LIFE, CULTURE AND POLITICS IN AMERICA IN THE

1920S

Chapters 32-33THE ROARING

TWENTIES

The population of the US was 106,521,537 people. In the year 2000 it was 281,421,906 people.

The average yearly income was $1,236. In the year 2000 it was $28,272.

The price of a gallon of milk was $.58. Today it is $2.25.

Men lived about 54 years. Women lived about 55 years. Today men live about 74 years, and women live about 79 years

A public school teacher earned about $729 a year. Today the average salary for a teacher is $42,898.

It took 13 days to reach California from New York driving on 2 lane roads. Today it takes 4 hours by plane.

Interesting Statistics

Competing Political Philosophies

Radical: (Socialist/Communist)—advocating drastic revolutionary changes in society

Conservative: preserving the existing order; conserving rather than changing (regularly meant pro-business

Reactionary: desire to move society backwards into a past society, usually idealized-Mugwumps, some Progressives wanting to return to WASP ideals

Liberal: Advocating changes in society’s institutions to reflect changing conditions. (Some Progressives

These terms refer to means as well as ends; one can pursue radical goals by conservative means, e.g. socialists running for political office in a democratic political system (Eugene V. Debs)

If “Progressivism” was:

– Moralistic (Wilson, the Jungle, Tarbell, etc)– A change oriented society (evolution,

sexuality, etc.)– Minority rights (labor laws, female suffrage,

African American, etc– “Rationalized” capitalism (labor laws,

Frederick Taylor, etc)– Inventive (telephone, cars, electricity, etc)– But ultimately

DISSILLUSIONING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should know enough about history by now to predict what the NEXT period would bring??

– Many people grew tired of “Progressive Moralism” and reacted to its continuance with a strong Middle-Class “Conservative Moralistic” backlash which was met with a counter-culture backlash:

• Prohibition ⇒ speakeasies and gangsterism• Indecency laws ⇒ Flappers and Sheiks• Criticism of new immoral mass media ⇒ they

flock to it• Anti-evolution laws ⇒Scopes Monkey Trial• Nativism ⇒ ACLU, Harlem Renaissance, etc• Red Scare and anti-labor ⇒ more Strikes and

Unionism

– Re-emergence of the KKK as an E.O.H.G ⇒ Harlem Renaissance, Marcus Garvey, Black pride

– “The Business of America is Business” Calvin Coolidge ⇒ the rise of a counter-culture (Jazz, Post-Impressionism, Hemingway, e e cummings, etc

– Ultimately it became a Shoving match between• Rural vs. urban• Old vs. young• Law vs. crime• Nativist vs. immigrant• Fundamentalism vs. science• Racism vs. tolerance• Moralism vs. materialism• “Booboisie” vs. “highbrow”• Censorship vs. exploration

Threats to the old Order– The Great war

• Ended the “Age of Innocence” (Gay 90’s)• Disillusionment

– Did Not make the “world safe for democracy”– Did Not “end all wars”– Failure and fight over the Treaty and Article 10

• Exposed the fragility of life (21,000,000 killed by the FLU!)

• Demonstration of the terrors of technology– Highest ratio of killed & injured of any war– Machine guns, tanks, airplanes

• “Back to Normalcy” whatever THAT is???– Read “Normalcy speech”

FEAR OF COMMUNISM

One perceived threat to American life was the spread of Communism. The USSR had quit WW I and proclaimed its desire for a worker’s paradise.

SOVIET UNION COMMUNISM

Russia was transformed into the Soviet Union in 1917, a “Communist” stateVladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks and overthrew the Czarist regimeHe was a follower of the Marxist doctrine of social equalityThe Communist party formed in America, too

Lenin

How to protect the OLD ORDER?

ISOLATIONISM

Many Americans adopted a belief in isolationismIsolationism meant pulling away from involvement in world affairs but not completely away!!

Still have to protect trade and colonies. Gives a prominent role to the NAVY!

• B/w 1919 and 1920 the national income dropped from $79 Billion to $63 Billion

• The avg. PCI dropped from $835 to $672

• Homebound vets replace women, blacks, etc.

• Labor returns to striking, so Big Bidness “strikes” back. Labor loses!!!

• Business must re-tool and that always creates a mild recession

Total decline in union membership– Too much emphasis on skilled labor which received:

• higher wages • paid vacations• sick leave, etc.

