The Boom

Year 11 ATAR History

Jazz Age? Or Depression Blues?

Create a table link the one below. Fill it in throughout the
week, and be prepared to discuss your responses on
Friday
Jazz Age

Depression Blues

The Twenties
This era has been given a number
of different names. On the one
hand, invention and innovation
was booming there were
opportunities for wealth and
advancement.
On the other handAfrican
Americans were being mistreated,
farmers faced economic hardship,
and trouble arose over
immigration.

Mass marketing

New technology

Natural
resources

Republican
policies

Why did the American economy

boom in the 1920s?
First World War

Confidence
Credit

Mass production

Transport

Construction

New industries

Advertising

In what ways did the American

economy boom?

Entertainment

Shopping

The American Dream

After WWI, people had very real expectations for a better lifewhich
was attainable. How was this possible?
US industrial power expanded.
Mass production.
Population doubled to 123 million from 1890 to 1920 the urban
population exceeded the rural population cities began to
develop.
No war debts.
Political stability.
Technological advancements maintained employment.
New industries develop.
Birth control.

What did people aspire to?

Comfort.
Security.
The ideal 1920s home was
recognisable by its
bathroomenamel bathtub,
toilet and washbasin, hot
water and privacy.
The Ford Model-T.

What were the threats to a better

life?
1929, sociologists Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd publish a book on the
Indiana town of Muncie
Extract 1:
For both working and business class no other accompaniment of getting a living
approaches the importance of the money received for their work. It is more this future,
instrumental aspect of work, rather than the intrinsic satisfactions involved, that keeps
Middletown working so hardThe diffusion of new urgent occasions for spending
money in every sector of living is exhibited by such new tools and services commonly
used in Middletown today, but either unknown or little used in the ninetiesIn the
home..in spending leisure timeIn educationUnder these circumstances, why
shouldnt more money be important to people in Middletown?..One leading Middletown
businessman summed up the trendNext to the doctor, we think of the banker to help
us and to guide us in our wants and worries today.

What were the threats to a better

life?
Extract 2
In less than four decades, business class and working class, bosses and bossed,
have been caught up by Industry, this new trait in the citys culture that is shaping
the pattern of the whole of living. According to its needs, large numbers of people
anxious to get their living are periodically stopped by the recurrent phenomenon of
bad times when the machines stop running, workers are laid off by the
hundreds, salesmen sell less, bankers call in loans, credit freezes, and many
Middletown families may take their children from school, move into cheaper
homes, cut down on food, and do without many of the countless things they
desireThe working class is mystified by the whole fanciful business. Many of
them say, for instance, that they went to the polls and voted for Coolidge in
November 1924, after being assured daily by the local papers that A vote for
Coolidge is a vote for prosperity and your job; puzzle as to why times did not
improve after the overwhelming victory of Coolidge.

Henry Ford
Henrys Fords parents were farmers near Detroit.
Henry had an interest in other endeavourshe
had dreams of a horseless carriage first
vehicle produced in 1896.
1899, Ford becomes first superintendent of the
Detroit Automobile Company 20 cars in 2 years
= failure.
Ford begins building a lightweight racing car =
success reputation.
1903, The Henry Ford Motor Company is born 8
different models sold in 5 years factory
expands = 100 cars built per day.
1911, announcement of a car for an ordinary
man (built from quality materials, using massproduction methods, fast to make).

The Model T
Basic model: one colour, sturdy, reliable,
interchangeable parts.
First year = 10,000 were sold.
By the mid-1920s, 1/2 cars sold were Model T.
Ford is responsible for the assembly line.
Henry Ford, speaking to S. Crowther in Today and
Tomorrow, published in 1926.
The work is planned on the drawing board and the
operations sub-divided so that each man and each
machine do one thingThe thing is to keep
everything in motion and take the work to the man
and not the man to the workThe men do not leave
their work are brought to them

The impact of the Model T

Growth in car ownership.
First release, $1,200 1928, $295.
Huge, rear springs made it wobblebut allowed movement over
rutted mud roads and gravel tracks.
Rear wheel could be removed (power belt run to circular saw or farm
machinery).
Reduces travel time.
Reduced isolation.
Encourages building of roads, and the development of suburbs.
Stimulates growth in other industries (90% of petrol, 80% of rubber,
75% of plate glass were consumed by cars in the mid-1920s

The impact of the Model T

Henry Ford.
It is better to sell a large number of cars at a reasonable
small margin than to sell fewer cars at a larger margin of
profit. I hold this because it enables a large number of
people to buy and enjoy the use of a car and because it
gives a larger number of men employment at wages.
A farmers wife in 1918 (in a letter to Ford).
You know, Henry, your car has lifted us out of the mud. It
brought joy to our lives. We loved every rattle in its

The impact of the Model T

Alastair Cook, America, 1973.
It is staggering to consider what the Model T was to lead to in both industry and
folkways. It certainly wove the first network of paved highwaysBeginning in
the early 1920s, people who had never taken a holiday beyond the nearest lake
or mountain could now explore the South, New England, even the West, and in
time the whole horizon of the United States. Most of all, the Model T gave to the
farmer and the rancher, miles from anywhere, a new pair of legs.
Daniel Snowman, USA, the Twenties to Vietnam, 1968.
As the first great mass-producer of automobiles, Ford might be said to have
done more than any other person to alter out of all recognition the society into
which he had been born.