When many people study history and learn the mistakes from the past, it would be easier to able to understand the present. Nevertheless, it is not enough to simply study the events that have transpired. By changing the unfavorable events that led to despair and continuing the benefits to society, one can understand why they happen and better the future. In the United States in the early 1920s, a new stage appeared with different movements in the areas of politics, economics, society, culture, and foreign policy. By the events that led to the 1930s, new crazes had developed in many of these areas, while other areas remained in continuity. From the 1920s to the 1930, there were several factors that contributed to the changes in American society.
The 1920s began shortly
after in World War I when the United States and the Allies defeated the Germans
in 1918. Many Americans were fed up with Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president from
1913 to 1921. The first election of the 1920s scoured Republican Warren G.
Harding against Democrat James M. Cox. Cox supported Wilson and the
League of
Nations in the election. However, Harding won the election in a landslide, which
was a sign of America・s frustration with Wilson and his optimistic and liberal
policies. The start of the new conservative era restored the power to the
Republicans after the presidential election of the 1920.
Harding made quite
a few excellent appointments to his cabinet although he failed to demonstrate to
have much intelligence. Charles Evans Hughes was appointed to be the Secretary
of State, Andrew W. Mellon appointed as the Secretary of the Treasury and as
leader of the Commerce Department, and Herbert Hoover bumped up the 1920s to a
new level. On the other hand, Harding also appointed some of the worst positions
for office. He appointed Albert B. Fall as the Secretary of the Interior. The
Teapot Dome Scandal or the ：Oil Reserves Scandal； [Simon, 3/8/00] surrounded
the secret leasing of the federal oil reserves by Fall. He secretly granted the
Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome reserves in Wyoming
after President Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil reserve lands
from the navy to him. While this scandal entered American politics as a symbol
of governmental corruption, it had little long-term effect on the Republican
Party. For the moment, Harding started the conservative trend of politics in the
1920s.
Harding died during before he could finish his presidency in 1923,
and Vice President Calvin Coolidge took the office as President. He conveyed the
virtues of morality, honesty, and economy to the presidency. Coolidge was very
tacit turn. Coolidge followed the remaining of Harding・s ：hands-off； policies
and was reelected in the 1924 election. The United States had one of the
greatest periods of prosperity ever during his presidency from 1923 to 1929.
When Coolidge decided not to run again in the 1928 election, the Republican
nomination went to Herbert Hoover who easily won the job as the new President.
Because he was a self-made millionaire, Hoover was not quite as conservative as
Harding or Coolidge. Conversely, many historians believe that if the Depression
had not occurred he would probably have been a good president. Later, Americans
detested Hoover because he failed to solve the nation・s troubles out of the
Depression.
The United States embraced a laissez-faire policy in the economy
during the 1920s. In Harding・s ：hands off； policy, the government did not
intervene with people・s businesses and helped them profit. Anti-trust laws were
avoided, and the United States was in debt from the first Great War. The
Secretary of Treasury, Mellon, tremendously reduced taxes, which moved the
economy because there was more money to spend. Eventually, the United States
profited in more money to pay off the enormous debt. The United States also
enforced a large tariff that would encourage Americans to buy domestic products
instead of buying imported goods from foreign nations.
Great technological
advances were also made in the 1920s. Inventions such as cars and radios
improved the standard for the common man. These inventions as well as the
conservative economic policies added to a huge economic boom. The economy
experienced growth of 7 to 10 percent for six years of the 1920s. Later, many of
the economic procedures in the decade would lead to danger especially in the
stock market. The nation's total income rose from $74.3 billion in 1923 to $89
billion in 1929. However, the rewards of the "Coolidge Prosperity" of the 1920's
were not shared evenly among all Americans. ：In 1929, the top 0.1 percentages
of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42%. That same top 0.1
percentages of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of
Americans had no savings at all. Wages increased at a rate one fourth as fast as
productivity increased. As production costs fell quickly, wages rose slowly, and
prices remained constant, the bulk benefit of the increased productivity went
into corporate profits.； [loose translation from Simon, 3/14/00] Also,
everybody was buying ：on margin；, a certain percentage for a share that would
eventually gain or lose money more than paid for. Millions had lost much money
to pay off their deb
ts and were unemployed. The Great Depression was the worst
economic decline ever in U.S. history. It began in late 1929 and lasted about a
decade.
