Fortunes of Feminism

On occasion, war posters acknowledged women who crossed conventional gender barriers when they took jobs in war work. These images were usually issued by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), which produced its own posters. During the war, the YWCA continued its prewar activism on behalf of young working women and distributed the poster depicted here as part of its fund-raising campaign. In keeping with YWCA literature that praised women factory workers' vital contribution to defense, this image emphasizes female strength and solidarity. Note too the graphic style of this image.

• Women took on new jobs during the war, working as mail carriers, polic officers, drill-press operators, and farm laborers attached to the Women's Land Army. These women are riveters at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington. Black women in particular, who customarily were limited to employment as domestic servants or agricultural laborers, found that the war opened up new opportunities and better wages in industry. When the war ended, black and white women alike usually lost jobs deemed to be men's work

• Before the war ended, some 25,000 American women made it to France, all as volunteers. Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed war the "Great Adventure,” and some women were eager to share in it. About half became nurses, where as one said, they dealt with "a sea of stretchers, a human carpet.” Women also drove ambulances, acted as social workers, and ran canteens for the Red Cross and the YMCA. One YMCA worker, Mary Baldwin, hoped that a few hours in her canteen would "make life, and even death, easier ‘out there.'” A handful of female physicians worked as contract surgeons for the U.S. army. Dr. Loy McAfee wore this uniform in France.

Women• Changing attitudes toward marriage and

sexuality– Greater openness in attitudes toward sex– Push for compatibility and companionship in

marriage– Flapper culture among young women

• Popularity of celebrities– First appearance of large sporting events and

professional athletes– Depended on journalists and radio promoters

• Women workers– Earned less than male workers, even for same

jobs– Drawn to white collar work for better

opportunities• Concentrated in “female” professions

– Female college enrollment increased 50 percent during decade

Sanger

• Comstock Law• Sheppard-Towner

ERA/NWP

• Cult of Beauty• Hollywood• Cosmetics Industry• Cult of Youthfulness– Helena Rubenstein– Elizabeth Arden

Settlement House-Homemaking

• Liberal Arts Education

Freud

• Vulgar Freudianism– Misinterpretation of Freud

– Advertising– Sanger: Happiness in marriage– Berry Publishing: How I Kept my Husband’s Love– Margaret Mead: Coming of Age in Samoa

Cult of Personalities

• Popularity of celebrities– First appearance of large sporting events and

professional athletes– Depended on journalists and radio promoters

• Huey Long• Charlie Chaplin• Valentino• Arbuckle• Fairbanks• Coleman

• Babe Ruth• Lou Gehrig• Red Grange• Knut Rockne• Jack Dempsey• James “Gene” Tunney• William Tilden

Lone Eagle

• Lindbergh – 1927solo flight to Paris

• These Border Patrol officers in Laredo, Texas, in 1926 were deputized to stop illegal immigration from Mexico. Their guns, military uniforms, and stern expressions did not present a warm welcome to immigrants arriving from south of the border.

The “Lost Generation” and Disillusioned Intellectuals

• World War I created generation of disaffected, alienated writers and artists– Lost Generation– Many settled in Paris

• Focused on psychological toll of living in postwar period

• Many came to question democracy itself– Spurred debate over proper role of government in

economy and life in general– John Dewey

• American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist

• education should not be the teaching of mere dead fact

• skills and knowledge which students learn should be integrated fully into their lives as persons, citizens and human beings.

• Racial conflict and the rise of black nationalism– War aroused expectations in black soldiers that

were not fulfilled– Immediate postwar period rife with race riots– Role of Marcus Garvey’s

Universal Negro Improvement Association

– Fostered black nationalism, separatism, and self-sufficiency

– Left enduring legacy

Botched Civilization

• Hemingway– Farewell to Arms

• Langston Hughes• Willa Cather

Artists

• Mencken• F Scott Fitzgerald

Langston Hughes, a determined young black poet, said of the Harlem Renaissance. "If white

people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not,

it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too.” Hughes published The Weary Blues, his first book of poetry, in 1926 at the age of twenty-four.

