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Technology such as the moving assembly line and electric motors helped per hour worker productivity rise by 75%. Car manufacturing
caused increases in steel, rubber, glass, paint and petroleum industries. Radio became popular.Railroads suffered from mismanagement
and competition from the trucking industry. Agriculture suffered tremendously from overproduction, falling prices and falling
exports. Factory wages grow only by 11%, but consumer prices rose little. Labor unions suffered from the use of injunctions
and yellow-dog contracts. Companies offered improved benefits to keep workers from unionizing. Black workers got the shaft
in the N, but it still beat sharecropping. Black population doubles in Chicago and New York City. The middle and upper classes
consumed conspicuously in the decade. People used credit to help overspend and speculated in the stock market. Unequal distribution
of wealth, overproduction and speculation should have sent a warning sign of economic instability. Population in the city
was growing. skyscrapers were common. Family life changed as women gained more rights and freedom. Feminist groups pushed
for more reform. Flapper image includes shorter hair and dresses. More makeup, wild dancing.Smoking and drinking in public.
Divorce rates doubled from 1900 to 1928. Women were more interested in sexual fulfillment. Drops in birthrate and housework
hours created more leisure time. Kids were irresponsible and wild. Bicycle, dance, running and pole sitting marathons were
big. Plays, novels and magazines discusses sex more openly. Movies and movie stars became more explicit, less
Romantic. Kinsey studies suggest that premarital sex was twice as common in for women born after 1900. Note that the % of
women involved in premarital sex was still quite small; perhaps 14-21 %. The Red Scare caused many to be deported.People quickly
grew tired of anti-communist extremism. When May Day 1920 did not bring promised revolution, the scare ended. Anti immigrant
feeling remained.Lower income people drank much less. Drinking became fashionable for middle and upper classes. Bootlegging
and smuggling became a $2 billion per year industry. Homemade alcohol was popular but dangerous. Urban pressure ends prohibition
in 1933, 21st Amendment. The Klan expanded their targets to all threats to American culture. Included Jews, Catholics, loose
women and immigrants. David “Steve” Stephenson and the Klan gained political power within the Democrat Party.
Wilson’s veto of the literacy test required for entrance in the US was overridden
Limits immigration to those fluent in English
Decreases immigration from 1 million to 100,000 per year
US feared a great influx of immigrants from Europe after WWI
Congress limits immigration in 1921 with a Quota Act
Psychologists use IQ tests to prove the “inferiority” of non-Anglo-Saxons. 1924 National Origins Quota Act
further limits immigration. Limits all European immigration to 150,000 per year. All Asian immigration banned. Mexican immigration
was encouraged and essentially unlimited. Democrat v Republican in the election of 1928. Herbert Hoover (R) was well-educated
and polished. Al Smith (D) was uneducated and rough around the edges. Both were self-made men who believed in freedom of opportunity.
Hoover wins easily, perhaps because of Smith’s Catholicism.
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