Which of the following was a time of prosperity in the era of boom-and-bust cycles?

1. "Age of Prosperity"

• Collected commentary on economic prosperity, 1921-1936 PDF


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Inhaltsverzeichnis Show
• 1. "Age of Prosperity"
• Discussion Questions
• Framing Questions
• Supplemental Sites
• How did the economic trends of the 1920s help cause the Great Depression?
• What was the first manufacturing process to make significant use of machines on a large scale both in England and in the US?
• What spurred production of Southern cotton?
• What event triggered the increase in immigration to the United States from Europe after 1815 quizlet?
• Political cartoons on 1920s prosperity, 1919-1928 (12) PDF


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• Cartoonist analysis chart PDF


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A "chicken in every pot, and a car in every backyard." So ran a Republican slogan during Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential campaign—the phrase that has come to symbolize the unparalleled prosperity of the 1920s. The nation's economy reached astounding production, consumption, and stock market records, rendering the severe postwar recession a bad memory, except, unfortunately, for farmers, working-class laborers, and African Americans and other minorities. As W.E.B. Du Bois asserted in 1926, "We have today in the United States, cheek by jowl, Prosperity and Depression."1

How did it happen? Would it last? How could the excesses of prosperity be moderated? How could those left out be included? And whose responsibility was all this? business? government? the individual? We begin this Theme with an overview of the decade's perspective on itself, as an "age of prosperity." Was the nation's economic engine a charged dynamo or a short-fused bomb?

• Collected commentary. This collection offers contemporary commentary from businessmen and financial analysts, consumer and social activists, historians and a novelist, white and black leaders, and Democrats and Republicans, including the three Republican presidents of the decade, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Selections can be divided among students for research and classroom discussion. How varied were the perspectives on "prosperity," its causes, and consequences? How secure or tenuous were the economic times? (10 pp.)

  
  


• Political cartoons. Twelve political cartoons are presented in this collection, from four general circulation (white-owned) newspapers and one black-owned newspaper. They span the years 1919, when the nation was mired in postwar recession and unrest, to 1928, when undreamed-of prosperity seemed in the grasp of anyone with capital, energy, and gumption. What perspectives were presented in these cartoons? What affirmations, recommendations, judgments, and warnings? Complete the cartoonist analysis chart to study the visual and symbolic aspects of the cartoons. (13 pp.)

Discussion Questions

1. According to the commentators and cartoonists, what were the causes, outcomes, and possible consequences of the unrivaled prosperity of the 1920s?
2. What affirmations, recommendations, judgments, and warnings did they put forth?
3. How could the excesses of prosperity be moderated? How could those left out be included?
4. Whose responsibility was it to nurture prosperity and to address its problems? business? government? the individual?
5. How secure or tenuous was the prosperity of the "roaring twenties"?
6. According to Frederick Lewis Allen, author of Only Yesterday (1931), "what made the United States so prosperous?"
7. According to financial writer Donald Hanson, how would the prosperity of the 1920s be explained by the banker, the labor union head, the manufacturer, the "habitué of Wall Street," and a foreign observer? Why did he say that "probably all are correct to a certain degree"?
8. How was the automobile a major impetus of the decade's prosperity, according to Stuart Chase and Frederick Lewis Allen?
9. How did the novelist John Dos Passos reflect the economic conflicts and ideological divisions in the "newsreel" from The Big Money?
10. Using the resources in this section, write a "newsreel" that reflects 1920s prosperity from another perspective, e.g., of a Republican president, a Democratic cartoonist, historian T. J. Wertenbaker, or black leader W.E.B. Du Bois.
11. What were the core disagreements between Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberals about economic prosperity in the 1920s?
12. How did Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberal refute each others' positions?
13. To what extent did Republicans and Democrats acknowledge each others' viewpoints on prosperity?
14. How did Republicans acknowledge the "friction of modern industrialism"? How did Democrats acknowledge that "prosperity . . . has certainly been with us"?
15. Complete the chart of political cartoonists to analyze their viewpoints and the visual devices they used to convey them, e.g., Gale's portrayal of Uncle Sam and Orr's use of multiple labels.
16. Drawing evidence from the readings and cartoons in this section, write a brief overview of the economic prosperity of the 1920s, beginning or ending with one of these statements from the resources:
    • - "Every man and woman knows that their comfort, their hopes and their confidence for the future are higher this day than they were seven and one-half years ago."

