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U.S. between the Wars

Question

Was it inevitable that the U.S. & USSR would rise to the status of supe powers (world leaders)?

Themes

A. Impact of dominant pol’l philosophies:

  • US & USSR = super power status
  • Democracy/Capitalism vs Communism

B. Impact of techn’l & economic change:

  • conditions = differed
  • USSR = industry developed along communist principles
  • USA = with Captialist system was forced to deal with Great Depression

C. Role of Individual in Society

  • Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin
  • Hoover, Roosevelt

D. Key Concepts:

  1. USA vs. USSR: population, resources, territorial size, isolation
  2. Economic issues for the USA:
    • US dominated world (WWI)
    • US politically, not economically isolated
    • Depression = US re-evaluate economy
  3. Communism in USSR:
    • Bolsheviks gain power
    • Marxism adapted by Lenin

US in the early 20th century

USA 1919 Leading Industrial & Economical Nation

USA: rugged individualism and government non-interference

Immigration

  • Melting Pot
    • assimilate or “undesirable”
  • 1910 - 1/7th of population not born in USA
  • Open Door Policy = closed !
  • 1917 - Immigration Act - Literacy Tests
  • 1921 & 1924 Acts discriminated against Catholics & Jews

Internal Racial Intolerance

  • 1865 slavery abolished
  • Result: segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement, persecution
    • ”separate but equal” (did not happen)

KKK

  • New KKK established in 1915 (from 1800s)
  • 1920 = few 1000 members
  • 1921 - over 100,000
  • 1925 - over 5 million
  • Discriminated against Jews, Catholics, Communists, & Coloured People

USA political Strucutre

  • President - Head of State & Government - 4 years
    • Not a member of Congress
  • Congress - House of Representatives - 2 years
  • Senate - 2 for each state elected - 6 years

American Foreign Policy

  • 1900-1917 Isolationism (Monroe Doctrine)
  • 1917-1919 Internationalism
  • 1919-1941 Isolationism
  • International Agreements
    • Washington Conference
      • Naval disarmamanet
    • Kellog-Briand Pact
      • Not liking wars
    • Reparations

American President

  • 1913 - 1920 Woodrow Wilson Democratic
  • 1921-1923 Warren G. Harding Republican
  • 1923 - 1929 Calvin Coolidge Republican
  • 1929 - Herbert Hoover Republican
    • believes in government non-intervention
  • 1933 - 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic
    • believes in government intervention

US Economic Prospered 1920s

  • USA= British place as money-lending power
  • 1924 - 1928 USA loaned approx. $6 billion

The “Boom” Mass-Production

  • Increase in Car and Radio ownership
  • Energy: coal out = petrol, gas, electricity in
  • vacuum cleaners
  • washing macines
  • movies & radio
  • Jazz
  • Flappers
  • Bobbed hair
  • Short Skirts

18th Amendment

  • Prohibiiton 1920-1933

Problems

Reaction to prohibiton

  • Gangsters
  • bootleggers
  • Speakeasies
  • Al Capone

Economic Nationalism & Isolationism

  • Wealth wasn’t sharedL 1/3 $ by 1/20 population
  • Fordney-McCumber Act 1922 raised tariffs
  • 1925 ” Gold Standard ” Returns
  • 1920s-30s New European Nations: Autarky=Self-Sufficiency

Problems Arise

  • Over-production
  • Agriculture - not prosperous
  • 1927 = economic slow down
  • 1929 = 60% of families under poverty line
  • 1920 - 1932 trade union membership shrank
    • communist & un-American

The Crash

[!Hoover’s Policy]

President. Herbert Hoover & government knew market was about to crash.

Government didn’t get involved because it wasn’t its job (capitalist = hands off business)

Oct 24 1929 (Black Thursday)

  • Stock prices crash
  • J.P. Morgan & others try to instil confidence in market
  • Market settles

Oct 29 1929 (Black Tuesday)

  • Market collapses
  • ”Great Crash” has occurred
  • $40 billion disappear from economy

The Reaction

  • 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill
  • Britain brings in Import Duties Bill (1930)
  • World Trade slows:
    • Mass Unemployment
    • US lends less $
      “every nation should be prepared to look after itself"
  • "Bank for International Settlements” - World Bank
  • 1932 most nations in Depression

The Great Depression

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

  • $2 billion to industry
  • not directly to unemployed
  • self-reliance didn’t help economy
  • RFC a failure

Effects

  • Hoovervilles (shantytowns)

1931 Hoover

  • Moratorium (delay) on international government debt because Austria & Germany = close to financial collapse
  • other nations depending on these payments = chaos
  • 1932 worst year = unemployed 25%

FDR

Franklin Delano Rossevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

  • FDR becomes president on March 4, 1933 (1933-1945)
  • Paralyzed by polio in 1921
  • Fireside Chats

Roosevelt’s program with 3 stages:

  • The Hundred Days
  • 1st New Deal 1933-35
  • 2nd New Deal 1935-39

Policy Aims

  1. TO revive businesses, industry & farming
  2. To help unemployed find jobs & give immediate food & money

The Hundred Days

  • Vigorous activity
  • Emergency banking Act:
  • Federal Emergency Relief Act: 500 million
  • Prohibition Abolished

1st New Deal 1933-35

Aim: create jobs, road to recovery

Alphabetical Agencies

Agriculture Adjustment Act

  • output restricted/force prices up
  • production quotas
  • 1935 unconstitutional

National Industry Recovery Administration

  • Industries = codes of production and prices
  • restricted output
  • 1935 unconstitutional

Tennessee Valley Authority

  • government direct competition with private sector
  • hydro-electric dams in 7 states
  • supply cheap power = economic development

Civilian Conservation Corps

  • ”make-work projects”

2nd New Deal 1935-1939

Improve welfare services

WPA Works Progressi adminsitons

  • ”make work”
  • bullt hospitals, schools, playgrounds
  • arts, theatre, writing

National Labour Relations Act

  • Workers = right to bargain collectively
  • Wagner Act 1933
    • trade unions protected

Social Security Act 1935

  • old age pension/UI/welfare
  • unconstitutional
  • Roosevelt & Supreme Court = conflict
  • 1937 SSA stays / Supreme Court remains

Opposition to Roosevelt

Businessmen objected to:

  • government interference in economy
  • strong (central) Federal over power state
  • policies strengthened trade unions
  • social welfare & old age security
    • Roosevelt was criticized as a Communist & a Fascist!

Achievements of the New deal

  • Revived American industry & agriculture
  • saved millions hungry & unemployed
  • modernized public buildings
  • restored faith in US government

Roosevelt:

”People who are hungry and are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made”

End of the Depression (and the hidden costs)!

Roosevelt’s New Deal did not end the Great Depression

World War II DID!

would it have been possible to have tackled America’s economic problems without increaisng the power of the government?

Did Roosevelt betray democracy and “liberty” of the Americans by his New Deal?

In review

  1. The USSR and USA both faced major economic problems in the late 1920s and 1930s. Compare and contrast the manner in which respective leaders addressed these problems.
  2. Explain how the industrial and economic “gap” closed between the USSR & USA by the late 1930s.
  3. Was it inevitable that the USA and uSSR would rise to the status of super powers (world leaders)?

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