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Lecture1: Politics in 1920s 1929 s

-post war prosperity :


-The second industrial revolution: WW1 stimulated development in new technology that led
to business boom. Industrial production became more efficient, communication, innovations
in radio; advertising contributed the idea of homogenization that led to the advent of national
popular culture.

-The cycle that created the business boom in the 1920s standardized mass production and
wages and increased demand for consumer goods which perpetuated more standardized mass
production.

-scientific management and the recoganization of work:


-Industries begun to employ machinery and scientific management. It also led to the decline in
the importance of skill in favor of discipline, Businesses financed industrial research. The
principles of scientific management were a theory by W.Taylor.

-Innovative industrialist Henry Ford masterfully applied Taylors theory of worker efficiency
and wage motive. This image of moving assembly line at Ford Motor Company demonstrates
both the principles of efficient production and the mass produced consumer good.

-The auto mobile and American culture:


-The growth of automobile industry led to the development of American life. By the end of
decade, there were enough cars on the road. Developing the system of mass producing cars
and selling them cheaply.

-Warren Harding and the return to the Normalcy:


-The three republican presidents of the 1920s pursued an economic agenda similar to that of
modern day republicans. His presidency itself was mediocre and uneventful, save for the
scandals that came to light after his death in office. He took a Laissez Faire stance in
economic and government that he opposed organized labor and antitrust measures.

Inaugural Address of warren Harding 1921:

The forward course of the business cycle is mistakable. . .


I speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax burdens, for sound commercial
practices, for adequate credit facilities . . . for the omission of unnecessary interference of
government with business, for an end to governments experiment in business, and for
more efficient business in government administration

- Protective tariffs:
-Is a tax on imported goods to make them less competitive with American made goods.

-The act of tariffs 1921 and the Fordney act of 1922 imposed the highest tariff rates in history
at that time.

-After World War one the national mood was one of isolationism, Nationalism, and concern
for continued prosperity, Law markers wanted to protect American interests as Europe began
to recover and export its goods. But the tariffs made it difficult for Europe to pay war debts
and international trade by provoking other countries to enact high tariffs on US exports.

-Silent cal and the business of America:


-After the death of the president Harding, Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency. His policy
Laissez Faire cutting taxes and imposing high tariffs on foreign goods.

-Advertising in the jazz Age:


-Modern advertising, using popular culture and celebrities to fuel consumption began to take
shape. Business conquered the challenge of efficiently producing enough goods on focusing
to create a desire.

-President Coolidge on Advertising 1926:


-It makes new thoughts, new desires in adopting changes. Mass production is only possible
where there is mass demand which has been created through the development of advertising.

-Credit and the consumer, consumerism became a modern style in 1920s. The automobile
industry was one of the 1st capitalize on the potential of consumer credit.

-Herbert Hoover and the end of prosperity:


-He served a successfully secretary of commerce and elected after Coolidge retried from
politics 1928. Despite his experience of prosperity, the stock market crashed in a months. He
retrained conservative, how taxes and government non interference. Hoover became a
scapegoat of the depression as the jazz age.

Lecture2: Continue:
-The 18th amendments 1919: sale and conception of Alcohol. Illegal drinking cause to
prohibition ==) Legality ratified 1933.

-The clash between science and religion threats to liberty: Modern and tradition beliefs KKK
(Kau Klux Klan) led to the rise of nativism which believes that your country is superior than
the other. Led to the rise of desire to limit immigration. Collective owner ship.

-National Origin Act was important because of the number accused of murder and distrusting
of foreigners.

-Jazz age: Brought new technologies, buying new products, buying in credit. Entertainment
and Lejure 1920s starts became very famous.

1913 the decay of the depression:


-Cultural 1920s: Jazz age a period of change, the US economy was booming.

-Cultural civil war: The great immigration of Africans.

-The Flappers =Passage of 18th and 19th which gave right to women to vote to black males
(1868 the passage of amendments looking for equal pay, gave the right of vote to women
means it gave another rights: education, work

-Clara Bow strongly criticized the jazz age to prohibit manufacture and alcohol in US.

-The aim of amendments is to have a sobre society (health) which led to new problems like
crimes and rise of speak cities (hidden bars).

