Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
CHANGING LIVING STANDARDS: FLUCTUATIONS IN THE STANDARD OF LIVING, 1917-41…
CHANGING LIVING STANDARDS: FLUCTUATIONS IN THE STANDARD OF LIVING, 1917-41
PROSPERITY, 1917-29
Most Americans, the standard of living increased.
Most industrial workers' standard of living increased:
- Wages increased by 1/3
- Employers extended recreational facilities, and introduced life insurance and pension plans.
More Americans could afford to buy radios, new houses, and cars.
Not all Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living:
- Textile workers, coal miners' wages didn't rise. Textile mills wages sometimes below 18 cents per hour.
- Decline in foreign demand caused a large decrease in farm prices.
- Most farmers lived in poverty.
- Farmers earning 1/4 of the average white man's salary.
- Black people remained the poorest social group.
- No social welfare programmes at this time.
Household appliance market boomed:
- most appliances ran on electricity.
- labour-saving devices (irons, hoovers)
- led to women having more control over their lives, and becoming more independent.
- During 1920s, 1/3 of Americans had washing machines or hoovers.
-
Number of homeowners growing and more of them had running water, central heating etc. But, this wasn't the case for everyone: only about 10% of farmers had a bathtub/ piped water.
THE GD, 1929-33
GD had a huge impact on standards of living:
- 1932: 12 million Americans unemployed.
- No dole
- Private charity unable to cope with the scale of unemployment.
- Farmers incomes plummeted.
-
Cities/urban areas:
- malnutrition common.
- Diseases such as TB increased.
- People could not afford medical care.
- People waiting in employment offices for jobs, queuing at soup kitchens.
Rural areas:
- Loads of tenant farmers (and their families) became homeless.
RECOVERY, 1933-41
New deal measures brought about economic recovery to an extent. It definitely led to more Americans finding work.
- Fed Emergency Relief Act 1933: ensured money could be provided for relief.
- WPA 1935: provided more work relief. It employed 8.5 million people in total!
- Social Security Act (1935) created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
Wages grew, and life got better.
-
-
1940 Census (positives):
- 59.7% had an indoor flushing toilet, of which 70% had running water.
- 78% of homes had electric light.
- Nearly 50% of homes cooked by gas, and 5% by electricity.
- 42% of homes had central heating.
- Nearly 83% owned a radio.
1940 Census (negatives):
- Non-white people in rented housing in cities had shared facilities and faulty plumbing.
- Still 0.4% of homes with no way of cooking.
- 11.3% of homes had no heating at all.
- 27% of homes had no way of keeping their food cool.
Rural Electrification Administration:
- 1935: 20% of farms had electricity.
- 1945: electrification of farms had risen to 90%
-