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History



             Patterns of Economic Growth.
             Automobiles were the most conspicuous of the consumer products that flourished in the 1920s, but certainly not the only ones. The electrical industry grew almost as quickly.
             2/3 of all American families enjoyed electricity by the end of the decade.
             The corporation continued to be the dominant economic unit in the 1920s.
             Growing corporations now had hundreds of thousands of stockholders, and one individual or family rarely held more than 5% of the stock.
             In the final analysis, the corporate managers were accountable only to other managers.
             From 1920-8, some 8, 000 mergers took place as more and more small firms proved unable to complete effectively with new giants.
             The most distinctive feature of the new consumer-oriented economy was the emphasis on marketing.
             Sectional differences in dress, food, and furniture began to disappear, even the regional accents that distinguished Americans in different parts of the country were threatened with extinction by the advent of radio and films, which promoted a standard national dialect devoid of any local flavor.
             Economic Weakness.
             Railroads, overcapitalized and poorly managed, suffered from internal woes and from competition with the growing trucking industry. .
             The coal industry was also troubled, with petroleum and natural gas beginning to replace coal as a fuel. .
             The use of cotton textiles declined with the development of rayon and other synthetic fibers.
             The New England mills moved south in search of cheap labor, leaving behind thousands of unemployed workers and virtual ghost towns in the nation's oldest industrial center.
             Hardest hit of all was agriculture. American farmers had expanded production to meet the demands of WWI, when they fed their own nation and most of Europe as well. A sharp cutback of exports in 1919 caused a rapid decline in prices. By 1921, farm exports had fallen by more than $2 billion. Throughout the 1920s, the farmers share of the national income dropped, until by 1929, the per capita farm income was only $273, compared to the national average of $681.


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