1 / 11

The Twenties

The Twenties. A Booming Economy Produces A New Mass Culture. The Automobile Drives Prosperity. “ A Car for the People at a Price the People Can Pay. ”.

gilmore
Download Presentation

The Twenties

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Twenties A Booming Economy Produces A New Mass Culture

  2. The Automobile Drives Prosperity

  3. “A Car for the People at a Price the People Can Pay.” • To fully achieve this purpose FORD cars must be made large quantities that a small margin over the cost would produce a satisfactory profit.  • Henry Ford brought mass production, the rapid manufacture of large numbers of identical products, to new heights

  4. Model T • Ford builds plant in Detroit for easy access to steel, glass, oil and rubber • Hired scientific management experts to improve efficiency • Put cars on assembly lines • Model T price drops from $850 in 1908 to $290 in 1927. In 1919 only 10% of Americans owned cars; by 1927, 56% did

  5. Workers Benefit Assembly line difficult and boring. Ford cannot find people work for him on the assembly line. As a result, he raises wages from $2.35 to $5.00 a day and reduces their workday from nine hours to eight hours a day. He also gives workers Saturday and Sunday off, thus inventing the “weekend”. He knew that more leisure and more money would allow his workers to afford his cars. Modern Times

  6. The Automobile Changes America • Boom in auto industry stimulates growth in other related industries • Massive road construction • Other forms of ground transportation suffer • Auto promotes a new sense of freedom & prosperity • Alters residential patterns: development of suburbs. Cities develop without a center.

  7. Consumer Revolution • Widespread availability of electricity supports consumer revolution • Advertising industry grows to encourage people to buy; celebrated consumption as an end in itself • Credit becomes readily available; installment buying where people make small down payment and then makes small monthly payments becomes popular • Attitudes towards money changes; will create problems for consumers in 1930’s

  8. 1920’s Advertising

  9. The 1920’s Stock Market is Bullish! • Stock market rises to unbelievable heights • Americans see stocks as ways to “get rich quick” • People buy stocks on margin, another way of buying on credit. One puts 10% of the price down and pays stock broker over a period of months. This works fine as long as the stock is going up. But, if stock goes down, the broker can “call” the loan • By 1929, stock market on very shaky ground.

  10. People Flock to Cities • Everyone moving toward cities • Farmers • Immigrants • African-Americans • Skyscrapers dominate city skylines • Suburbs Grow • Improved mass transportation • Widespread use of autos • Mostly middle- and upper-class residents • Drain cities of people & resources

  11. Major Problem of 1920’s: America’s Wealth Poorly Distributed • Industrial Wages rise more slowly than corporate salaries. • Rural areas especially suffer • Did not participate in consumer benefits & economic gains of the decade • Farmers suffer from growing debt and and falling farm prices • Depression hits rural areas in 1920’s

More Related