United States History from 1877
to the Present Day
An Online United States History Course
The Roaring Twenties, Great Depression and World War II
Eliot Ness and the Untouchables
In the 1920's as the laws needing to enforce prohibition of alcohol, the federal government instituted a new class of police that would be revenue agents to collect taxes and shut down illegal booze making operations. These men were carefully selected and became very known throughout the nation. They earned the nickname, "Untouchables" because they were always able to get to the criminals and escapt with few fatalities.
Woodrow Wilson, the First Economic President
As a Progressive Democrat, Woodrow Wilson had a legislative
agenda in his first term that included the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, and the Revenue Act of 1913. In his second term, he oversaw the United States’ entry into World War I and participated in a subsequent peace treaty in Paris. During the War, Wilson re-instituted the draft, raised billions of dollars through government bonds, and established several government agencies to control the economy. He used a series of protective tariffs, including the United States Revenue Act of 1913, also known as the Tariff Act, or Underwood-Simmons Act, and re-imposed the federal income tax following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment.
Preview of the Great Depression
Imagine two adults unemployed in your house or maybe three, imagine your three aunts and cousins moving into your house, imagine going without food two or more meals each and every week and as time goes on four or five meals and no meat to eat.
This was the great depression for almost everyone by 1932 and not just in America but throughout the world. Heavy spending, speculation, and borrowing of money in the 1920's, plus an antiquated banking system, brought the stock market crashing down and the world was thrown into a depression which was larger than in world history.
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Eliot Ness, leader of the Untouchables and Al Capone, noted Chicago crime boss of the 1920's.
The Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties or also known as the Jazz Age was a unique period in American History. It was a time after the Great War and nestled between that and the Great Depression. For many it was a time of new found wealth and leisure. For others it was an oppressive time. Most had more than in the past. Spending became rampant and new appliances, automobiles, and travel became the rage. The richer became richer and the poor poorer. Before World War I the country remained culturally and psychologically rooted in the nineteenth century, but in the 1920s America seemed to break its wistful attachments to the recent past and usher in a more.
It was also a time of Prohibition and the rise of famous Gangsters. Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd, and John Dillinger were but a few of the many.
What Influence did The Great Gatsby have on American Literature? (LINK)
What is the Stock Market?
When someone speaks of the market they are usually referring to the secondary stock exchange. When a corporation wishes to form and needs more funds or "capital," they sell small shares in the company based on the success they believe they will have in the market place selling whatever goods and service they provide. This is known as going public. After the initial sale of stock, individuals buy and sell stocks based on a number of issues and trends. This is conducted in the secondary exchange such as in the NASDAC in New York City. If a company falters, people may call their broker and ask for them to sell or trade shares in that company. This is a leading economic health indicator for the world economy. If many stock owners are selling or trading large sums of stock, say millions and millions or even billions of stocks, the economy will have funds lost and a depression will occur.
The New Deal
The New Deal was the title for the policies and procedures of Franklin D. Roosevelt while in office. His cousin, Teddy Roosevelt, had the slogan of a "square deal," and FDR was going to grant a "new" deal of the cards and put people to work and gain prosperity. It was a great slogan. The image of dealing cards or losing at card playing was something to which everyone could relate. People could get behind the idea because everyone knew a second "new" deal came later and attempted make major changes in government policy for the future. Possibly the most notable program of the Franklin Roosevelt Administration was Social Security.
The Top New Deal Programs
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover photographs. Note Coolidge as a Native and a farmer. He is very uncomfortable looking.
In 1920 Warren G. Harding, a newspaper owner from Ohio, was handpicked by the Republican elite after countless deadlocks in nominating a candidate. He would become the first of three Republican presidents who would gain election in a twelve-year Republican ownership of the United States government. His time in office was limited due to his unexpected death only two years into office. While visiting San Francisco, California, he died in his hotel room. Harding was accused of serious scandal and much of the White House budget was missing and many furnishing and household items were missing. He was accused of affairs with young women even though he was a married man. Harding was not a president who worried about economy and practiced the policy of Laisse Faire, or keeping government out of regulating business.
Calvin Coolidge, his vice-president, took over and did not do much with the economy. Key Republicans were concerned with Coolidge's re-election and spent much time and money parading Coolidge around the country and dressing him up in Native headdresses and attending local fairs. Coolidge was a stone-faced man and did not associate well with common people. He was a capable president, but also spent much time trying to clean-up Warren Harding's name and dismiss the various scandals that kept cropping up. While he did pass some farm legislation to help farmers, it was too little and too late. Farmers suffered from a great drought and eventually many farmers faced foreclosure and this greatly affected the economy adversely.
Coolidge did not like being president. He chose not to run for another term of office in 1928. Herbert C. Hoover was chosen by the Republican Party to run. He wins easily because of his work as the food administrator in World War I. The Great Depression would begin about six-months after he was sworn in to office and unable to do much to help people gain employment, he loses in 1932 to Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Hoover is not related to the Hoover Vaccum Cleaner Company.
