...Name: Professor: Course: Date: U.S in the 20th Century 1. World War I and American Life. Explain the impact of World War I in America. Consider various social, economic and political changes in the country during and right after the war. Do you think these changes were caused by the war? War brings changes to every country. The American significantly transformed life after World War I. the country faced social, economic and political changes, which were felt both the negatively and the positively. First and foremost, it goes without saying that the population was increased since there were immigrants who were coming into the country with new ideas and new experiences. Therefore, the society was very vibrant. On the negative, there was a significant effect of othering that caused a rift between the immigrants and the local population; therefore, there were many differences. The economy of...
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...King Impact of the Great Depression and the Repeal of National Prohibition In 1933 Although both the coming and the arrival of the Great Depression did have some influence over the decision to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment, other factors played a part – most importantly the simple fact that prohibition didn’t work. In the early 1920s and throughout the 1930s America suffered through a period of economic decline, and because of this, the government in particular, was in need of funds to fuel its weakening economy. Taxation on alcohol would contribute towards the resources for relief, and prevent higher taxes in other areas of business which would only compound the situation. Each year the government was missing out on a sum of around $500 million which would be brought in by a tax on alcohol, and would significantly help America during the crisis. As well as this, an end to prohibition would eliminate the costs required to enforce it – an extra expenditure the government could not afford at this time. Economically, an end to prohibition would help strengthen the unstable situation in America: ending unproductive government spending as well as bringing new money into the system. Repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment would also meet social demands brought about by the crisis. Those facing hard times wanted to drink, and wanted an end to the law to allow them to do so more easily; thus the Great Depression added to the support for social groups already campaigning...
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...roaring twenties, the American economy was hit with one of the worst set backs ever. The Great Depression had started the losing of many banks and the loss of many jobs. Many people blame president Hoover for the hard time, but Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected into office with a plan known as the new deal. The new deal was effective for solving America’s problems in the Great Depression by creating more job opportunities, reinvigorating the economy with cash flow, and investing in infrastructure that had long term benefits to the country. Due to credit many banks had been shut down which lead to our economy to be in a rough spot after the 1920s. The banks were giving away to much credit that was causing debt. As soon as Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for president, he went straight into working by meeting with Congress as much as he could to initialize many new programs to save the country,this is known as the first 100 days. President Roosevelt knew he had to do something fast to stabilize banking system to stop from being shut down. Emergency Banking Relief Act was an act passed by the United States Congress in March 1933 in an attempt to stabilize the banking system. This act help increase cash flow which was needed to get out of the Great Depression. The key was not...
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...moderately supported woman suffrage. First incumbent U.S. senator and first newspaper publisher to become president. Teapot Dome Scandal-bribery incident that further destroyed public reputation of Harding administration Calvin Coolidge-republican lawyer, conduct during boston police strike of 1919 gave him reputation of a man of decisive action. Soon after elected as 29th president to succeed Harding in 1923, gained reputation as a small-government conservative, and also a man who said very little. Herbert Hoover-republican candidate who assumed the presidency in March 1929, promising Americans prosperity and attempted to deal with the Depression by trying to restore public faith in the community. “rugged individualism”-moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that promotes the exercise of one’s goals and desires and so independence and self-reliance. Republican Decade-The decade after WWI where there were 3 Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Laissez-faire-the type of economy where government does not interfere because the businesses are supposed to know what’s best for the economy; businesses do their own thing and government does not interfere. Great Crash-book written by John Kenneth Galbraith depicting the economic lead up to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Argues that the market crash was able to be seen by the rampant speculation in the stock market,...
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...learned something about the great depression and the effects it had on the United States. There are a list of issues the created the great depression, but have we actually thought about it, and tried to understand it before? In the 1920’s the American economy was going strong, for the most part, and the vast majority of Americans had witnessed economic growth, however, stock prices fell, more and more issues arose, and then came the great depression which created uneven distribution of wealth and an irrational behavior from the stock market. In the film, Matewan, it brought up how things were tough in response to effort by the miners to organize labor union, and they were receiving huge cuts in their pay, and some of the coal mine workers were being replaced, which I would assume were being paid substantially less than the original coal miners were. The new workers were African American from Alabama, but they did not make it far because the coal miners were on the attack. I would imagine this was not the only issue America was facing before or during the great depression. The crash of the stock market not only affected the poor, it affected the rich as well, but like I stated before, one of the biggest issues was the gap between the rich working class people and how it was enlarged. Also, production costs fell quickly and wages rose slowly and prices remained steady. Obviously, like most problems in America, the government contributed to the depression as well. The federal income...
