Société américaine pendant le BOOM

History Essay: American society in the 20s

During World War I (1914-1918), while us troops helped allies to win, the US was lending money to allies and selling them munitions and food. When the troops returned homeland victorious, all Europe was destroyed and the “one-way trade” the US had done with the allies allowed them an enormous boost. Indeed, after the war, the USA concentrate on themselves, they sort of isolated, restricted immigration in 1924 and put tariffs on imported foreign goods as they wanted to do everything in land. There was an enormous change, a “boom” where a capitalist, consumer state led by a republican regime developed. The government used the “laissez-faire” which means they gave employers total liberty on how to deal with their resources and industries. These capitalists had as their main goal was to produce goods that could compete with other firms to gain consumers. This “boom period” called the Roaring Twenties (1920s) developed and grew many aspects in the US but also had some negative aspects

Firstly, this period saw a prospering economy due to an efficient industry. Indeed, this sector doubled the output due to exploitation of the vast resources of raw materials and “mass production” introduced by Henry Ford who planned a system where each person had a small specific job (specialization) and in his case, the production of cars (T-Model’s) was quick and effective. Thus, the industrial sector also diversified and modernized goods. The increasing production was in correlation with the increasing sales of goods that were now available for everyone not only rich people caused by the lowered taxes and lowered prices due to the fierce competition between firms and the enormous quantity of advertisements that encouraged strongly to consume and save less.

Furthermore, new roads were created, and more transportation facilities were available, this allowed people from the suburbs to come into cities (urban areas).

Ordinary people “forced” by society to consume paid on credit and as the confidence in the American prosper economy was high, they bought shares on margin on the stock exchange.

Not only industrial processes changed after WW1 but also the habits and mentalities. Firstly, the role of women changed, if before they were limited and restricted (they had to behave politely and wear really restricted clothes); they replaced men in some industries during the war and now some of them still worked. In 1920, they also got the right to vote. America was modernizing and “forgetting” about their old traditional habits: entertainment changed, cinema-speaking: a major industry was developing in Hollywood, sport-speaking: baseball and boxing were in trend, people also listened to their new radios daily and they would eventually go out to enjoy some jazz or blues in cafés, or go watch new joyful movies (after the horrors of WW1) in cinemas. Nearly all urban homes had electricity and now some cities had skyscrapers. Furthermore, through the process of “The Monkey Trial” that confronted urban people who believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution versus rural people who believed that God created the world resulted in the “modernists” winning over “traditionalists” who were humiliated.

On the other hand, the “boom” period had also negative aspects. Indeed, the farming industry didn’t have the same prosperity as the other industries. There was competition against the efficient Canadian wheat and also an overproduction that resulted in desperate farmers trying to sell their products. Thus, 6 million farmers areas had to move to urban areas and loads of them became unemployed. As we said before, women position has had some progress in the job sector but the minority of women that worked were limited to some much lower- paid jobs such as cleaning or dressmaking; they also had no political power.

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