Postwar Period: A Society in Convulsion

• Labor management conflicts– Paralyzing postwar strikes• Authorities portrayed as anti-American and possibly

Communist-inspired• Postwar Red Scare– Appeal of Socialism– Ideological affinity with Bolsheviks in Russia– Government crackdown in dissent and radicalism• Helped by newly formed American Legion• Palmer raids against suspected radicals and

subversives

Mitchell Palmer

Changing the Guard

• Hoover vs Smith

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the United States had experienced recessions or panics at least every twenty years, but none as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s

After 1927, consumer spending declined, and housing construction slowed. In 1928, manufacturers cut back on production and began to lay off workers, and by the summer of 1929 the economy was clearly in recession.

The stock market crash of 1929 was an indication of serious, underlying problems in the United States economy.

• The Crash made the cracks in America's superficial prosperity more obvious. And, since the causes of the economic crises were complex, the solution to the economic problems facing the United States would be complicated as well.

• The stock market had become the symbol of the nation’s prosperity, yet only about 10 percent of the nation’s households owned stock.

• In 1928 and 1929, stock prices rose an average of 40 percent; market activity, such as margin buying, was essentially unregulated.

• On “Black Thursday,” October 24, and “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, overextended investors began to sell their portfolios; waves of panic selling ensued.

• Commercial banks and speculators had invested in stocks; the impact of the Great Crash was felt across the nation as banks failed and many middle-class Americans lost their life savings.

Causes of the Depression

• The crash of 1929 destroyed the faith of those who viewed the stock market as the crowning symbol of American prosperity, precipitating a crisis of confidence that prolonged the depression. So we naturally ask ourselves that one important question:

• 1. What were the origins and consequences of the Great Depression?

• As we just noted - the stock market crash of October 1929 cannot alone account for the length and severity of the slump.

What then were the causes of the Great Depression?

• The Great Crash of October 1929 wiped out the savings of thousands of Americans and destroyed consumers’ optimism. Many investors had bought stock on margin while the prices were inflated and lost money when they were forced to sell at prices below what they had paid.

• Structural weaknesses in the economy, especially in agriculture and “sick industries” such as coal, textiles, shipping, and railroads, made the economy vulnerable to a crisis in the financial markets. These had suffered setbacks in the 1920s.

• The unequal distribution of wealth made it impossible to sustain the expansive economic growth of the late 1920s.

• In the 1920s the share of national income going to upper- and middle-income families had increased, so that in 1929 the lowest 40 percent of the population received only 12.5 percent of the national income.

• Once the depression began, not enough people could afford to spend the money necessary in order to revive the economy, a phenomenon known as under-consumption.

• Once the depression began, America’s unequal income distribution left the majority of people unable to spend the amount of money needed to revive the economy.

• The Great Depression became self-perpetuating. The more the economy contracted, the more people expected the depression to last; the longer they expected it to last, the more afraid they became to spend or invest their money.

• In 1931, the Federal Reserve System significantly increased the discount rate, squeezing the money supply, forcing prices down, and depriving businesses of funds for investment.

• Americans kept their dollars stashed away rather than deposited, further tightening the money supply.

• Domestic factors far outweighed international causes of America’s protracted decline, yet the economic problems of the rest of the world affected the United States and vice versa.

• By the late 1920s, European economies were staggering under the weight of huge debts and trade imbalances with the United States; by 1931, most European economies had collapsed.

• When U.S. companies cut back production, they also cut their purchases of raw materials and supplies abroad.

• When American financiers sharply reduced their foreign investment and consumers bought fewer European goods, debt repayment became even more difficult, straining the gold standard.

• The reduced flow of American capital to world markets after the Great Crash and the trade war initiated by the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 led to a decline in world trade that made the depression worse.

• In response to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930, foreign governments imposed their own trade restrictions, further intensifying the worldwide depression.

• From 1929 to 1933, the U.S. gross national product fell by almost half, private investment plummeted 88 percent, and unemployment rose to a staggering 24.9 percent; those who had jobs faced wage cuts or layoffs.