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...“The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world” (The Great Depression-History.com 2012). The great depression is said to have begun after the First World War, It was a time of hardship and uncertainty. Although the great depression began in the United States it spread throughout the globe and affected almost every country. It brought about drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and serious deflation. Many countries such as Britain, Germany and France came out of the war with large debts to pay, this was due to the fact that they had been borrowing from The United States of America, after its entrance into financial crisis the rest of the countries depending on its financing would inevitably enter down turn and face similar crisis. World War 1 also left many industrialized countries weak and in large debts, they needed to finance the rebuilding of their economies and industries that were damaged during the war, this made it harder for them to recover. There are a number of explanations to as what brought about the great depression in 1929. These are structural and monetary weaknesses as well as a number of specific events that enhanced the effects from one country to another and eventually to all major industrialized countries. What Caused the great depression? The depression was also said to have partially started with the crash of the stock market in...
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...the South during the civil war and was an attempt to secure the future of the nation by making sure that the institution of slavery, which was the ultimate cause of the civil war, could never cause a civil war in the US ever again. This was the first time slavery was mentioned in the Constitution * Fourteenth Amendment * The amendment to the US Constitution during the reconstruction period that promised civil rights to everyone, including persons of color. This amendment elevated former slaves to the same status as everyone else. * Fifteenth Amendment * An amendment to the US Constitution during the reconstruction period that prohibited states from denying men the right to vote on the grounds of race or color. This amendment allowed black men to vote in the United States. * Henry Ford * Inventor of the Model-T car during the industrial revolution. Changed American culture * Scientific Management * Also known as Taylorism, a new method of assembly line production, making factories more efficient during the American Industrial Revolution, designed by Frederick Taylor. The first person to use this method was Henry Ford for the Model-T car. * Thomas Edison * The inventor of the light bulb. This changed the life of many Americans, as it eventually led to the rise of nightlife, since there was a new way to keep things lit in the dark. * Luna Park (Coney Island) * One of the first amusement parks in America. Amusement...
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...Bobby Thrush-Louis AMH2020 Depression and New Deal Minorities 4/14/15 At the end of the 1920s, the United States was the largest economy in the world. With the destruction brought by World War I, Europeans struggled while Americans flourished. Then, in the flash of darkness, everything went downfall. The stock market crash of 1929 was a snowball effect that put us into the worst crisis in history. But then, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sparked an idea, the New Deal, it was the set of federal programs launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after taking office in 1933, in response to the calamity of the Great Depression. The new deal had four major goals and achievements: Job creation, investment in public works, civic uplift, and obviously economic recovery. The new deal stabilized banks and all the financial mess from the stock market crash. One in four Americans, were out of work by 1933. The new deal created agencies that would aid jobs to millions of people and this also organized the rights for workers to organize unions. The New Deal built transportation landmarks and public landmarks that would help to bring back America. There was more positives than anything in the new deal; in addition, the new deal improved the lives of ordinary people and reshaped the public outlook. New Dealers and the men and women who worked on New Deal programs believed they were not only serving their families and communities...
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...have major impact on the average working class people. The working class are the people who work for wages. During the time periods that took place in the book Out of the Furnace, countless number of immigrants came to America to either escape war, poverty or corruption from their home country. Events such as the Great Depression fell upon the people had a significant effect on the working class people in the country. Economic injustice plagued the whole country which caused many complications for Kracha and his family working at the steel mills. Everything from wars to social issues had an effect on the working class people. Out of the Furnace is a story that follows three generations of George Kracha’s family from Kracha’s migration to America to Dobie’s involvement in the movement for economic justice at the steel mills. George Kracha, a Slovak man, left his family back in his Hungarian village for America to escape the life of poverty and hoping to help them. When he arrived at New York, he needed a job as he only has fifty-five cents due to spending it all on a party during the voyage. He walked all the way to White Haven, where his...
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...What was the short term significance of the New Deal? To discuss the short term significance of the New Deal, it is imperative to define significance. Significance is defined by the number of people’s lives affected by an event; therefore the most significant of the short term effects of the New Deal was FDR’s implementation of radical legislative reforms. It led to a number of positive economic and social changes in a very short space of time, which contrasted greatly with the inaction of the previous Hoover regime. This opinion is supported by well-known New Deal historian Anthony Badger, who stated that "When Roosevelt took power on March 4, 1933; many influential Americans doubted the capacity of a democratic government to act decisively enough to save the country".The creation of public work schemes and relief programmes provided Americans with improved social stability giving them the confidence to support their government’s initiatives, thus enabling Roosevelt to restore elements of the pre-depression economy. Agriculture was also supported to create more jobs and allow business to grow again as opposed to declining as it had during the depression. These changes were all reinforced by the modernisation policies brought in by Roosevelt in the ‘100 days’. Page 1 Word Count: 291 Page 1 Word Count: 291 This cartoon was published in 1933 by the Pittsburgh Press by Harold Talburt. The use of this cartoon of Uncle Sam ‘holding all the Aces’ shows how the new policies of...
