WHO WERE THE LOSERS IN THE 1920’S BOOM? L.O: To assess the negative impact of the boom 12 June, 2016

PRESIDENT HOOVER 1929 “We in America today are nearer to the financial triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of our land. The poor man is vanishing from us.” By the end of today’s lesson, you should be able to assess the validity of this statement (how true it was)

The FARMERS’ PROBLEM NO.1 Over Production, Reduced markets and Falling Prices 1.During WW1 farmers were encouraged to produce as many crops as possible to sell surplus to European countries. Once these countries had started to re-build their economies, they no longer needed American grain. American farmers lost valuable overseas markets for surplus production. 2.Farmers also lost markets due to Protectionism (the tariffs placed foreign goods to encourage home grown products). When other countries put up tariffs in retaliation – farmers couldn’t sell to foreign markets because of the cost. 3.Farmers also faced competition from other countries e.g Canada flooded markets with cheap grain leaving no profitable market for American farmers. Amongst all this, farmers carried on producing large amounts of crops as they needed to re-pay loans for machines. ALL OF THIS LED TO OVERPRODUCTION - TOO MANY CROPS MEANS FALLING PRICES!

So what happened to them? Farmers could not sell their produce for more than the price it cost them to produce. Many were evicted from their land as they could not repay loans. The number of farms declined between Unemployment of labourers Some workers migrated to industrial cities. Some remained on the land and barely scraped a living

Facts that look good in an essay W heat prices fell from $183. a bushel in 1920 to 38 cents a bushel in In 1929 average income of farmers was only 40% of the national average, and many farmers could not afford their mortgage; In ,000 farmers went bankrupt. Rural areas did not have electricity, so farmers were also excluded from the consumer boom. In 1929, when the average monthly income of a skilled manufacturing worker might be $140, farm labourers were earning only $49 a month.

Just how bad could it get? This is a photo of a poor white farmer at the end of the 1920s. How do we know that they are poor?

What about the Black Minority? They could see the prosperity but they couldn’t share in it – why?

Black People in the South When slavery was abolished, the solution was sharecropping. Former slaves were given parcels of land to grow their own crops. In return for seed and equipment, they would give the plantation owner a third or a half of his crop. This worked when the cotton sold well. Impact: When cotton did not sell, black sharecroppers faced terrible problems. Usually working on small plots of land, they did not have access to new technology to make their farms productive. Combined with the low prices paid for agricultural produce, black farmers often fell heavily into debt. They did not own their farms, so they would be the first to be evicted when times got hard for their white landlords. 3/4 million black farm workers lost their jobs in the 1920s. Many were driven to the northern cities.

Black workers in the North Black workers in the towns in the north were the lowest paid; the only work they found available were low- paying, menial jobs (e.g. women were low paid domestic servants) They faced discrimination: car hire companies only employed small amounts of black workers, most operated a ‘white only’ policy Impact: New York's black Harlem district was a severely overcrowded and segregated community, with more than 250,000 citizens crammed into an area 50 blocks long and eight blocks wide.

Old Industries – Coal & Cotton As new industries took off, some old industries suffered. Coal and cotton are good examples. As oil, gas and electricity developed, the coal market declined and coal was being overproduced. Mines closed and wages were cut. Safety standards dropped and working hours increased. In ,000 miners went on a four month strike for better conditions but had no impact. The cotton industry suffered competition from new artificial fibres. In 1926, there was a strike at Loray cotton mill in North Carolina where men were paid $18 dollars a week and women $9. The average weekly wage in New York City was $200

So is it really fair to call 1920s American History ‘The age of the Boom?’ What do you think?

PRESIDENT HOOVER 1929 “We in America today are nearer to the financial triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of our land. The poor man is vanishing from us.” How true was this statement?