Chapter 22: The "New Era": Modern Administrative Systems: Made It More Trade Associations: Cooperation in Production and

Chapter 22: The “New Era”
 The New Economy

o Technology + Economic Growth:
 Manufacturing up 60%; Per capita up 35% - economy
expanded with vigor
 Aftermath of WWI, US only reasonably healthy nation
 Technology like assembly line with cars expanded other
industries
 Commercial broadcasting on Radio began in 1920
 2 million radios in homes by 1925; #consumerism
 Commercial Aviation – began with mail, soon enough for travel
in 1930’s
 Telephones becoming more important, 25 million by late
1930’s
 By early 1930’s, first analog early computer created
o Economic Organization:
 Drive toward national organization + consolidation – much like
US steel
 New forms of corporate organizations began to form
 Modern Administrative Systems: made it more
centralized and easy to control
 Trade Associations: cooperation in production and
marketing techniques
o Labor in the New Era:
 Maldistribution of wealth and purchasing power continued to
increase
 2/3 citizens in 1929 lived at “minimum comfort level”
 Mixed results for laborers in the New Era
 Standard of Living raised, improved working conditions
+ Welfare Capitalism
o WC: shortened work week, raised wages + paid
holidays
 Councils + unions integrated in companies
 WC only flourished when industry did as well, company unions
weak
 Wage increases only by 2% between 1920-1926; still
remained poor and powerless
 Avg. worker income = $1,500 < Min. Standard of Living =
$1,800
 AFL still committed to craft union for trades – but made no
strides for the unskilled
o Women + Minorities in the Workforce:
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Women given “Pink Collar Jobs” – decreased pay service

occupations similar to labor
 Secretaries, cashiers, phone operators, etc
 500K Black Americans who migrated north were excluded by
most unions
 Janitors, dishwashers, garbage men, laundry, attendants,
etc
 1st Black Union: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters:
upped pay, short hours, etc
 Hispanics + Asians in the west excluded from white unions, too
 Chinese exclusion acts – Japanese took over Chinese
cities
 Mexican barrios – raw, filthy communities – were in LA,
El Paso, Denver, etc
 Faced heavy discrimination in White West, but dire need for
low-paid, unskilled workforce
o The “American Plan”:
 Strong Corporations Protecting the Open Shop – union
busting
 Govt. Assists:
o 1921: illegal to picket + injunctions for striking
o 1924: refused to protect United Mine Workers
Union; 5 million to 3 million members
o Agricultural Technology + the Plight of the Farmers:
 Embracing new technologies + increased production
 Tractors quadrupled; powered by combustion engines
 35 million new acres for cultivation
 1921: hybrid corn available, but boomed in 1930’s/chemical
farming began
 Demands for agriculture not as fast as supply production
 Heavy surplus, low food prices, low farm income
 3 million farmers left agriculture; still declining
 Farmers wanted “Parity”: set reasonable prices to ensure at
minimum get supply costs back
 Wanted high tariffs for foreign food, so more incentive
for domestic $
 McNary-Haugen Bill: Congress approved bill over grain,
tobacco, rice, cotton
 Passed both in 1926 + 1928; but Coolidge vetoed it
twice
 The New Culture
o Consumerism:
 Changes in industrialism created US mass consumer culture
Many now could buy additional, discretionary goods

and services
 Appliances: fridge, washing machine, iron, vacuum
o Revolutionized housework and lives of women
 By 1930, 30 million cars on the road – Automobile industry
skyrocketed
 Could expand citizen’s geographic horizons
 Escape to country from urbane urban jungle
o Creation of rising suburban geography and
subculture
 Vehicles revolutionized vacations – began including paid
vacations
 Emergence of well-developed + independent youth
culture
o Advertising:
 1920’s out of WWI propaganda came advertising
 Identify products with lifestyle, glamour, prestige –
product with enrich experience
 Advertisers encouraged public to use salesmanship + to admire
publicicsts
 The Man Nobody Knows: book by Bruce Barton – Jesus
Christ via advertising lens
o New spirit/epoch of consumer culture
 Expedited with new channels of media (mass communication)
 Newspapers = national chains – even local news was
syndicated
 Mass Circulation Magazines = Readers Digest (1921), Time
(1923)
o The Movies and Broadcasting:
 100+ million people viewed films in 1930 > 40 million in 1922
 1927: first “talkie” The Jazz Singer created national
interest
 Hollywood: 1921 – Motion Picture Association created for new
trade
 Early “FCC” of motion pictures
 But really, radio was where it was at in 1920’s
 KDKA Pittsburg, first commercial radio in 1920
 NBC (radio) formed in 1927; 500+ stations in 1923
 Strict independent control, but more controversial and
subversive than film
o Modernist Religion:
 New culture influenced religion: immediate, personal
fulfillment
Abandoned traditional, literal Bible translation – help to

live a more fulfilled life
 Harry Emerson Fosdick: inward spiritual dynamic for
radiant/triumphant life
 Some ignored; but some devaluing religion as 2nd role
(or no role) in life
o Changing Ideas of Motherhood:
 Battling idea women have instinctual capacity for motherhood
– should have assistance
 Became less instinctive in lives, more dependent on
outside sources
 “Companionate Marriages”: increased husband’s social life;
sex for recreation
 Birth control – large families = source of poverty + communal
distress
 Increased in middle class women, increase in romantic
sex
o The “Flapper”: Image and Reality:
 Women could now: smoke, drink, dance, party + seduce
 Enter the flapper: the appearance of the uninhibited
woman
 Lower-Middle Class + Working, Single women – most
common
 Upper class Bohemian women were influenced by them
o Pressing for Women’s Rights:
 Realization of “new woman” propelled even further reform
 Alice Paul, National Woman’s Party, canvassed Equal
Rights Amendment
o 1923 proposed, little Congressional support
 Post 20 amendment, League of Women’s Voters formed;
th
increased by female consumer groups