– Active gov’t support of business– Labor tied to Bolshevism, anarchism, socialism– Success of Welfare Capitalism (Fordism) designed to

tie worker to job emotionally and economically:• workplace cafeterias• industry sponsored sports activities• profit-sharing and stock options plans

– People’s Capitalism: worker then went out and spent all, or more than he made

– Consumer driven society (the last one till 1950)

Warren G. Harding

• 2nd rate editor

• 2nd rate politician

• 2nd rate husband

• Worst president ever– Played 18 holes every day– During prohibition played poker and drank till

3 A.M. most nights

• Couldn’t say NO. Delegated authority. Made some terrible appointments. Some good ones also.

THE HARDING PRESIDENCY

Warren G. Harding’s modest successes include the Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounced war as a means of national policy (signed by 15 nations, but difficult to enforce), and the Dawes Plan which hoped to solve the problem of post-war debt by providing loans to Germany to pay France/Britain who then paid the U.S.

Harding 1920-1924

Bad appointees:1. Sec. of Interior Albert

Fall leased gov’t U.S. Naval oil reserves for bribes and kickbacks. Sent to prison

2. Attn General Dougherty used his office to destroy strikes for his bidness partners

3. Sec. of Vet’s Bureau sold bedsheets for 20% of their value then bought them back for a 200% markup. Sent to prison.

Good appointees:1. Sec. of State Charles

Evans Hughs gets Washington Treaty signed cutting worldwide military $. (Five Power, and Nine Power Agreements, Kellogg-Briand Pact)

2. Sec. or Commerce Herbert Hoover.

3. Sec. of Treasury Mellon cuts taxes and size of gov’t (Trickle-Down)• 1919 = 6.4 Billion Fed $• 1927 = 3.0 Billion Fed $• 1919 = 25.5 Billion Debt• 1927 = 17 Billion Debt.

Nan Publishes a book

• The President’s Daughter

• Harding goes to Alaska and dies on the return voyage.

• Coolidge takes over– well kinda – mostly he slept.

Urbanization

• 1920 census places 51% of population in city setting (105 million population)

• rural areas fear loss of influence– growing image of hayseed, hick, rube, hillbilly– struggle to reassert traditional agrarian values– can’t keep the chillen on the farms– 1921 depression hits farmers the hardest. Farm income

drops from the 1919 high of $10,000,000,000 to the 1921 value of $4,000,000,000.

– Farm expenses increase.

• isolation and depersonalization of city-life• EXCITEMENT of the city life.

URBAN VS. RURAL Throughout the 1920s, Americans found themselves caught between urban and rural cultures Urban life was considered a world of anonymous crowds, strangers, moneymakers, and pleasure seekers Rural life was considered to be safe, with close personal ties, hard work and morals New York City was home to over 5 million people in 1920 Chicago had nearly 3 million

Cities were impersonal

Farms were innocent

EXPANDING NEWS COVERAGE

As literacy increased, newspaper circulation rose and mass-circulation magazines flourished By the end of the 1920s, ten American magazines -- including Reader’s Digest and Time – boasted circulations of over 2 million

Newspapers sold Middle-class morality

and a flash of sex

Advertising became a business that then increased business, that …

Technology– Model T

• Mobile society• Privacy• Fed. Hwy Act (part of dept of defense) spends $1,000,000,000 on

roads• “Struggle Buggy” “Brothel on Wheels”• assembly line (Fordism) went from

– 1919 = 1 person in 16 owned a car– 1929 = 1 in 5 owned a car

– Telephone:• connection to one’s neighbors• Party lines

– Radio:• 612 stations by 1930• news and entertainment to rural areas• brought people back to the house again—of course they weren’t

talking to each other• Amos and Andy• “Cliffhangers”: The Shadow, The Lone Ranger

Burns/Allen

The Shadow

Amos…

THE IMPACT OF THE AUTO

The auto was the backbone of the American economy from 1920 through the 1970sIt also profoundly altered the American landscape and society

The Ford Model T was the first car in America. It came only in black and sold for $290. Over 15 million were

sold by 1927.

IMPACT OF THE AUTO

Among the many changes were:Paved roads, traffic lightsMotels, billboardsHome designGas stations, repair shopsShopping centers Freedom for rural familiesIndependence for women and young peopleCities like Detroit, Flint, Akron grew By 1920 80% of world’s vehicles in U.S.