      Herbert Hoover, Republican presidential candidate, campaign address, October 22, 1928

    • - "The motor car . . . . is the outstanding Why of American prosperity—both commercial and visible."

      Stuart Chase, Prosperity: Fact or Myth?, 1929

    • - "We have today in the United States, cheek by jowl, Prosperity and Depression."

      W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Shape of Fear," The North American Review, June 1926

    • - "This myth of prosperity, if believed, will lead to inevitable catastrophe."

      Daisy W. Worcester, address, National Conference of Social Work, June 18, 1929

    • - "Common welfare is the goal of our national endeavor. Wealth is not inimical to welfare; it ought to be its friendliest agency."

      Pres. Warren Harding, inaugural address, March 4, 1921

    • - "Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshiped."

      Pres. Calvin Coolidge, address, 15th meeting of the Business Organization of the Government, June 11, 1928

    • - "Republican prosperity has reduced hours and increased earning capacity, silenced discontent, put the proverbial 'chicken in every pot.' And a car in every backyard, to boot."

      political advertisement, Republican Business Men, Inc., New York, 1928

    • - "The Republican Party builds its case upon a myth. . . . Prosperity to the extent that we have it is unduly concentrated and has not equitably touched the lives of the farmer, the wage earner, and the individual businessman."

      Al Smith, Democratic presidential candidate, nomination acceptance address, August 22, 1928

    • - "In short, the result has been that in this country today human beings have reached a higher state of material welfare than in any other era of world history or in any other nation of the world."

      T. J. Wertenbaker, "What's Wrong with the United States?" Scribner's, October 1928

    • - "Prosperity? Blah!!"

      Democratic Party donkey in a political cartoon, Public Ledger, Philadelphia, n.d.,
      reprinted in the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 14, 1926

    • - "It was fun while it lasted."

      Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday, 1931

Framing Questions

• What factors nurtured or weakened the unprecedented prosperity of the 1920s?
• How did "prosperity" become a hallmark of national pride? How was the word adapted for political and psychological aspirations of the nation?
• What role did "workingmen" and labor unions play in the economic panorama of the period?
• Compare the Twenties' boom-and-bust with similar economic cycles before and after the decade.

Printing

Commentary
Political cartoons
TOTAL
10 pp.
13 pp.
23 pp.

Supplemental Sites

1 W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Shape of Fear," The North American Review, June 1926.

Images:
– Advertisement, Holeproof Hosiery Co. (detail), Scribner's, April 1922. Reproduced by permission of the Modernist Journals Project, Brown University and the University of Tulsa.
– "Fifth Avenue," photograph (detail); written on image: New York World, April 17, 1921. Courtesy of the New York Public Library, Digital ID 810014.
– "A Chicken for Every Pot," political advertisement, Republican Business Men, Inc., New York, 1928. Courtesy of the Hoover Presidential Library, National Archives, ARC Identifier 187095.
– Morris, "Hot Dog," political cartoon, George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service; published in the Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1926. Copyright holder of Adams Newspaper Service content unidentified; in copyright search. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
– Edmund Gale, "Watch Your Step!" political cartoon, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 14, 1925. Reproduced by permission of the Los Angeles Times. Digital image courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
– Advertisement, Underwood portable typewriters (detail), Scribner's, June 1922. Reproduced by permission of the Modernist Journals Project, Brown University and the University of Tulsa.

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How did the economic trends of the 1920s help cause the Great Depression?

What was the first manufacturing process to make significant use of machines on a large scale both in England and in the US?

What spurred production of Southern cotton?

What event triggered the increase in immigration to the United States from Europe after 1815 quizlet?