Unit Six: Boom Bust and the New Deal—The Basics



Unit Six: Boom Bust and the New Deal—The Basics

There will be a re-test option for any students who failed the Unit Five test. This re-test will include 25 questions. and will serve to raise the unit test score from Mar 14. Every single item on the re-test will be taken from the statements that appear below.

Return to Normalcy,

After WWI, Warren G. Harding won the election of 1920 with the slogan Return to Normalcy. His presidency was marred by corruption in his cabinet and scandals such as the Teapot Dome scandal, in which his Interior secretary was caught taking bribes.

Harding died in office, and was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge, who believed in Lassez Faire economic policy, which says the economy runs best without government regulation.

America had great economic growth in the 1920s, largely fueled by the mass production of the automobile. The first mass produced car, the Model T, was designed by Henry Ford.

He 1920s was also the era of Prohibition, when the sale alcohol was banned by the 18th amendment. Bootleggers such as Al Capone of Chicago made money selling alcohol illegally. Illegal saloons were called “speakeasies” since the patrons were expected to keep the noise down to avoid attracting law enforcement.

There was a great deal of social change in the 1920s. Flappers were young women whose fashions and behavior challenged traditional female roles. Another instance in which modernity challenged tradition was the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which a teacher was tried for teaching the theory of evolution, which had been banned in public schools in Tennessee.

The biggest American hero of the 1920s was Charles Lindbergh who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

In the 1910s, Marcus Garvey established the UNIA and began holding rallies in Harlem stressing racial pride for African Americans. The increase in art and literature in the black community that followed in the 1920s became known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Herbert Hoover won the election of 1928 promising continued prosperity with the slogan “A Chicken in Every Pot” but just a few months into his presidency the Stock Market Crash occurred, and the Great Depression began. One cause of the crash was a great deal of speculation done with borrowed funds, called Margin Buying. Americans blamed Hoover for the economic problems, calling urban areas with shacks built by the homeless Hoovervilles. Hoover’s popularity was hurt even more in the summer of 1932 when the Bonus Army, who had marched to Washington asking for relief, was attacked with tear gas in Washington DC. That fall, Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who claimed to be offering a “New Deal” to the American people.

Roosevelt started his presidency stating that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ encouraging Americans to renew their confidence in the country’s economic potential. As New Deal laws were passed, FDR delivered fireside chats on the radio to boost this trust.

Putting people back to work involved the creation of government jobs, which were doled out by agencies such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA). To prevent more bank failures, the government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). One of the longest lasting impacts of the New Deal was the creation of Social Security, which established a national pension program

In the labor market, the Wagner Act created the National Labor Relations Board to help mediate labor disputes. Still, some workers felt that wages were too low and work hours too long and some strikes turned violent. Some unions used sit-down strikes, in which their members stayed at their workplaces without working, preventing management from hiring strikebreakers.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download