Get amos and andy pic

RADIO COMES OF AGE

Although print media was popular, radio was the most powerful communications medium to emerge in the 1920s News was delivered faster and to a larger audience Americans could hear the voice of the president or listen to the World Series live

Technology– Movies:

• 1st movie = The Great Train Robbery 1903• 1st propaganda film: =The Birth of a Nation 1915• 1st Talkie = The Jazz Singer 1927• Set teenage styles and roles

– Sheik = Valentino– Sweetheart = Lillian Gish (“The Dish”)– Vamp = Theda Bera

• Hayes Code = censorship was by the movie

industry and self-imposed• Whole industry seen as dominated by Jewish

element

The Sheik 1921

KingKong1933

Fairbanks in Robin Hood 1922

JazzSinger

Marx Brothers 1937

Modern TimesW.C. Fields

1921

Other advances:– Air travel– Medicine– The “world shrinks”– Middle class SOARS– Education reform and

Dewey– Washing Machines– Vacuum cleaners– Refrigerators– Stoves and ovens– EZ Credit and huge debts

AIRLINE TRANSPORT BECOMES MORE COMMON

The airline industry began as a mail carrying service and quickly “took off”

By 1927, Pan American Airways was making the transatlantic passenger flights

ELECTRICAL CONVENIENCES

While gasoline powered much of the economic boom of the 1920s, the use of electricity also transformed the nation

Electric refrigerators, stoves, irons, toasters, vacuums, washing machines and sewing

machines were all new

EDUCATION AND POPULAR

CULTURE

During the 1920s, developments in education had a powerful impact on the nation Enrollment in high schools quadrupled between 1914 and 1926 Public schools met the challenge of educating millions of immigrants

SCIENCE AND RELIGION CLASH

Another battleground during the 1920s was between fundamentalist religious groups and secular thinkers over the truths of science The Protestant movement grounded in the literal interpretation of the bible is known as fundamentalism Fundamentalists found all truth in the bible – including science & evolution

SCOPES TRIAL

In March 1925, Tennessee passed the nation’s first law that made it a crime to teach evolution The ACLU promised to defend any teacher willing to challenge the law – John Scopes did

Scopes was a biology teacher who dared to teach his students that man

derived from lower species

SCOPES TRIAL

The ACLU hired Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer of the era, to defend Scopes The prosecution countered with William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential nominee

Darrow

Bryan

1

2

3

4

5

6

Despite the guilty verdict, Darrow got the upper hand during his questioning of Bryan

SCOPES TRIAL Trial opened on July 10,1925 and became a national sensation In an unusual move, Darrow called Bryan to the stand as an expert on the bible – key question: Should the bible be interpreted literally? Under intense questioning, Darrow got Bryan to admit that the bible can be interpreted in different ways Nonetheless, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100

Bryan

Darrow

“Flaming Youth”– Flappers (see handout)– New attitudes:

• Drinking• Smoking• Necking and petting

– Double Standards begin to be questioned openly

• Women in work force• 19th amendment• Margaret Sanger (contraceptives and abortion)• Later marriage age and choosing to be single• Less parental and community supervision

THE TWENTIES WOMAN

After the tumult of World War I, Americans were looking for a little fun in the 1920s Women were becoming more independent and achieving greater freedoms (right to vote, more employment, freedom of the auto)Chicago

1926

THE FLAPPER

During the 1920s, a new ideal emerged for some women: the Flapper A Flapper was an emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes

NEW ROLES FOR WOMEN

The fast-changing world of the 1920s produced new roles for women Many women entered the workplace as nurses, teachers, librarians, & secretaries However, women earned less than men and were kept out of many traditional male jobs (management) and faced discrimination

Early 20th Century teachers

THE CHANGING FAMILY

American birthrates declined for several decades before the 1920s During the 1920s that trend increased as birth control information became widely available Birth control clinics opened and the American Birth Control League was founded in 1921

Margaret Sanger and other founders of the American Birth

Control League - 1921

MODERN FAMILY EMERGES

As the 1920s unfolded, many features of the modern family emerged Marriage was based on romantic love, women managed the household and finances, and children were not considered laborers/ wage earners but rather developing children who needed nurturing and education

Harlem Renaissance– Flowering of A/A art

• Claude Mckay• Langston Hughes• Zora Neal Hurston

– Black pride and self segregation pushed by Marcus Garvey

• UNIA• Back to Africa movement• Black Star Line• Military appearance to intimidate whites • Tulsa Ok. Thriving black community• Almost a comic figure, arrested and deported back to

Jamaica, but other, more responsible leaders picked up the cause.

