GCSE History OCR - USA

Immigration:

• Empty - beacon of Statue of Liberty welcomed "poor & huddled masses"
• 30 mil Europeans immigrated between 1875 - 1920
• Problems caused - illiteracy, needed educating; disease; crime, Italians & Mafia; Germans, enemy in WW1, jobs, work for less wages
• Quota Act - figure of immigrants from 1900 could enter, small fraction of each group

Roaring 20's:

• Hollywood - cinema began, silent films, Rudolf Valentino etc
• Jazz - black music, popular with young, new dances based on jazz beat
• Sport - baseball, Babe Ruth popular, spent money on baseball games
• Radio - new invention, ideal for rural areas, 'soaps' listened to
• Cars - Henry Ford, women could afford them, 'petting parties'
• Flappers - short skirts, smoked, danced, drank, only young city women, traditional conservative family opposed it

• Monkey Trial - evolution theory taught by Johnny Scopes, defied creationist beliefs, sacked by school & fined, made Tennesee School Authorites look silly

• Prohibition - 1919 Congress banned alcohol; Temperance Groups, brought disease, poverty, ruined families, Anti-Saloon League, grain should be for soldiers, faulty munitions, Budweisers & Schlitz were German (failed because: 7th biggest industry, in hands of criminals, moonshine & bootlegging, bribery, GRAFT)

• Black Americans - Jim Crow Laws, lived in ghettos; sacked first, Ku Klux Klan, WASPs; migrated to north; work for less money - get jobs, angered KKK

• Trial of Sacco & Vanzetti - convicted of robbery -wasn't them; judge intolerable; sentenced to death 1931

Lots of natural resources ---> benefitted from WW1 economically ---> 

immigration, cheap labour ---> mass production ---> tarrifs --->

Laissez Faire ---> banks lent money easily ---> catalogues, adverts --->

share prices inceasing

• Roaring 20's - change in fashion & lifestyle, conflict with older generation
• Hollywood - new cinema industry, encourage new independence, copied role models like Clara Bow
• Economic boom - enabled women to buy cars, clothes, be more independent
• Cars - gave richer women more independence & mobility
• Vote - gave them a say in country's affairs, politicans began listening to them

Mass Production - before WW1, products hand-made, expensive & took time; Henry Ford introduced conveyor belt assembly line; mid 20s more Americans owned cars than anywhere else; demand for glass, rubber, steal, oil increased - more jobs - people spent more

Consumer Goods Boom:

• Mass Production - fridges, washing machines, vacuums, telephones, radios, more jobs, more people bought them
• Republican Government - believed in Laissez Faire - leave business alone; believed in tariffs & low taxes
• Share Speculation - made money by gambling; constantly increasing; banks lent easily 10% deposit; buying on the margin; recklessly lending money - thought they would get it back

• Black Americans - paid less, sacked first
• Farmers - struggled in 20s as sale to Europe ended
• Immigrants - paid less & bad living conditions
• Rural areas - no electricity for factories
• Textiles & coal - industries suffered
• Railways - used cars instead
• Some businesses - hard to adapt to assembly line

12% OWNED 80% OF WEALTH

Farmers problems:

• before/during WW1, grain in high demand for Europe
• war over - lost prophets, tried to make up for it by producing more
• led to overproduction - lower prices
• many mortgaged farms but couldn't pay back - lost farms
• Natural disasters - late 20's poor rainfall triggered Dust Bowls in south; intensive farmeing made soil dry & wind blew top soil away - dirt storm; droughts

Stock Market Crash, Sept 1929 - share prices fell dramatically, people ruined in short space of time; tariffs from Europe onto America; Laissez Faire - dodgy businesses; unequal wealth, not enough people could buy goods

• Republican - Laissez Faire, low taxes, helped rich & business, wasn't government's job to help the poor
• Rugged Individualism - stand on your own two feet, don't expect help
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation - charities, companies & individual states work together to help poor, voluntarism, didn't really work

Effects of Depression:

• 1932 - millions were hungry, cold & homeless
• Hooverstew - free soup & bread from charities
• Job vacancy - 1000s would apply
• Shanty towns - Hoovervilles, Hooverblankets, made out of anything
• The Bonus Army - WW1 soldiers, wanted pension early
• Fear of revolution

Nobody bought shares - pushed prices lower; banks didn't get money back; companies starved of money to invest - sacked people - high unemployment, make less - VISCOUS CIRCLE; by 1930 12M unemployed

Hoover - born poor, orphaned, self made millionaire, didn't like taxes, blamed for depression

FDR - wealthy, polio, thought government should help poor, grandfatherly like, friendly, won a landslide victory

FDR's 100 days - ended prohibition, emergency federal relief for poor, agencies, closed all banks & reopened safe ones, fireside chats on radio

Relief - helping poor, FERA

Recovery - industry on its feet again, agencies

Reform - changes to avoid another depression, businesses don't like being told what to do, some unconsititional agencies

PWA - created jobs for unskilled older people, road-laying, building

CWA - older skilled men - dams, hospitals, schools

CCC - young men work on conservation jobs, camped & fed, $1 a day

AAA - paid farmers not to produce food, overproduction ends & prices increase

TVA - Tennessee River dams, ended droughts & floods, make electricity & jobs

NRA - reform American industry & business, good quality goods & decent wages

Who opposed FDR?

• Republicans - opposing party, Laissez Faire, taxed too much, only states should do agencies
• Businessmen - fed up with interference like NRA & pay more taxes
• Huey Long - Governor of Louisiana, wasn't doing enough for poor
• Father Coughlin - thought he was a communist
• Supreme Court - declared some agencies unconstitutional

• 1935-36 Supreme Court declared some agencies unconstitutional, started with 'sick chickens case', NRA poultry company selling dosgy chickens
• Interference with court - 9 Supreme Court Judges, wanted 6 more that he could choose
• Introduced Judical Reform Bill - Congress rejected it - trying to gain more power

2nd New Deal:

• WPA (Works Progress Administration) - combined all work creation agencies of 1st New Deal
• Social Security Act - gave payments to old, sick & unemployed
• The Wagner Act - gave workers right to belong to unions & employers must listen to those unions
• FSA (Farm Security Administration) - helped poorer farmers by relocating land/cheap loans to buy own land

Congress lost interest in New Deal after 1937, didn't give him enough money, felt he was wasting money & being too powerful

• New Deal didn't end unemployment, reduced it up to 1937 then started to rise
• Other areas of business hugely improved
• Bank failures virtually disappeared
• Old age pensions introduced
• Social security introduced to help unemployed
• GNP back up to 1920s levels
• Business failures reduced
• Farmers who owned farms really benefitted from AAA
• Poorer farmers helped by 2nd New Deal
• TVA definitely helped although some thought he was a socialist
• Workers could join unions
• Didn't really help black Americans/women, wife campaigned for them
• New Deal gave people HOPE
• People on New Deal schemes kept PRIDE - still working
• New Deal gave HAND-UP not a HAND-OUT, allowed people to believe in Rugged Individualism