In the society during the 1920s, people were distinguished by
conflicts such as the liberals versus conservatives. For instance, prohibition
was passed at the beginning of the 1920s, but it was not enforced. Prohibition
was a period when the sale, manufacture, or transport of alcoholic beverages
became illegal. It started January 16, 1919 and continued to December 5, 1933.
Although it was designed to stop drinking completely, it did not even come
close. It simply created a large number of bootleggers who were able to supply
the public with illegal alcohol. Many of these bootleggers became very rich and
influential through selling alcohol and also through other methods. They
pioneered the practices of organized crime that are still used today. Thus,
Prohibition led to the rapid growth of organized crime. A conflict between
religion and science was centered in the Scopes Monkey trial, which debated the
right to teach evolution in the schools of Tennessee, a fundamentalist state.
Clarance Darrow, the defense lawyer, won the case against William Jennings Bryan
and the Fundamentalists. In women・s fashion, there was conflict between the old
Victorian fashion and more free modern fashion. The flapper movement for young
women became popular. Also, the Ku Klux Klan became very large in the 1920s. The
KKK was founded in 1865 by William Nathan Bedford, a former confederate general,
which began a campaign of terror against free blacks and their white supporters.
The KKK had a wide array of uneducated people because their main incentive was
to recruit young, homeless, and mindless children to follow in their footsteps
and become a member of the KKK. It also inspired a strong anti-foreigner
movement. The KKK lost most of its strife by the late 1920s.
There was a
great separation between high culture and pop culture in the 1920s. Ernest
Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, leaders of the ex-patriot movement,
dominated individualistic writing. Poetry became more experimental led by
writers such as T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings. Classical music was also
dominated by modernism. This featured a 12-note scale and a lack of melody and
harmony.； [Simon, 3/24/00] Abstract art was dominated by surrealism and
expressionism. As a whole, the high culture of the 1920s is characterized by the
expression of the artists.
In the 1920s, pop culture thrived. Movies were
extremely popular. Several studios in Hollywood dominated them. In 1927, the
first ：talkie； came out. Radio also became a large form of entertainment. Jazz
developed as a new form of music. Louis Armstrong, a trumpeter from New Orleans
among others, led Jazz. . The Harlem Renaissance gained recognition. Led by
Langston Hughes, it produced great accomplishments in poetry and jazz. Overall,
culture of the 1920s reflected the good economic time and showed a noticeable
separation between the classes.
Foreign policy of the 1920s was manifested
by isolationism in reaction to the idealistic foreign policy of Wilson. After
Wilson had helped the Allies in World War I, the United States suffered great
losses with no payments in return. Thus, America isolated itself from the rest
of the world and promised that the U.S. would not get involved in any European
conflicts by signing treaties designed to keep them out of war. The U.S. raised
tariffs to keep foreign competition at a low so consumers would only buy
American goods. Because Europe owed America money from the war debts, the Dawes
Plan of 1924 was created to cancel them out. The U.S. would loan money overseas
to Germany. Germany would use the money to pay the Allies. The Allies would in
turn use that money to pay their war debts owed to America.
The 1920s were
one of the most prosperous periods in American history because it reflected in
every aspect of life but mainly about just to enjoy life. The prosperity of the
people influenced society, culture, politics, and foreign policy. People had
increasing leisure time which accounts for the growth in culture. Isolationism
conserved the wealth in the United States. When the stock market crashed in
October of 1929, the United States fell into a depression. People were laid off,
banks collapsed, and people lost their homes. Hoover assured the people that the
economy would fix itself and return prosperity if was left alone, but it
didn・t. He went against his beliefs and offered a little relief, but the people
cried for more. This killed the main idea of the Dawes Act. The U.S. pulled
funds out of Germany, Germany couldn・t pay the allies, and the allies couldn・t
pay the United States. Farmers in America were hurt by the dust bowl, and were
forced out of their farms. The Depression would continue through the 1930s until
World War II had finally ended it. By increasing the debt in World War II, the
U. S. ended the Great Depression.
Hoover was blamed and was criticized on
both sides by the people for causing the depression. He was criticized for
interfering and for not interfering enough. He failed to compromise with the
people. In the 1932 election, he went up against Franklin D. Roosevelt and lost
in a landslide. Roosevelt did not have any great ideas on how to end the
depression, but he could relate to the people. He would experiment until he
found something that worked. ：Hoover was a bridge between the very conservative
Coolidge and the liberal Roosevelt.；[Simon, 3/17/00] Hoover caused as the link
between conservatism and liberalism that would get America out of the
Depression.