Harlem Renaissance(cont.)

– Returning black veterans demanded civil rights• Had earned them in battle• Europe lacked this form of racism• Chicago riots of 1919

– W.E.B. Dubois and his integrationist movement• “The Crisis”• NAACP• National Urban League• “Talented Tenth” led to leaders like Thurgood Marshall

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Between 1910 and 1920, the Great Migration saw hundreds of thousands of African Americans move north to big cities By 1920 over 5 million of the nation’s 12 million blacks (over 40%) lived in citiesMigration of the Negro by

Jacob Lawrence

AFRICAN AMERICAN GOALS

Founded in 1909, the NAACP urged African Americans to protest racial violence W.E.B Dubois, a founding member, led a march of 10,000 black men in NY to protest violence

MARCUS GARVEY - UNIA

Marcus Garvey believed that African Americans should build a separate society (Africa) In 1914, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association Garvey claimed a million members by the mid-1920s He left a powerful legacy of black pride, economic independence and Pan-Africanism Garvey represented a more

radical approach

HARLEM, NEW YORK

Harlem, NY became the largest black urban community Harlem suffered from overcrowding, unemployment and poverty However, in the 1920s it was home to a literary and artistic revival known as the Harlem Renaissance

AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS

The Harlem Renaissance was primarily a literary movement Led by well-educated blacks with a new sense of pride in the African-American experience Claude McKay’s poems expressed the pain of life in the ghetto

Mckay

LANGSTON HUGHES

Missouri-born Langston Hughes was the movement’s best known poet Many of his poems described the difficult lives of working-class blacks Some of his poems were put to music, especially jazz and blues

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Zora Neale Hurston wrote novels, short stories and poems She often wrote about the lives of poor, unschooled Southern blacks She focused on the culture of the people– their folkways and values

AFRICAN-AMERICAN

PERFORMERS

During the 1920s, black performers won large followings Paul Robeson, son of a slave, became a major dramatic actor His performance in Othello was widely praised

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Jazz was born in the early 20th century In 1922, a young trumpet player named Louis Armstrong joined the Creole Jazz Band Later he joined Fletcher Henderson’s band in NYC Armstrong is considered the most important and influential musician in the history of jazz

EDWARD KENNEDY “DUKE”

ELLINGTON In the late 1920s, Duke Ellington, a jazz pianist and composer, led his ten-piece orchestra at the famous Cotton Club Ellington won renown as one of America’s greatest composers

BESSIE SMITH

Bessie Smith, blues singer, was perhaps the most outstanding vocalist of the decade She achieved enormous popularity and by 1927 she became the highest- paid black artist in the world

Counter-Reactions– Klan reborn

• “Colonel” William Simmons ⇒ Hiram Evans ⇒ David Stephenson

• Cross Burning• Birth of A Nation by D.W. Griffith. Glorified the Klan

– Used for recruitment ($4 kickback for every new recruit)– Pres. Wilson calls it “History written in lightening”

• 5,000,000 members by 1924 including growing # of women• 40,000 march on D.C.• membership is almost a must for southern democrat

politicians– 12 senators– 11 governors– tens of thousands of local officials– almost splits the Democratic Party in 1924 over a plank

condemning the Klan. It finally passed by only 5 votes

Get KKK march picture

– E.O.H.G.• Kill all Koons and Katholics.

But also• Jewish• unions• un-fit mothers• drunks• wife-beaters• divorcees

– lost most membership in 1930 (< 10,000) when• Grand Dragon Stephenson was convicted of murdering

his MISSTRESS!!!!• Internal feuds over who got the graft and corruption money• Violent tactics are exposed by Ida B. wells• 1917 = 34 lynchings• 1918 = 60 “• 1919 = 70 (38 killed in the Chicago riot alone)

More Counter-Reactions– Nativism:

• Anti-syndicalism laws• Immigration restrictions• Sacco and Vanzetti• Scientific racism by Ripley and Grant. (later used by

Hitler as proof of Aryan superiority• Woodrow Wilson inflamed anti-immigrant sentiments

when he said “citizens born under other flags inject America with the poison of disloyalty.”

