USA 'BOOM, BUST AND RECOVERY' What was America like in the 1920s and 1930s?

Transcription

1 page 1 of 1 Task 1 What was America like in the 1920s and 1930s? Look at the following clips and read the INFO: CLIPS BOOM AND BUST: Prohibition Repealed (A) New Styles for Women (B) Airships for Air Travel (C) Cars for Every American? (D) Watch the clips and read the INFO. From the clips, list in the lefthand column below as many examples of American progress, affluence and reasons for optimism about the future as you can: (A) (B) (C) (D) USA 1920s PROGRESS AND OPTIMISM PROBLEMS AND PESSIMISM On the basis of these film clips, America in the 1920s and 1930s was

2 page 1 of 1 Task 2 What was America really like in the 1920s and 1930s? Look at the following clips and read the INFO: (A) BOOM AND BUST: CLIPS Airship Meets Disaster (A) SOCIAL PROBLEMS: Prohibition Stamping out the Demon Drink (B) US Troops and Strikers Clash (C) The Klan and the Nazis (D) Strikers at General Motors (E) Watch the clips and read the INFO. From the clips, list in the righthand column above in Task 1 as many examples of American poverty, problems and reasons for pessimism about the future as you can. Add to the statement you completed in Task 1: On the basis of these film clips, America in the 1920s and 1930s was also (B) (C) (D) (E)

3 page 1 of 3 Task s-1930s: A Roller Coaster Ride? Look at the following clip and read the INFO: BOOM AND BUST: CLIP Crash and Depression Read the INFO. Imagine you are a reporter for a newsreel company in 1929 and you have to write the commentary for this footage to be shown in cinemas as soon as possible after 29 October Using this and other sources, write the commentary, ensuring that you make it as dramatic as possible. Don't forget that newsreels were regarded as entertainment as well as information. Use the table on page 2.

4 page 2 of 3 Task 3 CONTINUED VISUAL New York skyscrapers 3 shots Capitol Building, American flag and crowds President Herbert Hoover speaking from a podium to crowds Back shot of Hoover speaking to crowds Coney Island funfair 7 shots of roundabout, slippery dip and roller coaster Train on Wall St and sign Inside of the Stock Exchange, man looking at ticker tape Newspaper headlines 2 shots Inside of the Stock Exchange, man tearing up ticker tape Men queuing Men in Soup Kitchen Man buying from street vendor Demonstration, scuffles and running crowd Police on horseback dispersing crowd COMMENTARY Read out and discuss some of your commentaries.

5 page 3 of 3 Task 3 CONTINUED This film footage is a compilation of original footage from 1929 made for the fiftieth anniversary of the Wall St Crash. There is no audio (soundtrack) with the original footage. In 1979 the following voiceover was added: 'Monday, October 29 th sees the fiftieth anniversary of the Wall Street Crash. It was a day of panic among investors at New York's stock market when millions of shares were [traded] at [rock-bottom] prices, and fortunes that had been made in an earlier boom were lost. New York, in early America was still riding on an economic boom that had begun earlier in the decade. But it was a boom built on shaky foundations. While figures show overall industrial productivity increased by fifty per cent and labour costs were down by a tenth, some major industries were in decline construction, coal mining and textiles among them. For Herbert Hoover, inaugurated as President that year, his overwhelming election victory [was the result of] a campaign based [strongly on] prohibition and religion and he was seen as the best suited to continue the prosperity of the 1920s. Within a few months of taking office though, he was to find the rest of his term occupied with trying to regain a lost prosperity. For many Americans, the summer of '29 was to provide the last of a living style that had improved dramatically in the preceding years. Though the rich gained most, living standards of middle class and working people rose too. Between 1922 and 1929 salaries increased by almost fifty per cent consumer buying by almost a quarter. When the slump hit Wall Street's stock market, it came quickly. On Tuesday, October the 29 th, 16.4 million shares changed hands. It was the worst of five days trading which wiped out the gains of the previous 116 months. Investors lost 74 billion dollars; thousands were thrown out of work. The crash signalled the start of a great world depression. Within three years nearly a quarter of the world's industrial workers were unemployed. Americans had to wait for President Roosevelt's New Deal legislation for a restoration of economic confidence. He told them, 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' Now, fifty years later, with investment regulations tightened up, most economists say there won't be another crash like the one that happened on that day now known as Black Tuesday.' Can you match the text up with the footage?

6 page 1 of 1 Task 4 Boom to Bust, Dreams to Dust America had been seen by many as the promised land, a land of plenty, of freedom and opportunity. But for farmers and industrial workers in the 1930s, the promised land and opportunities seemed to have disappeared. Look at the following clip and read the INFO: BOOM AND BUST: CLIP Cars for Every American? This clip was made in 1933 about Henry Ford and his son Edsel who have 'won for themselves a place in modern industrial history'. How does this clip demonstrate the 'American Dream'? Look at the following clips and read the INFO: (A) SOCIAL PROBLEMS: CLIPS US Troops and Strikers Clash (A) Strikers at General Motors (B) THE NEW DEAL: Crisis for Farmers (C) These clips show a very different side of the 'American Dream'. In 1931 Henry Ford blamed the economic crisis in America on the fact that the average man wouldn't do a day's work unless he was forced to. Ford said that there was plenty of work to do if people would do it. A few weeks after this, he laid off 75,000 workers. Use these three clips to analyse the problems farmers and workers faced in America in the 1930s. Were these only the result of the economic crisis? (B) (C)

7 page 1 of 2 Task 5 The New Deal When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president after a landslide election win in 1933 he promised a 'new deal for the American people'. He called an emergency session of Congress in his first week in office and in the 100 days after that, he signed fifteen historic bills: the first New Deal. Look at the following clips and read the INFO: CLIPS THE NEW DEAL: Boulder Dam Provides Power and Water (A) Crisis for Farmers (B) New Deal and the Supreme Court (C) To mark the 75 years since Roosevelt became president, your television company is researching the film archive on FDR in order to make a special documentary on his life and achievements. The clip New Deal and the Supreme Court has been found in the archive with no notes or commentary. You have been asked to find out what the film is about and to prepare briefing notes for the footage. Use the clips and INFO in The New Deal topic and any other sources including textbooks, the internet and the library, to create the briefing notes. Finally, how useful is this footage as evidence of Roosevelt's presidency, his achievements, his mistakes and the controversy surrounding his New Deal? Does the lack of commentary limit its usefulness as a source? (A) (B) (C)

8 page 2 of 2 Task 5 CONTINUED EXTENSION Opponents of Roosevelt's New Deal called it 'creeping socialism'. What is socialism? And why would some Americans object to Roosevelt's relief programme for this reason? HOMEWORK Choose one of the following topics or people and research it for the 1920s and 1930s using textbooks, the internet and library. Prepare a short talk or presentation, focussing on the question below: How does this topic, event or person fit into, represent, or challenge the American Dream, the American Way? Prohibition Herbert Hoover Vanderbilt family Rockefeller family J.P. Morgan jnr Ku Klux Klan Henry Ford and the Assembly Line Franklin D. Roosevelt The Dust Bowl and Okies Al Capone and the Mob John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath General Motors 'Voyage of the damned' - Jewish migrants on the St Louis 1939 F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby The Bonus Army or Bonus Expeditionary Force Huey Pierce Long The song 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime?' Eleanor Roosevelt Frances Perkins Women, Female Suffrage and Politics The Chicago Martyrs 1937 CLASS REVIEW Class discussion and review: 'The American Dream turned to Dust'. Is this an accurate description of events in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s? To what extent did the New Deal offer a new deal for working Americans?