-Alcapone: a famous smuggler in Chicago and organized crime .So it was too late to stop
criminal 40 percent after non-dealing with problems (no one following the laws). They were
obliged to repeat the 18th amendment

-1951 to amend the constitution, the British control of women over their bodies. Alice Signer,
the one who called to the British of control:

1st wave femination 1900, sexual liberation, women had to decide over her body, gave a new
rise of families.

-The right of Feudalism: opposed alcohol and science believe to control the bible, reject
Darwinism, the idea of evolution because they believed in creation (the most powerful one
dominating the other= Darwinism).

-Butler 1925 Act prohibited any biologic teacher of teaching the theory of evolution.

The scope trial= there was a man who rejected the idea of prohibit teaching the theory of
evolution. The butler act was repealed.

-the rise of anti KKK (anti catholic, anti Jewish) cure of murder which led to new immigration
limitation.
-Red scare: make people scare; afraid of communism (each man had liberties).

-The right of Harlem renaissance: revival of black heritage, rise of new writers (new
literature), African American immigrants decided to immigrate to the north part of new hope,
new life but it was worth.

-The right of Hollywood: the establishment of MBC, silent movies charley Chaplin then the
explanation of science.

* 1920= shaped the American society to new liberal society, America emerged as a new
power.

Lecture3: The Great Depression:

1929-1939
*Stock market clash.

*No money to replenish what was borrowed.

-In the late 1920s, business and factories began to close, people lost their jobs. Economic
depression spread across the country and the world. The period in the 1930s became known as
the Great Depression.

-The roaring 20s: The new concept of credit, people were buying: automobiles, appliances
and clothes. While fun tiles reined, dancing, flappers and drinking.

-This was bad because in credit system people didnt really have the money they were
spending.

-WW1: The US was a major credit loaner to other nations in need. Many of these nations
could not pay US back.

-The stock market: People brought stocks on margins, stock fall. Then with people panicking
about their money investors tried to sell their stocks which led to a huge decline in stocks.

People who brought on margins now could not pay. Investors were aware people that were
now broke.

President Hoover:
-Herbert Hoover was president at the start. His philosophy: We will make it, but he did
nothing. The poor were looking for help and no idea on how to correct or help were coming.

-What about the people ?


-Farmers were already feeling the effect: Prices of crops went down and many farmers
foreclosed.

-People could not afford luxuries: Factories shut down and business went out.

-Banks could not pay out money.

-People could not pay their taxes: Schools shut down due to the lack of funds.

-Many families became homeless and had to live in shanties.

-Many waited in unemployment lines hoping for jobs.

-People in cities would wait in line for bread to bring to their family.

-Some families were forced to relocate because they had no money.

Hooverville
-Some families were forced to live in shanty towns: a grouping of shacks and tents in vacant
lots.

-They were referred to as hooverville because president Hoovers lack of help during the
depression.

-A drought in the south leads to dust storms that destroyed crops The Dust Bowl ( No food
to be sent out, homes buried, fields blown away, Dust Bowl of the first weather Crisis of the
20th C).

F.D.R
-When he was inaugurated unemployment had increased by 7 million poor sections like
Harlem had 50 percent of the pop. Unemployment instated the New Deal .

-People everywhere were affected by the depression. It wasnt till President Roosevelt took
over and tried to put the economy back together that people even saw a glimmer of hope.

Dust Bowl
Series of dust storms (1930-1936) in the plains states resulting from severe drought and many
years of over farming in the region (these storms forced people to move west, to California, a
migration captured in John Steinbecks grapes of wrath).

The first round of new deal programs


-1933-aim was to provide short term relief. These forms were wide-sweeping and meant to
reach all areas of society.
-Created the AAA: Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

-Economy act cut government pay and pensions.

AAA
-Reduced the amount of crops grown through domestic allotment .

-Limited the production of corn, cotton, hogs, dairy, rice, tobacco, and wheat.

-To supplement farmers income, the government paid farmers for the land they allowed to
lay fallow.

-Constitutionality: The AAA provided relief in the agricultural sector. It started a trend toward
the federal governments. In 1936, concerns about the constitutionality of these programs.

