This week we take are reading about the 1920's and its ultimate effect on the 1930's Great Depression. One might say that the culture clash of the 1920's causes some of the problems of the 1930's but the culture itself needed some level of change. Doughboys had just come back from fighting in World War I, blacks had similarly fought alongside white soldiers and contributed to the war effort on the homefront, and women played an important role in maintaining the home and going off to work in the war industry at the same time.
The 1920's proved to be a time of change because a new level of confidence arose within Americans. It was clear that we were now a force to be reckoned with and similarly that historically-oppressed groups in the U.S. were perfectly capable of offering the country similar, if not better services, than the historical oppressors.
The economic confidence increased as well as people invested in the newly-founded stock market, bought things on credit, were encouraged to spend more on leisure activities with the advent of the automobile and mass flight transportation, and were encouraged to consume more with advertisements, both in the form of the already-proven print propoganda, and the new media of film and radio.
Still, the increase in economic activity could not prepare the U.S. for the types of business-minded corruption that would eventually lead to the Great Depression of the 1930's. Harding built a campaign on the idea of "normalcy" but was ultimately responsible for returning to some of the ideas of the Gilded Age, favoring railroads, all but doing away with anti-trust laws, raising tariffs (which would ultimately hurt Europe's ability to pay back its war debt) and turning a blind eye to corrupt staff members such as Albert Fall in the Teapot Dome Scandal, who received appromately $400k in bribes in order to lease out some land in Wyoming and California.
Calvin Coolidge was moral, somewhat boring, but ultimately backed many of Harding's economic ideas. By the time Hoover took over the Hawley-Smoot tariff was at a whopping 60%, and over-speculation and buying on credit was out of control. The stock market crash of October 29, 1929 ultimately led to higher unemployment rates, government's attempt at increasing jobs, and a complete lack of confidence in the economy, which would ultimately lead to the Great Depression.
We are now entering the Great Depression era.The United States fell into this depression due to the stock market crash which is known as the black tuesday.During this era people were building up their "nice" way of living, with the help of credit, which would eventually put them in debt. In this era we also have the republican party running against the democrats in the election of 1932. Herbert Hoover is running against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They have totally different points of view, Franklin Delano believes that government should do their business and stay out of the world of economics because from his point of view, government does not help, it instead affects it. Hoover has a totally opposite point of view. He believes that government benefits them because it keeps a greater control of the nation's press and platform. Both of these candidates have a point in which they in a way convince or get to persuade the citizens to vote for them because yes the people want to become wealthier without anyone stoping or placing a limit to their success, but people wouldn't be able to controll what the government has under it's hands, without its management, our society would probably be a disaster, or under a depression. MR!!!!!!!I FORGOT TO HAND YOU THE APPPARTS!!!!!!!ha..
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