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...The effect that The Great Depression had on the American people was drastic; it drew many of them to do things they never would have done. Families were torn apart because they could not afford to feed their children, many were forced to send them away to work, or to go live with other family members. The declaration of bankruptcy was very common during this time; stock brokers in the New York Stock Exchange lost lots of money, hurting millions of Americans. Millions in poverty caused a big change in industry. Clothes were now being made to last longer, and cars, trains, and airplanes were becoming more efficient. The Great Depression from 1929 to 1939 negatively affected American society, children and economy. Society was constantly changing...
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...I. United States of America economic history In order to successfully move forward, we need to look to the past. The country’s economic history is like all history, meaning that it examines and observes the past activities of mankind (Fite 4). The most significant periods in the United States economic history are actually the three centuries before England settled in America. There were four changes happening in Western Europe that have greatly influenced America. Those changes were economic, political, religious, and intellectual (Fite 15). So why were these changes so important? They were the reasons that England decided to explore and expand in the western part of the world. The decision to expand trade and commerce was the most important advancement in the history of economics (Fite 15). From the time that the Virginia colonies were settled in 1609 up until 1890, farming was the most important aspect of the United States economy (Fite 30). Although manufactured products were worth more than products produced on a farm for the first time in 1889, farming was how the majority of Americans made a living (Fite 30). Despite the fact that agriculture dominated in these early years and the industrialization of the colonies was well under developed, “there was a high degree of specialization in the colonial economy” (Fite 63). For example, there were tobacco crops in the southern colonies which were crops that produced money, and in the northern colonies there was international...
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...The Great Depression During the great depression, the lives of most every American was disrupted. The effects of the depression sent waves throughout the world from women having to work with the economy being crippled. The life of many families was shattered which separated children from their families. Many banks were shut down due to the drop in the stock market. The thought of living the American dream was no a blur for people could not buy nor own deteriorating their lives. The Great Depression had an immense impact on the lives of families. The average family income was nearly fifty percent lower previous to the depression began. Millions of families were evicted from their home due to losing their savings. “Children of impoverished families, recalling memories of family life during the 1930s, often remembered their fathers as emotionally distant and indifferent”. Teens rode on freight trains or hiked on mountains and roads to look for work. Families with small children often did not have food so the children were...
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... | History Research Paper | The effects of the Great Depression were huge across the world. Not only did it lead to the New Deal in America but more significantly, it was a direct cause of the rise of extremism in Germany leading to World War II. | Charles Sodman1/30/2014 | Introduction According to Christine Romer the Great Depression commenced in the year 1929 till the year 1939, the longest in the history of the world. The origin of the Great Depression from the year 1929 to the year 1939 has been the worry of many researchers. However, the root cause of this unfortunate happening was hard to crack. Therefore, the search was abandoned and many speculations and assumptions were made as to what really caused the Depression. (Romer) Till present, the cause of this sad event has not been found. More so, the effects of the Great Depression lead to many broke and unemployed individuals who could hardly feed themselves daily. Additionally, goods and services were priced at 10 times less their original price. (Romer) As a result, there was a practice of extremities in Germany by individuals who took advantage of the situation for personal gain leading to the World War II. (de Bromhead, Eichengreen and O’Rourke) Countries were greatly affected as the Great Depression brought about alterations in macroeconomic policies, significant changes in economic institutions, and economic theories. (Romer) The effects of the Great Depression Crash in stock prices Stock prices...
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...The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. Though the U.S. economy had gone into depression six months earlier, the Great Depression may be said to have begun with a catastrophic collapse of stock-market prices on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929. Besides ruining many thousands of individual investors, this precipitous decline in the value of assets greatly strained banks and other financial institutions, particularly those holding stocks in their portfolios. Many banks were consequently forced into insolvency; by 1933, 11,000 of the United States' 25,000 banks had failed. The failure of so many banks, combined with a general and nationwide loss of confidence in the economy, led to much-reduced levels of spending and demand and hence of production, thus aggravating the downward spiral. The result was drastically falling output and drastically rising unemployment; by 1932, U.S. manufacturing output had fallen to 54 percent of its 1929 level, and unemployment had risen to between 12 and 15 million workers, or 25-30 percent of the work force. The Great Depression began in the United States...
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