The New Deal in 3 Minutes
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States. He was the 5th cousin of Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive Republican. Franklin was a Democrat and won a record four elections (serving slightly more than twelve-years,) from March 1933 to his shocking death in April 1945. He is known for his New Deal programs that included help for farmers, business owners, young people, and the arts and sciences. He helped in bringing electricity, flood control, and new parks and recreation to America. His use of the federal government 's budget to put corporations back in business and reduce unemployment were unprecedented in United States history.
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A brief Overview of World War II
World War II
¨The quick fall of France to the German army in 1940 shook the American public. Suddenly, Great Britain alone stood between Nazi Germany and the United States. Patriotism soared in American society after Pearl Harbor in 1941. ¨Americans' willingness to carry out blackout and civil defense drills; to recycle metals, paper, and even cooking fats; to work longer hours, but to have fewer consumer goods to buy with their salaries demonstrated the nation's strong support for the war.
¨The New Deal and World War II brought about a political, psychological, and economic shift to the right in the United States. Three questions troubled Americans during the war years and immediately afterward:
1.Big government
2.The economy
3.Communism at home and abroad
¨The wartime economy brought about full employment As a result, more and more women entered the workforce. Women took up jobs in industry that had once been reserved for men, and "Rosie the Riveter" became a popular American icon. By 1945, women made up 36% of the nation's total workforce. ¨The federal government encouraged Americans to conserve and recycle materials such as metal, paper, and rubber, which factories could then use for wartime production.
World War II Music
¨Music…Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Andrews Sisters, Ink Spots…and probably the biggest was Frank Sinatra who was followed by his “Bobby Soxers”—young girls who swooned over him. The radio broadcasted music and dance shows playing the popular swing music. Teens girls listened to "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree," to remind them of the boys in the war and the one that you hoped would come back and marry them one day. The music was fun and fast paced to take the minds away from the sacrifices made at home.
The Atomic Bomb
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The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing 210,000 people—children, women, and men.
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President Truman authorized the use of the atom bombs in an effort to bring about Japan’s surrender in the Second World War. In the days following the bombings Japan surrendered.
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The Manhattan Project was the US government program during World War II that developed and built these first atomic bombs.
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Detonation of these first nuclear bombs signaled arrival of a frightening new Atomic Age.
The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was the secret name for US government research and construction project during World War II. It developed the world’s first nuclear weapons. President Franklin Roosevelt created a committee for developing a nuclear weapon after he received a letter from Nobel Prize laureate Albert Einstein in October 1939. Eisenstein had sent a letter to Roosevelt detailing how a nuclear weapon could be deterrent to help end the war. Soon the Manhattan Project was underway.
Albert Einstein and famous German-born scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer were but two of the 180,000 who worked on the project. Einstein warned that the Germans were researching an atomic bomb and suggested that the United States do the same. Oppenheimer was the leading scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
By 1944, six thousand scientists and engineers from leading universities and industrial research labs were at work on the development of the world’s first-ever nuclear weapon. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist, headed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Manhattan Project’s principal research and development facility. For security reasons, the facility was located in the desert near Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Radio
Many popular radio shows continued, like The Shadow and Jack Benny, but now radio broadcast from the war front and gave first hand accounts of battle sand deployments.
Bob Hope broadcast USO shows from Europe and Asia. Radio was popular because few other forms of entertainment existed. in this time period, and none could give instant voice to current events , news and performances.
Franklin Roosevelt, FDR, Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself 1933 Inaugural Address
John Maynard Keynes, Economist
John Maynard Keynes was a British economist whose ideas have fundamentally affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics and informed the economic policies of governments including the United States.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In May 1945, the Allies defeated Germany, two months before the atomic bomb was complete. War with Japan continued, however, and In August 1945 it seemed that an invasion of Japan itself might be necessary to force the Japanese to surrender. Military advisers to President Harry S. Truman warned that such a ground war would result in the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of young men in the US Armed Forces, as well as the deaths of many Japanese military personnel and civilians. After receiving no reply to his threat that "prompt and utter destruction" would follow if the Japanese did not surrender unconditionally, Truman authorized the use of the bomb on Japan.
On August 6, 1945 an American B-29 bomber named the “Enola Gay” dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The device exploded over the city with a force of 12,500 tons of TNT. “[The city] had been there just a few minutes before . . . but it was absolutely gone,” said one witness. About 140,000 people were killed instantly or died due to injury or radiation poisoning within months of the blast at Hiroshima.
Many have debated the merits and morality of using such an awesome weapon, even in war time.
Some Reading Adapted from Khan Academy The Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-7/apush-us-wwii/a/the-manhattan-project-and-the-atomic-bomb
General Dwight David Eisenhower
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Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States and served for eight years from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front in The D-Day Invasion. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO. He was the last U.S. President to have been born in the 19th century.
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radio in the 1940s