hws- usa: boom, bust, recovery*

Question 1

For what reasons did the USA want to stay out of WW1?

Answer 1

• The exceptional devastation of modern warfare due to new weapons such as machine guns and chemical warfare
• Many people could remember the casualties of the Civil war battles

Question 2

What were the 3 main reasons why the USA did enter WW1?

Answer 2

• A German submarine sank a civilian cruise ship that had departed from New York, killing 1198 people (128 Americans).
• In 1917, Germany declared open warfare on any country shipping goods to the British Isles (including USA)
• The US intercepted a telegram from Germany to Mexico encouraging Mexico to attack the US (the Zimmerman Telegraph)

Question 3

What changes happened to the US economy and production as a
result of entering WW1?

Answer 3

Large sections of the economy were controlled by the government- the War Industries Board made sure that American manufacturers were doing their part

Question 4

What social changes happened during the war? e.g. rationing and
alcohol

Answer 4

• Citizens were encouraged to grow their own vegetables at home
• Consumption of alcohol greatly declined, as grain was considered vital for the war effort, through prohibition laws (but this was mainly caused by campaigner’s long-standing goals of sobriety)

Question 5

How did attitudes and behaviour change towards
German-Americans?

Answer 5

They faced a great deal of discrimination, harassment and even threats of violence (that even escalated to a lynching)

Question 6

What was the Espionage Act 1917? What sort of feelings did it
encourage amongst the population?

Answer 6

• It made it illegal for anyone to interfere with the US government’s war effort
• It encouraged feelings of anti-socialism and anti-communism

Question 7

How did African-Americans benefit from WW1 and why?

Answer 7

It provided them with employment which was vital after the failed farming harvests of 1911 and 1912

Question 8

What were the “push” reasons for African Americans beginning to
leave the agricultural South?

Answer 8

• In both 1911 and 1912, poor weather caused crop failure
• Additionally, boll weevil infestations swept across the agricultural south

Question 9

What was the Great Migration? What attitudes were there
towards it?

Answer 9

• It was when, in the period from 1914 to 1920, almost 1/3 of all African-Americans moved to the urban centres of the North
• African-Americans already living in the north were wary of their new neighbours and their southern ways
• White people in the north were fearful of the growing numbers
• White people in the south attempted to keep them bound through tight contracts, denial of tickets to travel and even threats of violence.

Question 10

How did WW1 affect the next decade for America?

Answer 10

• Americans became quickly disillusioned to the glory of war, coming back as different men
• The US began to realise how powerful they had truly become.

Question 11

Which political party was in power for the majority of the 1920s?

Answer 11

Republican

Question 12

When was Calvin Coolidge president?

Answer 12

1923-29

Question 13

What was Andrew Mellon responsible for introducing?

Answer 13

Tax cuts

Question 14

What rate did the Fordney McCumber tariff set import duties at?

Answer 14

38.5%

Question 15

In which US city did Henry Ford set up Ford Motors?

Answer 15

Detroit

Question 16

What was the name of the system that gave easy credit to consumers in the 1920s?

Answer 16

Hire purchase

Question 17

all the ways that car industry was important for America

Answer 17

• It led to the expansion of the suburbs
• People could travel to cinemas leading to a boom in the film industry
• It led to the building of a vast network of roads across America
• It led to the creation of other industries such as petrol stations, roadside diners, hotels etc.
• Industries like rubber and oil grew rapidly
• The production techniques used by the car industry were copied by other industries leading to wider industrial expansion.

Question 18

What were the southern states known as during the Civil War?

Answer 18

The Confederacy

Question 19

Which branch of government is responsible for the passing of laws?

Answer 19

The Legislature

Question 20

How many judges sit on the Supreme Court?

Answer 20

9

Question 21

For the majority of the USAs history where has the majority of African Americans lived?

Answer 21

The South

Question 22

Typically where did African Americans face the most discrimination and racism?

Answer 22

The South

Question 23

When did the US constitution start to be applied?

Answer 23

1789

Question 24

In return for not striking during WW1, what benefits were given to union members? And how did that affect membership?

Answer 24

n return for a moratorium (suspension / pause) on strikes, unions received shorter workdays, greater collective bargaining rights and seats of power in federal wartime agencies such as the National War Labor Board, which mediated labor disputes. As a result, membership in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the country’s largest labor union, surged by 50 percent between 1917 and 1919.

Question 25

What happened to “set the stage for a titanic struggle in 1919”?

Answer 25

workers’ expectations had risen as a result of wartime gains, and they were not in a mood to give up those gains. This set the stage for a titanic struggle in 1919, the biggest eruption of labor unrest to that point in history.”

Question 26

Giving precise examples what happened with the Labor union in the Red Summer and rest of 1919?

Answer 26

Food prices more than doubled and clothing prices more than tripled between 1915 and 1920. But most businesses refused to boost wages accordingly. In response, over 3,500 work stoppages involving more than 4 million workers occurred in 1919. That February, labor unions across Seattle halted work in solidarity with 35,000 shipyard workers who had walked off the job in the first general (or cross-industry) strike in American history. That fall, nearly 400,000 members of the United Mine Workers of America went on strike, as did 365,000 steelworkers across the Midwest who attempted to unionize.

Question 27

What did labor union membership become associated with? Why?

Answer 27

In the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution and other communist uprisings in Europe, many middle- and upper-class Americans began to equate unionism with Bolshevism. Some believed labor leaders sought nothing less than to overthrow the American capitalist system.

Question 28

What impact did the Red Scare have on the unions?

Answer 28

“The union movement itself became quite conservative in reaction to the Red Scare," “It‘s a period when ethnic tensions are very high, and the working class in many mass-production industries such as steel are often immigrants,” says Lichtenstein. “The hostility of craft unions [devoted to a single trade] to the idea of big [multi-trade] industrial unions with lots of immigrant workers persisted in the 1920s.”

Question 29

How did the 1920s Republican government and Supreme Court govern the unions? Give precise examples.

Answer 29

Attorney General Harry Daugherty “So long and to the extent that I can speak for the government of the United States, I will use the power of the government to prevent the labor unions of the country from destroying the open shop,” he declared. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a string of anti-labor decisions during the 1920s, says McCartin: Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering (1921) punched a fatal hole in the Clayton Act’s protections for labor. Truax v. Corrigan (1921) prevented states from limiting employers’ use of injunctions to crush strikes. And Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923) invalidated minimum-wage laws that protected women workers.

Question 30

Why did union membership drop? How far did it decline?

Answer 30

With the labor movement weakened, union membership plunged in the 1920s from 5 million to 3 million.

Question 31

What happened to big business simultaneously?

Answer 31

Business profits, meanwhile, soared. Even though U.S. Steel, the country’s largest employer, saw its profits double between 1924 and 1929, workers didn't receive a single general wage increase.