1920

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1920s 1930s Economic Boom to Bust
Economic Boom to Great Depression The 1920s
1930s
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Post-War America

• Return to isolationism
• Americans were celebrating the end of WWI.
• Americans were reforming society, culture and our
  economy.

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1920s Economic Boom
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Presidents of the 1920s
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President Warren G. Harding(Republican 1921-1923)
Return To Normalcy
Favored big business Low taxes/high tariffs
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President Warren G. Harding

• Republican 1923-Harding dies
• Vice President
• Coolidge
• takes over

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President Calvin Coolidge(1923-1929)
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President Calvin Coolidge(1923-1929)

• Pro-business The chief business of America is
  business. The man who builds a factory builds a
  temple, the man who works there worships there.
• Low taxes high business profits
• Wanted to end government regulation of business
  and industry
• GDP (Gross Domestic Product) grew from 74 billion
  in 21to 104 billion in 29

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Booming Society of the 1920s

• Business
• Increase in consumer good industries
• Led to affordable luxuries--radios, movies,
  cameras, vacuum cleaners, washing machines,
  telephones, automobiles, airplanes

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Booming Society of the 1920s

• B. Creative advertising
• Focused on the psychology of the consumer
• Installment buying
• Consumption became an easy necessity
• You buy now, pay as you use it.

Credit buying
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Creative 1920s Advertising
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Booming Society of the 1920s

• II. Culture
• Americans craved excitement and authority of the
  past generations
• Jazz Age
• Women

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Booming Society of the 1920s

• Women
• Flappers-liberated women
• Makeup, short skirts, smoke/drank in public.
• Right to Vote 1920

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Flappers
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Booming Society of the 1920s

• Automobile changed lifestyle
• Mobility, privacy for youth, farmers less
  isolated
• Radio silent movie popularity
• Harlem Renaissance
• Harlem, NY
• Popularized African American creativity in art,
  music, literature

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Duke Ellington his Orchestra
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Langston Hughes Poet
To fling my arms wide in some place of the sun,
to whirl and to dance till the white day is done
then rest at cool evening beneath a tall tree
while night comes on gently dark like me, this is
my dream! To fling my arms wide in the face of
the sun, Dance! Whirl! Whirl! Till the quick
day is done, rest at pale evening, a tall slim
tree. night coming tenderly black like
me. ----Dream Variations
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Booming Society of the 1920s

• Prohibition (1919-1933)
• Banning of the sale, manufacture, transportation
  of alcoholic beverages
• Society resists bootleggers/speakeasies/gangsters.

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Prohibition Era
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Booming Society of the 1920s

• Heroes
• Charles Lindbergh-1st non-stop solo flight, NY to
  Paris
• Babe Ruth-60 homeruns for NY Yankees in 1927
• Jack Dempsy-Heavy weight champ defeated by Tuney
  in 1st 50 million dollar fight (1927)

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The end of the good times arrives in 1929.

• Stock market crashed
• Wealthy people lost their investments
• Businesses failed and closed
• People lost their jobs
• Debts could not be paid.
• And it just got worse!
• The 1930s are known as the Great Depression
  years.

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Boom Versus Bust Economy

• Bust 1930s
• demand is low for goods
• inflation decreases
• Factories and businesses close
• unemployment rises
• national income falls
• Cant make payments on debts.

• Boom 1920s
• high demand for goods
• inflation increases
• Many jobs are available
• unemployment falls
• national income accelerates
• Can make payments on debts.

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The 1920s

• The Roaring Twenties
• Many jobs
• Harlem Renaissance
• New technology
• Celebrate life after WWI

• This decade is the birth of installment buying.
• Advertisements encouraged more spending than
  families earned.
• Music, literature and art shows American Spirit.

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1920s Roaring Twenties

• Americans had good jobs.
• Steady paycheck
• Extra money to spend
• Improved the quality of their lives