Decoding the 1920s: Boom and Uneven Prospects

1. Warm-up • What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying items on credit? Explain your answers please.

2. The Economy of the 1920s

3. Farmers • Wartime production based on borrowed money • World competition lowered prices by 50% • Technological improvements resulted in more debt • Did not share in prosperity of 20s

4. The Automobile • Ultimate consumer toy • Mass production • Henry Ford-assembly line more efficient • Ripple effect on the economy • 3.7 million employed directly or indirectly • Stimulated other industries (steel, rubber, glass, petroleum, chemical) • Highway construction (billion dollar a year enterprise) • Spent leisure time traveling in cars • Opened new business opportunities • Helped construction industry become one of the few industries that really boomed in 20s.

7. Advertising and Consumption • Grew with automobile industry • Billion dollar industry • New way to introduce modern technological products (washing machines, radios, vacuum cleaners, etc.) • Enticed consumers to spend money they did not really have

8. Led to mass consumption of items not considered necessities—materialistic items--- “stuff” • Cultural ideal mostly for middle class; criterion for considering self-worth • Brand names and chain stores • New method of buying—credit—installment plan—buy now pay later; the beginning of the credit card concept

9. Uneven Prosperity • African Americans lost their factory jobs to returning servicemen • Native Americans (given citizenship 1924) held on reservations with little or no productive work • Many immigrants couldn’t find work; farmers and factories paid low wages • Deep South left out of economic boom as agricultural economic base eroded after the war

10. Activity:

11. Activity: • Packet