TO WHAT EXTENT WERE THE 1920S A TIME OF ECONOMIC BOOM IN THE USA?

In the second half of the 19th century, the USA had become an industrial giant. The first industrial revolution, based on coal, brought steam engines, steel, railways and mechanisation. The second industrial revolution, based on electricity and oil, was sparked by the First World War. Wartime demands encouraged the development of new materials and new techniques. These new materials and new techniques were then used as the basis of new industries.

Some of the successful industries in the 1920s, like steel and construction, were in fact old industries, which had been modernised. Other industries, like the automobile and aircraft industry had been in a pioneering stage in 1900 and only flourished for the first time after the war. Perhaps the most important development was the introduction of electric power which became widely available for the first time (whilst just 16% of homes had electric power in 1916, 63% of homes had it by 1927). This transformed existing industries and encouraged the development of new industries. Many new products, for example, were developed for the American home.

Henry Ford set up the Ford Motor Company in 1903. By designing a car with standardised parts (the Model T), Ford was able to keep the cost down. Then, in 1914, the moving assembly line was introduced. Cars were assembled as they moved along a conveyor belt. Workers stayed in one place adding parts. This reduced the time it took to make a car from 14 hours to 93 minutes. More cars were produced at a lower cost. As a result, the price of the Model T fell and more people could afford to buy them. The car industry was central to the prosperity of the 1920s. It was the first industry to experiment with mass production. It employed 5 million workers directly and millions more indirectly in support industries. The steel, oil, rubber, glass, leather and machine tool industries were only some of those who benefited from the boom in car sales.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of black Americans lived in the southern states. Most worked in agriculture and lived in poverty. many were sharecroppers – small farmers who had to give a share of their crops to their landlords. Before the First World War, there was a steady flow of blacks to the north and west. Then, during the First World War, there was an explosion in migration with around 300,000 black people moving north and west, mainly to the cities. Many found jobs, usually unskilled ones. pay was low, but better than in the South. Living conditions in the city ghettoes were often dreadful, however hostility from the white population was strong. Black Americans generally remained poor and were victims of racial discrimination. In many states there was segregation (separate seating for blacks and whites on buses and trains, separate waiting rooms and toilets, separate schools, and so on) Between 1918 and 1927, 416 black Americans were ‘lynched’ (rounded up by mobs of angry white Americans and killed by hanging or burning).

Mass production could only work if there was a mass market for the goods produced. It was necessary, therefore, to encourage people to buy the new products, which become available. As a result, there was a huge increase in advertising (in 1914, for example, $250 million was spent in advertising in magazines. This figure had doubled by 1919 and reached $3 billion by 1929). The radio, with its commercial breaks, and the cinema, were new means of reaching the public with adverts. Also, to provide more purchasing power, there was a great expansion of hire purchase (buying by instalments). Three out of four radios were bought on hire purchase in the 1920s, for example, as well as over half of all cars and furniture.

Some topics in this essay:
Model Ford, War American, Black Americans, War Wartime, League Nations, Americans Hispanic, World War, North Carolina, Ella Wiggins, BOOM USA, black americans, world war, industrial revolution, people afford buy, revolution based, tariff act, 1920s example, encouraged development, newly invented, industrial revolution based, mass production, lived poverty, fordney-mccumber tariff act, paid workers low, workers low wages,