 1921: Sheppard-Towner Act – funds for prenatal +
child healthcare
o Opposed by many women, terminated in 1929
o Education and Youth:
 Secularism increased, thus increase in role of education as
training + expertise demanded was high
 Rapid growth in high school attendance: 2.2 million to 5
million increase
 1930: 20% of college-age US population were in college
 Emergence of separate youth culture: adolescence = distinct
period of life
 Thriving environments to work on forming identities
o The Disenchanted:
Angst originating from war – US in general; consumerism =

“Pedestrian”
 Non conformist culture for personal fulfillment
 Holden Caufield “Phonies” lol – increase in “Lost
Generation” writers
o The Harlem Renaissance:
 Black artists/intellectuals flourishing in NYC in Harlem
 Night clubs with Jazz musicians like Duke Ellington, Jelly
Roll Morton, etc
 Black theater featuring musical comedy + vaudeville
acts – attracted white audiences
 Largely center of literature, poetry + art coming from US +
African cultures
 Langston Hughes, poet – “I am Negro and Beautiful”
 A Conflict of Cultures
o Prohibition:
 Sale + Manufacturing of alcohol outlawed in effect Jan 1920 –
not working well
 Did reduce drinking sort of; bathtub brews + growing
violations
 US had only 1,500 agents enforcing it; easily accessible
as it was legal
 An organized crime wave took over – Al Capone: crime empire
 Al had army of 1,000 gunmen and killed 250 people
between 1920-1927
 Lost support quickly, but some diehard WASP’s still held strong
 1933, repealed 18th amendment
o Nativism + The Klan:
 Dissenters of foreign emigration to US started in 19th century –
gathered strength
 Employers fought to keep immigrants coming in to US –
cheap labor
 Nativists associated immigration with radicalism
 1921: Quota System by Congress put in place – not exceed 3%
nationality
 800K decreased to 300K per year but sticklers not yet
satiated
 National Origins Act of 1924: no Asians, Europe down
to 2%, favored North West Europe
 The rebirth of Ku Klux Klan – 1915, The New Klan near ATL,
GA
 Centered around Black Americans, expanded to
Catholics, Jews + Foreigners
Then, expansion of targets created new widespread

membership – 1924: 4 million members
 Brute Violence to defend traditional, fundamental morality
 Boycotts on minority businesses, threatened families, +
resorted to violence
 Anyone opposing to “traditional values”, expanded to
dissenting Protestants
 Decreased rapidly after 1925: power struggles + scandals; ex.
David Stephenson
o Religious Fundamentalism:
 Protestants in US divided into two camps:
 Urban middle class who adapted to modern realities
 Fundamentalists: rurals who held onto traditional
values – literal translation
o Believed Darwin + flaws in Creation to be
inherently wrong views
 Fundamentalists spread evangelical teachings across the
nation
 Protestant modernists amused, but frightened when
gained political traction
 Scopes “Monkey Trial”: Scopes arrested for teaching evolution
 Scopes won + dark days for fundamentalists
o The Democrats’ Ordeal:
 Democrats = quilted interest party groups: Prohibition, Klan,
fundamentalists, immigrants, etc
 A party divided: deadlock for presidential candidate;
Hoover won (R)
 1928 Election: Al Smith democrat candidate: couldn’t unite all
parties
 Republican Government
o Harding and Coolidge:
 Both unadventurous: Harding tried to stabilize foreign affairs;
unequipped to do so
 Vices for gambling, illegal alcohol, + hot slutty women
 Buddies of nefarious variety appointed to cabinet; Teapot
Dome – a lot involved in corruption
 New Mexico senator, Fall, caught CA oil reserve scandal
 1923: Harding on speaking tour in west, severe pain, died
following two big heart attacks
 Calvin Coolidge: opposite of Harding; but still passive
approach to office
 Coolidge = sparse acclaims to power; took oath from
father by kerosene light
Even less active than Harding – “Govt. should interfere

least amount possible”
 Won reelection in 1924 in landslide, but decided not to
run in 1928
o Government and Business:
 Govt. working powerfully in 1920’s to help business operate
optimally
 Private sector + Govt. continued to merge Post
WWI/Andrew Mellon
 Anti Robin Hood: decreased corporate tax, incomes, +
inheritances, however ½ of War Debt gone
 Herbert Hoover – voluntary cooperation in private sector =
happy stability
 Govt. should play active role in this “Associationalism”
ie National “Guilds”
 Won Presidential Election 1928: ambitious to stabilize
economy
 But Whoops – Black Monday + Great Depression on
Heels
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Chapter 22: The “New Era”

 The New Economy

increased by female consumer groups

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