But it prevented other nations from selling their goods in the USA. As a result, these countries could not earn enough money either to repay their war debts to the USA or to buy US goods. American exports suffered, especially when the other countries responded by raising their own tariffs. This ensured that world trade remained at a lower level than it otherwise might have reached. Some historians suggest that the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, like the refusal to join the League of Nations, was a sign of isolationism (the policy of cutting the USA off from the rest of the world).
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.
If, during the 1920s, you were a white American living in an urban area and working in one of the new industries, you were likely to be better off than ever before. But many Americans were not so lucky. This was especially true of those who worked in agriculture. The First World War had been good for American farmers since they had helped to supply western Europe with food and other agricultural produce (the USA had exported 600,000 horses to the Allies during the war, for example). In the 1920s, however, European farming had recovered and there was a glut of many farm products. American agricultural exports were worth $3.