The AAA was ruled as unconstitutional.

The second round of New Deal programs


-Took place in 1935-1936, its goal was to redistribute power away from the large corporations
and giving more power to farmers.

-The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) created works progress administration and
employed many in low skill labor. It also created the social security act which gave pensions,
unemployment insurance and befits to the disabled.

WPA: Works Progress Administration


-It aims to put people back to work by aimed to employ workers who lost their jobs during the
depression.

-Jobs included everything from building, bridges, and parks to taking photographs and
collecting stories of the depression.

CCC
-Workers almost all men, lived in army style camps and worked mostly outdoors (employed
over 3 million people).The workers sent back most of the wages earned to their families to
support them.

-The CCC workers planted trees, cleared forests, and constructed roads.

Effects of the new deal


While programs like CCC and AAA were cancelled during the depression, others continue
today in one form or another.

-Social Security benefits for retried people welfare and Medicare benefits all continue today.

Lecture4: World War two

1939-1945
-Allied powers: Those countries joined together against the Axis powers (G.B and Soviet
Union and United States).

-Annex: Process by which government gains control over a territory not presently under their
authority. It usually involves either conquest or the use of force.

-Axis powers: Those countries joined to fight together against the allies during world war
2.They included (Germany, Italy, and Japan).

The outbreak of the war:


The war officially began in 1939, when Germany violated its agreement with Russia by
invading Poland, German- soviet-Non aggression act, signed in Moscow dictated that in ease
Germany invades Poland, the latter would be a supporter of the French and British forces.

Germany continued its expansion and eventually captured France in June 1940

-Warring sides:

Allies Axes
-Britain -Germany

-France -Italy

-Russia -Japan

-The USA

*Italy wanted to spread fascism, while Germany wanted to make a European new Europe

*Japan mainly aimed to control East Asia

-Other causes:

WW1 brought shame to the axes, especially Germany (which by terms of the treaty of
Versailles, took Germanys land possession and forced it to pay the war debts). This caused
economic instability and injured their nationalism.
-Appeasement policy: Russia at first gave Hitler the lands that he required to
stop his progress. However; it only made him feel more powerful and proceeded to invade
France.

Situation in America: The public was an isolationist affected by the shock of


ww1. Due to the great depression, the public wanted to pay full attention to Americas local
affairs rather than foreign ones.

FDR had a great deal of sympathy; however, the unstable economic situation together, with
the public opinion forced him to pass some laws in favor of neutrality.

Nov,1935 neutrality act: It treated both the allies and the axes as
belligerents .It forbade the US from shipping supplies, especially arms, to
Britain and France.

Travelers from the US to the war zones were also advised that they did so at
their own risk.

The act was renewed in 1937, prohibited Americans from extending any loans
to belligerents.

US congress and the public opinion also opposed refusing Jews, because
they would be a competition on jobs and it would see as if they are siding
against Hitler.

-Japan was in critical situation so it resorted to military power by attacking the hub of the
military of the US Peal Maribor, 1941 to control oil resources and threat American not
interfere

-After the attack US officially declared war on Japan. Naturally Germany and Italy declared
war on US as well.

-US and Russia decided to start with eliminating Germany then shifting attention to Japan.

-FDR called for rational spending and slaving for the sake of helping soldiers. The industry
was converted to a war industry.

-The use of war bonds.

-Women contributed greatly by taking job posts.

-US started with Germany considering its widespread expansion in Europe and its
development (it was maltreating to the safety of the USA).

-In June 6, 1944 the allies landed in Normandy, France to begin a massive offensive against
the Germans in the occupied territories of Europe (it became known as D-day).

-V.E day: May 8, 1945 Germany, Italy unconditionally surrendered to the allies.
-V.J day: Japan surrenders, not unconditionally to the allies.

Yalta conference 1944: meeting of the Big three, Stalin, FDR and
Churchill to discuss allied military and other politics.

-Japan would not surrender, thus the US dropped the A-bombes, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 6th and 9th august, 1945 to force Japan into submission and
prove the world that US in the most powerful (during the presidency of Harry
Truman).

Lecture5: The Cold War

1945-1991

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