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Implications of Growing Urbanisation & Industrialisation (Prosperity…
Implications of Growing Urbanisation & Industrialisation
Movement of peoples
24 million European immigrants arrived btwn 1890-1930
The Great Migration of African-Americans from South to northern cities (e.g. black pop. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland & NY increased 35% 1910-1920
Racial tensions
Popularity of jazz and blues music
By 1929 for the 1st time more Americans lived in cities than rural areas
Growth of cities
1910- 3 US cities with pop > 1m. 1929 - 5 cities with pop >1m (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit & L.A.
Detroit's population ^ 600%; Cleveland ^ 300% btwn 1910-1920
Prosperity & unequal distribution of wealth
Economic boom: Business profits ^ 80% in 1920s; dividends ^ 65%
6m American families earned < $1000/year
The top <1% had the same wealth as the bottom 42%
Ford's $5 a day wages
Buying on credit; shares 'on the margin'
Immigrants faced lower wages
Technological and industrial development
Car mass produced by Ford & GM
Cost of Model Ts dropped $950 to $290 by 1926
Working class families could afford a car
1 million Model Ts produced yearly in 1920s
Industrial production doubled 1922-1927
Cures for malaria, yellow fever & typhoid
Mass advertising and mass consumption
Caused by mass production
Newspaper, silent film and after 1927, sound with film
New 'gadgets'
60,000 radios 1920 but 10m by 1929
1 in 5 owned a car by 1925
Vacuum cleaners, washing machines and refrigerators --> leisure time
Overcrowding and urban squalor
^ population density --> sewage problems
500 gallons raw sewage into NY rivers daily 1916
Slums, tenements and ghettos
5-storey tenements in NYC
Diseases e.g. TB
Soaring crime rates
Homicide rates in Chicago steadily rose in 1920s
Signs of economic problems / the Great Depression
Industrialised farming processes
Over-production after war's end
Hawley Smoot Act 1931 attempted to help farmers by raising tariffs --> LT economic consequences
Mass production and consumption fuelled over-reliance on credit by industry and individuals. Inherent flaws in banking system were exposed in 1929.
Changing nature of work
Skilled labour to unskilled (e.g. Model T Fords were produced in hundreds of small steps)
Unsafe working conditions
2/5 'Rough-necks' building skyscrapers killed or injured (often immigrants)
Anti-unionism
Social changes
Greater acceptance of the role of women beyond the home
Marriage and family
Wider use of birth control --> slightly less children slightly later in life
Marriage for love more common
Contestability (Garraty) on extent of urbanisation and social change
Flapper
Jazz