In the last segment I talked about the
sort of tendency of the Republican Party and,
and the idea of the Republican Party, to avoid
entanglements that would require sort of
regulative behavior or regulatory behavior
from government. That doesn't mean, and I really want to emphasize this,
it doesn't necessarily mean that the activism or all of the activism that has
been so much a part of the Progressive Era
had been abandoned.
Government still took
a role or had a role in seeking to shape events,
as we saw both in terms of international affairs,
and I think through things like the
Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, through, through domestic
affairs...but, again it's an, it's an
activism that rejects entanglement that
looks to government to regulate everyday life rather than seek sort of voluntary
cooperation.
That moves us onto the so-called Jazz Age itself.
And thinking about what lay behind this
era of, of the Republican Party and
and of a sort of post-war cultural
experience of...I don't know,
questioning tradition. Questioning the norms of society, norms that had seemed
to,
seemed to be in place and ultimately that's that's really what cultural
history is all about, right? It's,
it's about questioning those things that,
on the surface, seem ever so natural:
categories, definitions, identities.
We'll talk more about that
a little bit later, but for now I want to focus in on the economics
of the 1920's and what changes.
What makes the 1920's different or identifies or defines them.
In economic terms, one of the key...
periods
occurs really right after the war, and you may have gotten a little bit of this
in, in an earlier lecture...but the day after an armistice was signed ending the
actual fighting
in World War I, Washington DC residents were
unable to place long distance calls. They were unable to place those calls because
the various agencies, the war related agencies in Washington, were so busy
calling to cancel government contracts.
If you think about the war itself and
the impact of the federal government, no small part of
the impact of government had been through the contracts that were put out
to get the material to fight the war and part of this larger
mobilization. The war ended
without warning, really, right? An armistice is signed somewhat unexpectedly.
And the wartime boom, this booming economy...
massive production, massive credit availability,
government contracts all fueling this expansion, this growing kind of expansion of
government...
up and up and up, leading to as much as 15 percent inflation.
1919 and 1920, 15 percent inflation.
Prices, demand goes up for goods...well in
late 1920, that bubble burst. Higher prices just
plummet as government contracts and government money is pulled out
of the economy. Those temporary forces that
existed during the war disappear. 1920- 1921
the gross national product declines by some ten percent.
That's one of those older sort of models,
statistical, statistical figures by which to measure economic growth; gross
national product.
There are a hundred thousand bankruptcies...
over four hundred thousand farms are lost,
and some five million jobs.
So, very rapidly after the war, we go from boom
to bust, and I'm gonna make a point here that's going to come back to haunt us
just a little bit later,
but that point is simply that the United States economy,
at least certain sectors of the economy, never fully recovered
in terms of prices, in terms of productivity,
never fully recovered in the course of the 1920's leading up to
the Great Depression, and yet,
by in large, the 1920s on the surface seem to be
a real era, a real decade of affluence.
By 1923, by the time,
you know, Harding scandals are beginning to break, the economy seems to be
recovering.
And while the boom-and-bust have been frightening,
given all the pro-business policies of the 1920s, the limited regulation,
it doesn't take long for the economy, not all sectors but
generally, for the economy, to begin to hum along again.
I think there is an interesting tie here. I'm talking about the economy,
and I'm getting ready to talk about technology.
But... when we think jazz age, we think about culture.
What's the relationship between culture, on the one hand,
and technology on the other? Which drives which?
Does technological change alter the way we live
socially? Does it alter our ideas about how we
think about the world, that, of course, culture?
Or do our ideas,
which are cultural, does the way our society works,
does that open the door for technological change?
It's one of the questions I think academics wrestle with quite a lot
nowadays. What leads to what? And you may be arguing, well that's kind of a chicken
or egg question and maybe it is,
but I also think it's rather a fascinating question. Culture is all about
what we take for granted. You can argue technology comes along and
changes that, but you could also argue that technology doesn't
simply emerge from a vacuum. It emerges from a world in which
certain ideas are predominant, in which certain
ways of thinking about the world dominate.