President Roosevelt started the New Deal Program that was
sparked by three R・s: relief, recovery, and reform. Within his first hundred
days, he had passed a great number of bills like the abandonment of the gold
standard, the federal Emergency Relief Act, and the creation of Public Works
Administration, the National Recovery Administration, and the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation. During his first term, the New Deal had little direction
and was not very liberal until later. He supported the unions and workers, while
alienating the rich. He passed laws such as Social Security and a bill to give
farmers subsidies. He also passed the Wagner Act, which protected workers rights
to form unions and to collective bargaining.
At this moment in time, the New
Deal resolved many problems in America, but it was not all a success. It did not
lift the United States out of Depression. It is often criticized for having ：no
direction； [Simon, 4/1/00], but it might have saved the United States from
communism. Roosevelt has been called ：a genius of co-optation；[Simon, 4/1/00]
because he borrowed other・s radical ideas and made them into his own
conventional ideas. He created so many government agencies, which took over much
of the private sector.
Socially, America returned to tradition in the 1930s
in continuity. Many Americans felt that the depression of the 1930s served as
God・s punishment for the ：sinning； of the 1920s. Women were placed to stay at
home and were forced out of jobs so men could take them have those
opportunities. Unemployment reached an all-time high. Society became more
conservative because there was less leisure time available. There were also
fewer pretensions in the 1930s. For example, prohibition was repealed with the
21st Amendment in 1933, much to the joy of many Americans. It was repealed for
two reasons. One, people had decided that the negative aspects out weighed the
positive, and two, the country was entering the Great Depression. It was thought
that producing and selling alcohol would create more jobs and help boost the
economy.
In the 1930・s there was less of a divide between high culture and
pop culture. Writers now focused on the concern for the common man and the need
for men to unite together for the common good. Some of the most famous writers
in the 1930s were John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, and James T. Farrell while F.
Scott Fitzgerald faded away. Ernest Hemmingway changed his style and remained
popular. Art, commissioned by the New Deal, tended to be more realistic. Large
and overwhelming murals were dominant, and photography also became popular.
Artists focused on the common man. Classical music became more down to earth.
Aaron Copland・s ：Fanfare； best exemplifies this for the common man.
In
the 1930s, high culture influenced pop culture. It offered an escape into the
high and exotic life. Movie stars like Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, and Fred
Astaire offered an escape from the harshness of life. Jazz was still the popular
form of music, but it advanced into Big Bands, jazz orchestras that played in a
ballroom while people would dance to them. The bleak economic situation closed
the gap between high and pop culture.
From the 1920s to the 1930s, foreign
policy was the one feature that remained the same in America. In fact,
America・s isolation deepened. During the depression, America wanted to
encourage its economy. The Hawley-Smoot tariff, the largest tariff ever used by
the United States, was passed to encourage people to buy American. In
retaliation to the tariff, other countries imposed their own tariffs. The high
tariff of American exports actually harmed the economy. In the 1930・s America
was determined to stay out of any conflicts due to its isolationist policy. This
extreme isolation was caused by the depression. The United States looked on as
Japan invaded China, Italy invaded Ethiopia, the Fascists took over Spain, and
Germany・s Nazi Party invaded parts of Eastern Europe. It wasn・t until the late
1930s that Franklin D. Roosevelt realized that it was necessary to get out of
this policy and get involved.
At last, from the 1920s to the 1930s, the
economy caused the change and continuity in America. Conservative politics
produced the economic boom in the 1920s and lasted the entire decade. Society
became very liberal because of the wealth and the large amounts of leisure time.
The great divide between low and high culture shows the divide between classes.
The desire to keep the boom within America created isolationism from foreign
countries. However, the 1930s was a complete 180 degrees or reversal from the
1920s. The political climate became liberal because experimentation was needed
to raise the spirits of the people. Society became more conservative because
there was no leisure time. Because the poor had no money to experience expensive
entertainment, there was less of a difference between high culture and pop
culture. The poor and overwhelming majority needed an escape. Isolationism
stilled the same because the U.S. thought that they could only fix the
depression domestically although they were wrong. Mainly, from the 1920s to the
1930s, the economic situation caused change and continuity throughout the
decade.