmers increased their milk
cow herd. The cream from the cows was sold and
the skim milk was fed to chickens and pigs. When
normal feed crops failed, thistles were
harvested, and when thistles failed, hardy souls
dug up soap weed which was chopped in a feed mill
or by hand and fed to the stock. This was a back
breaking, disheartening chore which would have
broken weaker people. But to the credit of the
residents of the Dust Bowl, they shouldered their
task and carried on. "I don't know, we just made
it." The people of the region made it because
they knew how to take the everyday practical
things which had been used for years and adapt
them to meet the crisis. Finding a way to make do
or do differently was a way of life for the
pioneers who had come to the region only a short
time earlier. When they arrived there were no
houses, wells, cars, telephones or fields. Times
were hard when the land was settled, and the
people knew how to live and grow in difficult
periods.
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The Dust Bowl
The Storms In 1934 to 1936, three record drought
years were marked for the nation. In 1936, a more
severe storm spread out of the plains and across
most of the nation. The drought years were
accompanied with record breaking heavy rains,
blizzards, tornadoes and floods. In September
1930, it rained over five inches in a very short
time in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The flooding in
Cimarron County was accompanied by a dirt storm
which damaged several small buildings. Later that
year, the regions were whipped again by a strong
dirt storm from the southwest until the winds
gave way to a blizzard from the north
Black Sunday April 14, 1935. The dust storm that
turned day into night. Many believed the world
was coming to an end.
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The Dust Bowl

• The Future
• The Dust Bowl taught farmers new farming methods
  and techniques. The 1930's fostered a whole new
  era of soil conservation. Perhaps the most
  valuable lesson learned form the Dust Bowl - take
  care of the land. The Dust Bowl's future is
  controlled almost exclusively by the weather. The
  prolonged drought combined with the
  meteorological phenomena of the 1930's was rare
  and never before tortured the Great Plains as it
  did. Droughts and winds still cause many
  problems, but most are averted and minimized with
  proper soil conservation. When times turn dry
  again, will the wind blow and history repeat
  itself? Only time will tell.

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Talk Time

• Discuss the technological advances in
  agriculture since the Dust Bowl
• Discuss events surrounding the Great Depression
  and the Dust Bowl.
• Agriculture involves reducing the diversity of a
  given ecosystem and therefore must be heavily
  controlled in order for the system to remain
  stable. Compare and contrast other ways humans
  have affected the natural landscape for survival
  and economic gain.
• Take note during Talk Time.

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Prohibiton
In 1918, Prohibition had been introduced into
America. This law banned the sale, transportation
and manufacture of alcohol. However, there was a
ready market for alcohol throughout the 1920's
and the gangsters provided it. Capone's earnings
at their peak stood at 60 million a year from
alcohol sales alone with 45 million from other
illegal ventures. Notorious in Chicago, Capone
achieved national celebrity status when he
appeared on the front of the celebrated "Time"
magazine. 
The ratification of the 18th Amendment
nationalized prohibition in 1919. Supporters of
the Volstad amendment believed that by
abolishing alcoholic consumption, one might also
abolish crime, poverty, and broken families.
Al Capone
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The Jazz Age
The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s
and 1930s, the years between World War I and
World War II, particularly in North America,
largely coinciding with the Roaring Twenties
with the rise of the Great Depression, the values
of this age saw much decline. The focus of the
elements of this age, in some contrast with the
Roaring Twenties, in historical and cultural
studies, are somewhat different, with a greater
emphasis on Modernism per se.
The Roaring twenties has been described as "one
of the most colorful decades in American
history." The decade encapsulates a fascinating
story, beginning with the return of young
soldiers from the fronts of the First World War
and emergence of a new and confident face of the
modern womanhood, and ending with the sad note of
the Black Tuesday, harbinger of the Great
Depression.
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The Jazz Age
The age takes its name from jazz music, which saw
a tremendous surge in popularity among many
segments of society. Among the prominent concerns
and trends of the period include the public
embrace of technological developments (typically
seen as progress)cars, air travel and the
telephoneas well as new trends in social
behavior, the arts, and culture. Central
developments included Art Deco design and
architecture. A great theme of the age was
individualism and a greater emphasis on the
pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment in the wake of
the misery, destruction and perceived hypocrisy
and waste of WWI and pre-war values.
                 In Flaming Youth, Walter
Fabian's best-selling novel about American young
people, readers were introduced to a whole new
breed of women saucy, outspoken bombshells with
short skirts, shorter hair and plenty of "It."
"It" was nothing more than sex appeal --
something women were not supposed to exhibit. In
the 1920s, any girl who possessed "It" was called
a Flapper. Flappers who liked dancing and
syncopated music were known as Jazz Babies.
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RECAP

• What was the economics like in America during the
  1920s -1930s? List some hardships Americans had
  to endure during this time period.
• What are the factors that lead up to the Great
  Depression and the development of the New Deal?
• What were the natural causes of the Dust Bowl?
  What was the results of the Dust Bowl?
• Describe Americans values during Prohibition and
  the Jazz Age and behavior.