1 Jan 1934 Jahr - summary

Beschreibung:

While the United States largely avoided the destruction and disillusionment of World War I, the conflict still marked a crucial historical divide for Americans, and the country entered a distinctly new era after 1919 — one that was both prosperous and contentious. Progressivism flagged and gave way to a business-centered philosophy of limited government. A surging manufacturing economy delivered a cornucopia of consumer goods to a growing middle class. In the halls of government and in the streets, Americans clashed over what a modern society should look like — and over who defined the meaning of “American.” In the economically booming and socially turbulent years between World War I and the Great Depression, the defining themes were limited government, consumerism, and cultural warfare.

The 1920s established patterns in American life that would hold for the remainder of the twentieth century. The nation had become urban. Mass media and Hollywood shaped popular culture. The automobile became an affordable mass commodity, even a necessity, and soon changed the nature of everyday life. Many Americans celebrated the dawning of what they called a “new era,” defined by freer individual lifestyles, convenient consumer technologies, and “modern” ways of thinking. Others saw this emerging modernity as a threat. Groups of native-born, Protestant Americans, for instance, battled with immigrants over national belonging. White Americans frequently lashed out at black Americans — often in deadly ways — over economic opportunity. And Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and secular Americans clashed over everything from the prohibition of alcohol to the teaching of evolution.

By the election of 1932, political and cultural divides had hardened. Decades of populist and progressive movements, dating to the 1880s, had asked “whose government?” In the 1920s, the question took on a broader cast: “whose country?” Economically, too, there were signs of distress. The abundance that fueled the “roaring twenties” proved short-lived, as the nation slid from consumer boom into the harrowing years of the Great Depression.


At the end of World War I America’s economy was growing and its global position was rising. But the war also unsettled the country. Racial antagonisms rose when African Americans pursued new opportunities and asserted their rights. Labor unrest grew as employers cut wages and sought to break unions. Anxieties over radicalism and immigration prompted a nationwide Red Scare.

The politics of the 1920s saw a backlash against prewar progressivism and a series of clashes over religion, morality, and national belonging. The agenda of women reformers met very limited success, despite the arrival of women’s voting rights. Republican administrations embraced business at home and abroad. Prohibition and the Scopes trial demonstrated the influence religion could exert on public policy, while rising nativism fueled a resurgent Ku Klux Klan and led to sweeping new restrictions on immigration. Meanwhile, black artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, including many inspired by pan-African ideas, explored the complexities of African American life.

But the conservative mood was not all encompassing. A booming consumer culture, exemplified by the radio, the automobile, and Hollywood films, created new forms of leisure, influencing daily life and challenging older sexual norms. Black artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance explored the complexities of African American life.

The economic boom that carried America through an unsettled decade relied on risky speculation and easy credit. The foundations of the economy showed signs of shakiness, and the 1929 stock market crash plunged the United States into the Great Depression.

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