1. Cost of reconstruction & war debts
Cost of War
France to Russia, homes, factories, roads, churches, etc. Shelled into ruble
Reconstruction
38 million casualties, flu
Cost of reconstruction & war debts

2. Return to Normalcy Postwar 1918, bitter sweet victory
1920, US elected Warren Harding
Return to Normalcy

3. Postwar Women & African Americans confront new realities
End of war ended new opportunities
Competitive work market
Violence in N. cities
Race riots

4. WWI shifted economic power of world from London to New York
Economy
Inflation
People rushed to buy goods after the war, scarce
Farmers hurting
But US grew as world power
Economic giant, despite domestic problems
Riches most industrialized country in the world
Creditor nation
WWI shifted economic power of world from London to New York

5. Impact of the Automobile
Mass production, assembly line
More goods produced in less time
Henry Ford didn’t invent m.p. but brought it to new heights

7. Government in the 1920s Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge
Rejected Wilson’s idealist
… America did too, won a landslide
Tariff war
Reduced taxes and gov’t regulation
Died from heart attacked
Calvin Coolidge
Eliminated corruption
“the business of America is business”
Period of activism followed by laissez-faire approach would repeat in the 1950s & 1980s

8. America’s Place in a New World

9. America’s Place in the World
Old world order toppled
, Washington Naval Disarmament conference
Designed to avoid another arms race
1928, Kellogg-Brand Pact
Treaty to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy
…unenforceable
$$$
US insisted Britain & France pay them back
They get their money from…
Dawes Plan
US loaned $ to Germany