Return to Normalcy (1920 - 1932) Flashcards
1
Q
3
List the Presidents from this era
A
- Harding: 1921-1923
- Coolidge: 1923-1929
- Hoover: 1929-1933
2
Q
4
Describe Harding’s achievements
A
- Number of effective appointments
- Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act 1921
- Successful cuts to government spending
- Reduced federal government intervention, achieving ‘return to normalcy’
3
Q
2
Describe Harding’s effective appointments
A
- Andrew Mellon, a business magnate, as Treasury
- Hoover as Secretary of Commerce
4
Q
1
Describe the Sheppard-Towner Act 1921
A
- Provided federal aid to states to encourage the building of infant and maternity health centres
5
Q
2
Describe how Harding cut government spending
A
- Budget and Accounting Act 1921 made departments present budgets for presidential approval
- Government spending down from $5bn in 1920 to $3.333bn by 1922
6
Q
3
Describe Harding’s limitations
A
- Traditional policies and values
- Return to before the war
- Isolationism and conservatism
7
Q
3
List the controversies under Harding
A
- Teapot Dome Scandal
- ‘Ohio Gang’
- Harding’s behaviour
8
Q
3
Describe the Teapot Dome Scandal 1921-23
A
- An oil reserve, originally reserved for the Navy, was put under the control of the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall
- Fall was later accused of leasing oil drilling rights in return for bribes
- Assistant Attorney General committed suicide in 1923 during investigations
9
Q
2
Describe the ‘Ohio Gang’
A
- Harding’s close friends became notorious for their poker parties in the White House
- Boozy meetings at a private house on K Street
10
Q
2
Describe Harding’s scandalous behaviour
A
- Renowned for drinking during prohibition
- Affairs with many women, some of whom were married
11
Q
3
Describe the 1917 Immigration Act
A
- Implemented a literacy test that require immigrants over the age of 16 to demonstrate basic reading comprehension in at least one language
- Increased the tax paid by new immigrants upon arrival
- Excluded entry for anyone born in the ‘Asiatic barred zone’ except for Japanese and Filipinos
12
Q
4
Describe the initial immigration quota introduced by Senator Dillingham
A
- Set at 3% of the total population of the foreign-born of each nationality in the US as recorded in 1910 census
- Total number of new immigrant visas each year = 350,000
- Initially vetoed by President Wilson but later passed by President Harding
- 1922, the act was renewed for another two years
13
Q
3
Describe how the immigration quota changed in 1924
A
- The existing quota was lowered from 3% to 2%
- The year on which the quota calculations were based was pushed back from 1910 to 1890
- The % of visas available to the British Isles and Western Europe increased, but visas to Southern and Eastern Europe were limited.
14
Q
4
Describe the impact of the immigration quotas on Japanese relations
A
- All but banned in 1924
- The Japanese were particularly offended by the Act:
- The Japanese government protested but the law remained
- Tensions between the two countries increased
15
Q
2
Describe the impact of the immigration quotas on European relations
A
- Relations with Europe remained positive despite the restrictions:
- The global depression of the 30’s and WW2 limited European immigration anyway
16
Q
4
Describe the strengths of Coolidge’s presidency
A
- Made more speeches and met more people than any of his predecessors
- He excluded confidence and appeared calm and unflappable
- He was honest and incorruptible (he did not smoke, drink or chase women)
- He extended Republican pro-business policies, including low taxation, low interest rates and minimal government spending
17
Q
5
Describe the weaknesses of Coolidge’s Presidency
A
- Was criticised for doing very little during his presidency
- Slept a lot and said very little, nicknamed ‘Silent Cal’
- Some believe he suffered a severe depression in 1924 following the death of his son
- He appeared to have a superiority complex
- Coolidge refused to stand as president in 1928 due to health concerns
18
Q
5
Describe how WW1 contributed to the 1920’s economic boom in the US
A
- European countries bought supplies and loans from the US. New technology was developed.
