1. The American Economy, Society and Culture in the 1920s
USHC 6.1

2. USHC 6.1
Explain the impact of the changes in the 1920s on the economy, society, and culture, including the expansion of mass production techniques, the invention of new home appliances, the introduction of the installment plan, the role of transportation in changing urban life, the effect of radio and movies in creating a national mass culture, and the cultural changes exemplified by the Harlem Renaissance.

3. Post WWI
After World War I, the United States entered a period of economic growth and cultural change that had both positive and negative consequences.
The expansion of economic opportunity in the 1920s did not extend to all Americans.

4. Economic Boom
The economic boom of the 1920s had negative consequences for some segments of the economy.
By the end of the 1920s, electric energy fueled most of American industry which brought economic hardship to the coal industry.
Farmers suffered economic depression when the end of World War I brought a loss of markets and thus surpluses led to low prices and foreclosures.

5. Economic Boom
Mass production techniques such as the assembly line, introduced by Henry Ford in 1913, brought radios, refrigerators, and many other new products to the marketplace, but also further marginalized the skilled worker.
Workers were still underpaid and labor unions were unable to protect their members because of the anti-union attitudes.
This led to a widening gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’

6. Effects of Media
Mass media exacerbated these differences by advertising the goods that many American workers could not afford to buy.
The introduction of the installment plan encouraged consumers to change their attitudes about debt.
This cultural shift to a ‘buy now, pay later’ philosophy stimulated the economy but later contributed to depression when the capacity of consumers to borrow was reached.

7. Labor Savers?
The invention of new home appliances such as the washing machine, electric irons, and vacuum cleaners led to some social change as women were able to do their household chores more easily.
However, working class women could not afford these labor-saving devices and middle class women began to do their own housework rather than hiring help.
Consequently, electric appliances led to no significant decrease in household chores or to any changes in women’s position in society or the economy.

8. Women in the 1920’s
Although the flapper is an icon of the 1920s and her freedom helped to change cultural attitudes towards the role of women, most women continued the traditional roles as wife and mother.
Advertising, radio, and the movies spread the mass consumer culture at the same time that it reinforced traditional gender roles.

9. Transportation Transportation helped to change urban life.
The automobile changed living and dating patterns for those who could afford to buy a car.
Transportation by street car within the cities led to a further differentiation in living and working neighborhoods that divided the urban community.
Suburbs grew but not as much as in the 1950s.

10. Transportation
The availability of the automobile also changed the lives of country folk by mitigating the isolation of rural life.
Cars made it easier to get to town both to socialize and to market crops.
The advent of aviation was exciting but had little impact on the average American who could not afford to fly.

11. Great Migration
African Americans migrated in greater numbers to segregated neighborhoods in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest
This was in response to push factors such as:
Jim Crow discrimination
violence and poverty in the South
And pull factors such as:
job opportunities
a cultural renaissance in the Northern cites

12. Harlem Renaissance
As African Americans congregated in neighborhoods and developed businesses that catered to their community, a black middle class developed.
This middle class supported African American writers, musicians, and artists.
The resulting Harlem Renaissance brought recognition and pride to black artists, particularly musicians, but further pointed out their second class citizenship.
Writers of the Harlem Renaissance including James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, celebrated ties to African cultural traditions and black pride and questioned the position of African Americans in American life.

13. Harlem Renaissance
The radio helped to spread appreciation for new trends in music such as jazz to white audiences and promoted a shared national culture.
Such appreciation for African American artistic contributions helped to slowly break down barriers and lay the foundation for the civil rights movement of the post-World War II era.
However, African Americans were still most often portrayed as racial stereotypes, most notably in the popular film “Birth of a Nation” that fostered a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and discrimination against African Americans continued.