The United States from 1914 to 1945
Marcus Garvey
The United States from 1914 to 1945
lynching in the American south
Notice that this
picture is shaped
like a postcard?
That is because it
was a postcard.
The United States from 1914 to 1945lynching in the American
southLynching in 1930.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
lynching in the American south
The Lynching
of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1915
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The NAACP fights lynching• 1919: NAACP releases 30 Years of Lynching in
the South
• 30 Years concludes that only 20 percent of lynchings involved
accusations of impropriety with a white
woman
• And the vast majority of those accusations were
false.
• 1922: Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer
proposes a federal anti-lynching bill
The Dyer bill passes the House. . . but is blocked in the Senate.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Jim Europe and his
band
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The “Lost Generation”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Countee Cullen
Claude McKay
Jean Toomer
Langston Hughes
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Zora Neale Hurston
Walter White
Carl Van Vechten
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The Scopes Trial, Dayton, TN, 1925
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945Football
transformed
Harold “Red” Grange
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Tennis, USA
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Bobby Jones changes golf
The United States from 1914 to 1945
1920s technology revolution
750 broadcast radio stations by 1928
Vastly more powerful electric power plants
Redesigned homes make it easier to accommodate electrical appliances
Electric refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, toasters
Telephone party lines expand phone use
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Post World War I assault on labor• Crackdown on labor
campaigns• “Open shop” drive• Corporate welfare
programs• Company unions• Textile mills move
south
Federal troops occupy union hall in 1919 steel strike; right: John L. Lewis
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Calvin Coolidge: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Election of 1928
• Al Smith: 40.8% (wins majorities in 12 large cities)
• Herbert Hoover: 58.2%
"We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of this land... We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this land. “ Herbert Hoover, 1928
The United States from 1914 to 1945
In Ponzi we trust . . .
A confident Charles Ponzi on his way to Federal trial
A less than confident mob surrounding one of Ponzi’s branches as word leaks out that he’s a fraud.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Why the speculation boom of the 1920s?
• Communication revolution via telephone and wireless telegraph
• Radio delivered news of stocks quickly• Rise of disposable income among upper-
middle class• Absence of any government regulation of
the trading sector
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the great crash . . . 1929 Number of shares traded between 1927 and 1929 doubled . . .
. . . to 920 million shares by 1929.
But in October 1929, stocks lost 40 percent of their value.
50 billion dollars in speculative investment lost
The United States from 1914 to 1945
What if there was a stock market crash in the United States???
the international debt mess of the 1920s
(revisited). . . .
Germany owes huge reparations to England and France
France and England insist on collecting from Germany because they owe debts to the United States
The U.S. won’t ease up on France and England’s war debts . . . . . . but encourages investors to lend money to Germany
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the great crash . . . 1929 - 1931
1930: 1,352 banks failed with 850 million in deposits
1931: almost 2,300 banks failed with 1.7 billion in deposits
. . . People got ten cents on the dollar of their savings, if they were lucky.
1928 4.2
1930 8.7
1932 23.6
U.S. unemployment rate
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Why Great Depression?• The boom/crash interpretation
Stock market had something to do with it• The Monetarist camp
Failure of Federal Reserve• The regulatory interpretation
No real government checks on the markets• The Keynesian demand-side school
Consumer power wimped out• The international crisis perspective
Treaty of Versailles and its consequences
John Kenneth Galbraith; Keynesian
Milton Friedman; Monetarist
Charles Kindelberger, internationalist