- The US overtook Germany as the world leading producer of fertilisers and chemicals
- By 1920, the US produced and consumed 70% of the world’s oil and was its leading producer of coal and steel
- On the Great Planes, farms supplied the rest of the world with 1/3rd of its wheat and over 2/3rd of its corn
- However, wealth was unevenly distributed and small farms particularly struggled
19
Q
5
Describe how Republican policies contributed to the 1920’s economic boom in the US
A
- Laissez-faire
- Rugged individualism
- Protectionism
- The Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922 raised import duties on goods coming into the US to their highest ever levels
- Mellon handed out tax reductions totalling $3.5 billion to large-scale industrialists and corporations
20
Q
4
Describe why consumerism rose during the 1920’s
A
- The growth of electricity
- Female employment led to increased need for labour saving devices under hire purchase schemes
- The popularity of entertainment meant more americans brought gramophones
- 1923 to 1929, the average wage rose by 8%
21
Q
2
Describe the growth of electricity
A
- 1912 to 1927, the no of americans living in electrically lit homes 16% to 63%
- The amount of oil used doubled and gas quadrupled
22
Q
4
Describe the rise of advertising in the 1920’s
A
- Companies began to hire psychologists to design campaigns and target specific groups
- Increasing focus on slogans, brand names, celebrity endorsements and consumer aspirations
- Lucky Strike encouraged young women to smoke by branding their cigarettes ‘torches of freedom’
- By 1929, companies were spending $3 billion annually on advertising, five times more than in 1914
23
Q
2
Describe the growth of the car industry
A
- 4.5 million cars were on the road by the end of the 1920’s
- This became the largest industry in the US
24
Q
4
Describe the benefits of the car industry
A
- It used many materials that generated jobs for 5 million people
- Around 90% of petrol, 80% of of rubber and 75% of plate glass made in the US was used by the car industry
- It promoted road building, travel and hospitality industry
- The production of automobiles rose from 1.9 million in 1920 to 4.5 million in 1929
25
Q
5
Describe road building
A
- The Federal Highway Act of 1921 gave responsibility for road building to central government
- Highways were being constructed at the rate of 10,000 miles a year by 1929
- In 1936, the Bureau for Public Roads reported that between 25 and 50% of the roads built over the previous 20 years were unfit for use as traffic was wearing them out
- Created service industries such as motels and petrol stations
- In 1929, 15 billion gallons of petrol were used and 4.5 million new cars sold
26
Q
5
Describe technological change
A
- Electricity provided a cheaper and more reliable energy source and stimulated other electrical goods like fridges and vacuums
- Conveyor belt and mass production techniques were developed by the car industry and increased productivity and products
- Plastics like Bakelite were developed and used in household goods - could be moulded into any shape
- Other innovations included glass tubing, automatic switch boards and concrete mixers
- Skyscrapers started being built
27
Q
5
Describe new business methods
A
- By 1929, the largest 200 corporations possessed 20% of the nation’s wealth
- They operated cartels to fix prices and the government turned a blind eye
- Some corporations were so big that they were able to dictate output and price level throughout the industry
- They also created holding companies (e.g Samuel Insull bought up 111 electrical companies)
- There was significant growth in business schools with 89 by 1928, training 67,000 students
28
Q
3
Describe credit
A
- This meant people could buy goods even if they did not have enough cash to pay for them immediately
- This was due to the development of hire-purchase where goods were paid for in instalments
- About half the goods bought in the 1920s were paid for by hire purchase
29
Q
5
Describe confidence
A
- Stocks and shares rose steadily throughout the decade and then rose dramatically in 1928 to 1929
- Even ordinary people became involved in buying and selling shares
- The number of shares traded in 1926 was 451m, increasing to 577m in 1927
- In 1929 there were more than 1.1 billion shares sold
- Up to 25 million Americans became involved in shares in 1929
30
Q
5
Describe how religion was a cause of prohibition
A
- Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) campaigned hard for prohibition
- Female reformers argued → clear links between the consumption of alcohol and wife beating and child abuse
- Many religious groups saw alcohol as the root of the sin and evil values of American people
- Some religious groups, such as the Methodists and Baptists, joined the crusade
- Fundamentalist preachers, such as Billy Sunday, persuaded many conservatives that alcohol was evil
31
Q
7
Describe the employment of women
A
- 1930, 2 million more women were employed than there had been 10 years earlier
- These tended to be unskilled low-paid jobs
- Medical schools only allocated 5% of places to women
- The number of female doctors in the 1920’s actually decreased
- Still massive pay inequality
- Supreme court banned all attempts to set minimum wage for women
- 1927, women’s textile workers in Tennessee went on strike for better wages but were arrested by the local police
32
Q
3
Describe progress for women’s rights
A
- Women were given the vote in 1920
- Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming became the first woman to be elected governor of a state in 1924
- Bertha Knight Landes became the first female mayor of a city, Seattlein 1926
33
Q
5
Describe Margaret Sanger
A
- Wrote articles on contraception
- The Comstock Act of 1873 banned the distribution of articles on contraception and items through the US mail
- She was arrested in 1916 for opening the first contraception clinic in the US
- 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League
- She began to promote sterilisation for mentally handicapped people
34
Q
3
Describe limitations in women’s rights
A
- Only a handful of female politicians
- The women’s movement failed to get the Equal Rights Amendment Act passed
- Disenfranchisement of Native American and African American women
