10 th American History Unit IV- U.S. Economic History to 1945

1. 10th American HistoryUnit IV- U.S. Economic History to 1945 Life in the Jazz Age

2. Reading Quiz • 1. What was the Roaring 20’s about? • 2. How did the automobile change America? • 3. What was the assembly line? • 4. What did Henry Ford do? • 5. What is buying on time? • 6. What were some of the new consumer goods of the 20’s?

3. Laissez-Faire- “allow to be” • A doctrine in which the market place should not be regulated. • No government intervention in private business. • Strongest businesses will succeed and bring wealth to the nation as a whole. • Government to promote free trade and a free market place. • Government favored business over labor.

4. Laissez-Faire- “allow to be”

5. Importance of the AutomobileThe presence of a new technology can have a ripple effect on a people’s whole way of life. During the 1920’s, new inventions and developments such as the automobile changed life dramatically.

6. Henry Ford 2:42 min.

7. New products for living • It is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile. • Historians, who accept that early steam-powered road vehicles were automobiles, feel that Nicolas Cugnot was the inventor of the first automobile. • Between 1832 and 1839, Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first electric carriage. • Electric cars used rechargeable batteries that powered a small electric motor. The vehicles were heavy, slow, expensive ($1,000-$3,000), and needed to stop for recharging frequently. No gear shift and easy to start.

8. New products for living • Why the Gas Powered Auto won out. • 1920s, a better system of roads and a need for longer-range vehicles. • Discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline. • The invention of the electric starter by eliminated the need for the hand crank. • Mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made vehicles available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. • Ransome Eli Olds (1864-1950) invented the basic concept of the assembly line and started the Detroit area automobile industry. • Henry Ford (1863-1947) invented an improved assembly line-the first conveyor belt-based assembly line around 1913-14. Reducing production costs for cars by reducing assembly time. Ford's famous Model T was assembled in ninety-three minutes

9. Henry Ford and the Assembly Line • 1908, the Model T for $950. In nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone. • Factory could turn out a complete Model T chassis every 93 minutes (finally getting it down to 24 seconds. • Productivity went up using a constantly-moving assembly line, subdivision of labor, and careful coordination of operations. • In 1914, Ford paid his employees five dollars a day, nearly doubling the wages. Cut the workday from nine to eight hours and put in a three-shift workday “Americans can have any kind of car they want, and any color they want, as long as it's a Ford, and as long as it's black."

10. Economic Effect of the Automobile • Promoted growth of other industries.Especially petroleum, rubber, and steel. • Helped fuel the creation of a national system of highways.Automobiles required better roads. After WWI, federal funds became available for building highways and a major industry was born. • Created new service facilities.Filling stations, garages, and roadside restaurants sprang up across the nation. Motels (the word itself is a blend of 'motor' and 'hotel') catering to the needs of motorists began to replace hotels.

11. Products for the Home • A floodtide of new electric appliances lightened the load of the middle-class American housewife: • vacuum cleaners, toasters, washing machines, refrigerators. • Women became America's greatest consumers, purchasing appliances and other items that would have been considered a luxury just a generation before. • Approximately 80% of phonographs were sold using installment debt, 75% of washing machines, 65% of vacuum cleaners and 25% of all jewelry sales. • Radio • Refrigerator • Phonograph

12. Installment Buying • Purchasing a commodity over a period of time. The buyer gains the use of the commodity immediately and then pays for it in periodic payments called installments. • These loans were commonplace in the United States since around 1850 with sewing machine financing. Before the sewing machine it took on average fourteen hours to make a shirt and with a sewing machine, just one hour. It was a huge labor saving device and by 1890 the price of the machine had dropped to about $30 or $40 if you financed it. The financing plan offered by Singer was simple, " dollar down, dollar a week". • Auto financing developed because the first wave of car purchasers were beginning to sell their used vehicles and buyers needed help to purchase them. • Credit-- In 1925, Americans made 75% of all automobile purchases on the installment plan.

13. Two Groups who did not prosper • The African Americans • menial labour for very poor wages in the southern states- misery in total poverty(KKK made this misery worse). • Northern states, decent jobs went to the white population and discrimination was just as common. many black families lived in ghettoes in the cities in very poor conditions. • 2) The share croppers of the south and mid-Americas. • Rented out land from landlords or got a mortgage together to buy land to farm. • Not afford the rent or mortgage payments they were evicted from the land. • A massive boost in food production and prices tumbled as farmers desperately tried to sell their produce and failed. • Many farmers in the mid-west lost their homes. • Unmarried male farmers became the legendary hobos - men who roamed the mid-American states on trains looking for part-time work.