• 1921 Emergency Quota Act restricted yearly immigration to 3% of the # living in US in 1910.

• Immigration Act of 1924 lowered it to 2% of the 1890 numbers.

• ACLU is founded to fight for rights taken away during WWI

• 1919: – 30 brown paper pakage bombs sent to

prominent citizens– 20 lbs of dynamite exploded in 7 different

cities.– A car bomb killed 33 people on Wall St. NYC.– Palmer raids and the RED SCARE

• Played on post war patriotism: SOS = “shoot or shipout”

• The day after the “Fighting Quaker” declares war on terrorism a bomb explodes on his door.

– 10,000 radicals are arrested & held w/o charges– 244 “Bolsheviks” shipped out on the “Soviet Ark”– 600 other deported.

Even More Counter-Reactions– Prohibition:

• See overhead of progression from Dry states to Wet • WCTU, but really its WWI that gets 18th Amendment passed• Enforced by the Volstead Act.• Actually it DID reduce total consumption, better family

atmosphere, and less absenteeism, but at the cost of– Gangsterism : Al Capone

» Became a public hero to many

» Made $110 million in one year

» Responsible for an estimated 110 deaths

– police corruption

– blurring of the line between legal and illegal activities, good and bad, etc. rise of the anti-hero in American mythology. We now root for the criminal to “get away with it”.

Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933

when it was repealed by the 21st

Amendment

SUPPORT FOR PROHIBITION

Reformers had long believed alcohol led to crime, child & wife abuse, and accidents Supporters were largely from the rural south and west The church affiliated Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union helped push the 18th Amendment through

Poster supporting prohibition

SPEAKEASIES AND BOOTLEGGERS

Many Urban Americans did not believe drinking was a sin Most immigrant groups were not willing to give up drinking To obtain liquor illegally, drinkers went underground to hidden saloons known as speakeasies People also bought liquor from bootleggers who smuggled it in from Canada, Cuba and the West Indies

GOVERNMENT FAILS TO CONTROL LIQUOR

Eventually, Prohibition’s fate was sealed by the government, which failed to budget enough money to enforce the law The task of enforcing Prohibition fell to 1,500 poorly paid federal agents --- clearly an impossible task Federal agents pour wine

down a sewer

SUPPORT FADES, PROHIBITION REPEALED

By the mid-1920s, only 19% of Americans supported Prohibition Many felt Prohibition caused more problems than it solved The 21st Amendment finally repealed Prohibition in 1933

Democratic Nominating Convention1924 is a mess:

Conflicts– Wets vs. Drys

– City vs. Country

– Fundamentalist vs. Modernist

– Northerners vs. Southerners

– Bourgeoisie vs. Booboisie

Takes 102 to choose John Davis, a Wall Street banker!!!!!!!!

Since both major parties choose ultra-conservative candidates

Progressives:

– “Fighting Bob” LaFollette– AFL jump on board– Socialist Party endorses– But 80+% are farmers– 5,000,000 votes – Coolidge gets 15,000,000+

“The Business of America Is Business” Calvin Coolidge

• Back to Laissez-Faire (unless labor gets out of hand) economics

• Frugal• Dry sense of humor (Coolidge Effect)• Lazy, lazy, lazy. Slept 14 hours a night, then

took an afternoon nap.• Lowered taxes and spending• Helped create Dawes Plan that helps create

temporary RICH times but ultimately the Great Depression.

Hero worship. The progression has been:

– Religious Leader (Mathers, Bradford, etc)– Civilian politician (Washington, Jefferson)– Military hero (Jackson)– Businessmen (Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc)– Entertainer and/or Criminals

• Babe Ruth (athletes)

• Valentino (actors)

• Capone (gangsters)

• Lindberg daredevils)

AMERICAN HEROES OF THE 20s

In 1929, Americans spent $4.5 billion on entertainment (includes sports) People crowded into baseball games to see their heroes Babe Ruth was a larger than life American hero who played for Yankees He hit 60 homers in 1927

Beginning of Endorsements!!!