Well I'm not going to be able, of course, to answer that question here and possibly
never,
but technology does play a role in this 1920s
economy. One of the things we see happening, and it may seem minor on the surface, but it's
actually quite huge,
is that America's factories during the 1920s, it
starts a little into the early 20s of course, but certainly by the
1920s, America's factories are shifting over
to electrical power, and the use of electricity to drive
machines. This presence of electricity particular,
particularly in urban areas
is also beginning to change the way people
live at home. And there you get into culture. I mean, what can I expect
of household life? What ought my expectations
to be?
Part of the reason I say that electricity is really beginning to affect
urban life is because of the rapid growth
of urban centers in the United States in part due to the First World War.
One thing to consider, and one thing perhaps that I haven't talked enough about,
is the tremendous demographic change that the United States is
undergoing in,
undergoing in the early decades of the 20th century, and we'll see
during the First World War as vast populations in the United States leave
rural areas,
particularly say, in the South or the Southern United States,
to seek opportunity and begin seeking jobs
in the North, in the more industrialized cities, places like Cleveland, Ohio,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago,
Saint Louis. They go
to find opportunity and they go by the thousands.
I mean it really is one of the most important mass exoduses that you'll see.
One of the most important demographic shifts that you'll see.
So we have more and more people living in cities. Greater demand than perhaps
for electricity that's being now used in the factories were people are working,
but also it's in the cities where private corporations
will have the easiest times providing the service, the utility,
for electricity. Running the wires, running the infrastructure, etc.
It's a lot like cable TV was in the later 20th century.
Often you could get it in large cities first, in cities and towns, and it was
late, or later, to be made available in some of the most
most remote rural areas because in part,
it was more costly to extend the network out.
That's sorta where satellite found its niche
I suppose. Well in terms of technology and electricity,
the presence of electricity then allows for
greater potential for appliances,
and especially kitchen appliances,
appliances sort of of a durable nature.
And then entertainment - machines for for entertainment purpose. We will get to that
in just a moment. When I talk about durable goods, in particular, I'm talking
about refrigerators,
washing machines. Many of these
items came to the home in this period, the 1920s.
Toaster ovens, electric toaster ovens,
all sorts of different items. I've I've got a picture that I use, a
photograph that I use in lecture.It's actually from an advertisement,
and I think it perhaps is from General Electric, but it suggests or the picture,
the image is of a young woman, a
young homemaker, who is plugging in her soup tureen
to an electric outlet. And the implication is always
cultural. It's the woman
of the household who is utilizing these new technologies,
who will have more leisure. You're helping
as a man if you go out and purchase
one of these labor-saving appliances.
That tends to be the way these advertisements run.
Now another huge technology that will come into the American home in the
1920s in ever larger numbers, of course, will be the radio.
We've already got the phonograph. Now you're introducing
the radio, that too, run off electricity.
Amazing technology and the cultural impact of that technology will be huge
because now people can begin to get shows and programs from faraway places.
People living in the rural areas in hills and hollers, they can run those
radios off of batteries. They'll be able to hear
opera from New York. They'll be able to hear jazz. They'll be able to hear
regular shows that connect
ever-larger portions of the American population
to the mass consumption of...
of media, mass consumption of ideas,
and really
allows them to know about what appliances are out there.
And also what new cars are available and what new fashions
are available. I wanna focus in here, of course, technologically on
on cars just a moment because the 20s
is really a a decade of the automobile.
Through the nineteen teens, one of the progressive related
campaigns was for good roads. Well
by the 1920s, more and more individuals
are purchasing and owning automobiles.
The Model T comes to mind as one of the key
automobiles of the era, but certainly you're seeing Chevrolet's,
Oldsmobiles, and Cadillacs. The essential thing is that more and more
people
will buy. The 1920s auto sales were tremendous.
From eight million automobiles in 1920,
to more than 23 million on America's roads in 1930.
So just a huge increase and huge demand for materials that the automobile
creates.
And you see, that's the effect that this new
consumer economy, this new technology and
changing culture creates. That's the effect that this economy has.
It not only means you build cars and you build appliances, but it means you're
gonna need people to
build the parts, to build machines to build
the machines, that you're gonna need resources with which
to build the cars and the appliances. And so there's this massive, massive
ripple effect that will, in many sectors of the American economy, lead to
expansion, and
money, and put people to work.