America in the 1920s…

Part II

Corporate Revolution

• Mergers– By 1929 ½ of national wealth absorbed by top

200 corporations.– Chain stores became common

• Sears and Roebuck

• Managerial Revolution– Corporate leadership began to be controlled by

college-trained rather than “build the company from the ground” type (Henry Fords)

– Business schools open– Businesses add more layers of management.

College Dream

White Collar Workers

• 1920 – 1930 WCJ rose 38.1%– 10.5-14.5 million 1900 and 18% white

collar– 444% by 1930

• Huge increase of consumer products create a need for advertising and sales people

Women in the Work Force• Typewriter, invented by Remington Co. in 1874,

significant• All typists were middle-class, high school educated

and female– Needed to be a good speller and knowledge of

grammar.– Lower class men and women lacked these skills.– Upper class men could get better paying jobs

• Also teachers, shot clerks, cashiers, and switchboard operators

• 57% of female work force comprised of black and foreign-born women, mostly in domestic service jobs.

Frank Lloyd Wright

• Most famous architect in US history

• Building grown from sites– Not imitate Greek and Roman models– Guggenheim Museum in NYC most

famous.

Sports

• Became house-hold names due to “image making”

• Babe Ruth – Fans bought tickets in such numbers that

Yankee Stadium became known as “the house that Ruth built”

• Jack Dempsey– Heavyweight champion knocked out French

lightweight George Carpentier

Frederick W. Taylor

• Started movement to develop more efficient working methods increasing productivity which eventually led to increased wages, which led to increase profits.

• The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).

• Auto industry.– Detroit emerged as the automobile capital of the

world.

Automobile Impact• Replaced the steel industry as the king

industry in America.• Employed about 6 million people by 1930• Supported industries• Petroleum industry exploded• Nation’s standard of living improved• Speedy marketing of perishable foodstuff

were accelerated• Highways emerged• Leisure time spent traveling

Airplane• Dec. 17, 1903 Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur)

– Flew a gasoline-powered plane 12 seconds and 120 feet at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

– Launched air age

• Airplane used with some success in WWI– After war Passenger lines with airmail contracts

• Charles Lindberg– 1st solo flight across the Atlantic.– Spirit of St. Louis flew from NY to Paris in 39 hours and

39 minutes– Became an American icon and hero

Lindberg

Lindberg Kidnapper Found Guilty

Impact

• Civilization became closely linked

• Railroads received yet another setback as airplanes stole passengers and mail services.

• Devastating effects during WWII.

Radio• Guglielmo Marconi

– Italian, invented wireless telegraphy of the 1890s

• National Broadcasting Co. organized in 1926• Columbia Broadcasting Co. in 1927

– FIRST national radio networks– Amos n’ Andy

• Impacts– New industry, nation tied together, families brought

closer together, stimulated sports and advertising.

Movies• 1st real moving picture in 1903

– The Great Train Robbery• Hollywood becomes movie capital of the world• Stars

– Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino• 1927 first “talkie”

– The Jazz Singer• 1930s some colored films being produced• Eclipsed all other new forms of amusement• Actors and actresses

– Huge salaries

Working Conditions

• Reduction in hours– 1923 US Steel offered its working three

eight-hour shifts instead of a 12-hour shift.

• Welfare Capitalism– American Plan of Business– If workers were taken care of, no unions

or strikes would be needed.

Gangsters and Art

Jazz

• After WWI (Dance music)• African influenced slave spirituals grew

into jubilees and the blues• A.A. fold music retained a certain melodic,

harmonic, and rhythmic element that formed a common body of sound.

• Ragtime works became published in late 1890s considered to be the earliest jazz

Duke and the Piano

• Louis Armstrong: become first master improviser – some see this as the creation of jazz

• New Orleans exports Jazz

• Chicago, center of Jazz, after people move from New Orleans– The center for Swing in 1930s

Harlem Renaissance

• Harlem– Black enclave in NYC–With about 100,000 residents in the

1920s that will grow rapidly after WWI.

• Harlem produced a wealth of the AA poetry, literature, art and music, expressing the pain, sorrow, and discrimination blacks felt at this time.

• Poets: Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

• Jazz: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Cotton Club (famous night club)– Piano player who formed one of most

famous Jazz bands in history.

Marcus Garvey

• UNIA: United Negro Improvement Association

• “Back to Africa Movement”

• Advocated black racial pride and separatism rather than integration.

• Native of Jamaica