SCANDALS

CRIMINAL AS HERO

Al Capone was finally convicted on tax evasion charges in 1931

LINDBERGH’S FLIGHT

America’s most beloved hero of the time wasn’t an athlete but a small-town pilot named Charles Lindbergh Lindbergh made the first nonstop solo trans-Atlantic flight He took off from NYC in the Spirit of St. Louis and arrived in Paris 33 hours later to a hero’s welcome

ENTERTAINMENT AND ARTS

Even before sound, movies offered a means of escape through romance and comedy First sound movies: Jazz Singer (1927) First animated with sound: Steamboat Willie (1928) By 1930 millions of Americans went to the movies each week

Walt Disney's animated

Steamboat Willie marked the debut of Mickey Mouse. It was a seven minute long black and

white cartoon.

MUSIC AND ART

Famed composer George Gershwin merged traditional elements with American Jazz Painters like Edward Hopper depicted the loneliness of American life Georgia O’ Keeffe captured the grandeur of New York using intensely colored canvases

Gershwin

Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks”

Radiator Building, Night, New York , 1927

Georgia O'Keeffe

Literary changes caused by WWI, disillusionment, new generation of writers:

– F. Scott Fitzgerald: all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”

– Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt as the foolish “sheeple’– H.L. Mencken: Journalist who lampooned

EVERYTHING– Theodore Dreiser: An American Tragedy– Ernest Hemingway: anti-war novel A Farewell to Arms– William Faulkner: unmasked the vacuity and inbreeding

of the aristocratic South.– Ex-patriots poets: Pound, Elliot, – Playwrights like Eugene O’neill– e e cummings

WRITERS OF THE 1920S

The 1920s was one of the greatest literary eras in American history Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature, wrote the novel, Babbitt In Babbitt the main character ridicules American conformity and materialism

WRITERS OF THE 1920s

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the phrase “Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s Fitzgerald wrote Paradise Lost and The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby reflected the emptiness of New York elite society

WRITERS OF THE 1920S

Edith Warton’s Age of Innocence dramatized the clash between traditional and modern values Willa Cather celebrated the simple, dignified lives of immigrant farmers in Nebraska in My Antonia

WRITERS OF THE 1920

Ernest Hemingway, wounded in World War I, became one of the best-known authors of the era In his novels, The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, he criticized the glorification of war His simple, straightforward style of writing set the literary standard

Hemingway - 1929

THE LOST GENERATION

Some writers such as Hemingway and John Dos Passos were so soured by American culture that they chose to settle in Europe In Paris they formed a group that one writer called, “The Lost Generation”

John Dos Passos self – portrait. He was a good amateur painter.

A SUPERFICIAL PROSPERITY

Many during the 1920s believed the prosperity would go on forever

Wages, production, GNP, and the stock market all rose significantly

But. . . .

PROBLEMS ON THE HORIZON?

Businesses expanded recklessly

Iron & railroad industries faded

Farms nationwide suffered losses due to overproduction and a lack of overseas markets

Too much was bought on credit (installment plans) including stocks

By 1928 the coming crash is apparent to some

• Middle-East partitioned under Sykes-Pichot and Balfour Agreement

• Dawes Plan is bankrupting Europe– American investment in Europe is the only

thing keeping it going.

• Major agricultural overproduction

• McNary-Haugen Bill to help farmers vetoed TWICE by Coolidge

Election of 1928

Get election map

Black Tuesday Oct. 29th 1929• $40,000,000,000 lost in 2 months

• No more loans to Germany = world-wide bankruptcy

• 4 million jobless Americans

• 5,000 banks declare bankruptcy

• Smoot-Hawley Tariff raises it still higher

Hoover’s response = Huge federal spending, but still Trickle Down

– Hoover Dam– RFC

• Banks• Insurance co’s• RR’s• Local Gov’ts

– Went fishing to appear calm and in-charge– Agricultural Marketing Act

• Set up Agric. Coops• Federal Farm Act $1/2 Billion in loans. Too little, too late

Result was:– Hoovervilles– Hoover Flags– Hoover Blankets– Bonus Army and “Battle of Anacostia Flats”

World Wide Effects

• Hitler,

• Mussolini,

• Franco (Spain)

• Hirohito– Attacks China

• League of Nations does nothing• US issue Stimson Doctrine• WWII has begun in 1932