Chapter 15 – Years of Crisis
Main Points
Postwar Uncertainty
Worldwide Depression
Fascism Rising in Europe
Aggressors Invade Nations
Postwar Uncertainty
• New Revolutions in Science
• Albert Einstein – German Born – Theory of Relativity; Speed of light, time, space theories of gravity and motion
• Sigmund Freud – psychology; believed human behavior is irrational – beyond reason -- this was the “unconsciousness;”
Literature in the 1920s• Devastation of World War I
caused writers to question accepted ideas of reason and doubt of traditional religious values
• T.S. Eliot, 1922, American poet living in England – Western society lost its spiritual values; Postwar world a “barren wasteland” drained of faith and hope;
• William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, wrote about a sense of dark times - “The Second Coming” (1921);
• “Lost Generation” writer who wrote the “Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald
Existentialism
• Jean Paul Sartre
• Belief that there is no universal meaning to life. People create their own mean in life through their choices and actions; rejects the ideas of universal values
• Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher, was influenced by Existentialism; • Western ideas like reason, democracy, and
progress stifled creativity. He urged return to ancient heroic values – pride, assertiveness, and strength;
Existentialism
Literature in the 1920s
• Czech-born author, Franz Kafka, The Trial, (1925), The Castle, (1926) – people caught in threatening situations they cannot understand nor escape;
• James Joyce, Irish author, stream of consciousness novel, Ulysses (1922);
• Novelists
Kafka and Joyce
Revolution in the Arts
• Artists Rebel against Tradition;
• Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky – used bold colors and distorted or exaggerated forms;
Surrealism
• Surreal – means “beyond or above reality” Used unconscious part of their minds – had an eerie, dreamlike quality to depict objects in unrealistic ways; Surrealism
• Movement that tried to link the world of dreams with real life – inspired by Freud’s ideas.
• Salvador Dali, Spanish painter, “The Persistence of Memory,” (1931);
The Persistence of Memory
Cubism
• Transformed natural shapes into geometric forms;
• Objects broken down into differnet parts with sharp angles and edges;
• Creator of Cubism; Pablo Picasso, Spanish Painter, Guernica; and
• Georges Braque, French painter, The Violin and the Candlestick;
Cubism – Guernica and Violin of Candlesticks
Music
• Classical• Movement away from traditional styles;• Russian Composer - Igor Stravinsky, “The Rite
of Spring,”—irregular rhythms and dissonances; harsh combinations of sound;
• Austrian composer, Arnold Schoenberg – rejected traditional harmonies and musical scales;
Jazz
• Emerged from the United States, from most African American artists in New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago.
• Lively, loose beat captured the new freedom of the age;
• New freedom of the postwar years
Jazz
New Orleans Jazz
Society Challenges Convention
• Change in Women’s Roles• Women worked in men’s jobs and in war
effort, and wanted the right to vote;• Many countries granted women’s suffrage into
law such as the US, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Austria.
• Women abandoned restrictive clothing and hairstyles; shorter looser garments and short “bobbed” hair;
Women’s Changes in Fashion
Women’s Roles Change
• Women wore make up, drove cars, drank and smoked in public;
• Most women followed traditional paths of marriage and family;
• Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman risked arrest, speaking out in support of birth control;
• Women began to seek careers in medicine, education, journalism, and clerical fields;
Margaret Sanger/1920s women
Technological Advances Improve Life
• Automobiles – after war were more affordable; people traveled for pleasure;
• People moved to suburbs and commuted to work in cities;
• Airplanes transform travel; International air travel;
• Charles Lindbergh – 33-hour solo flight from New York to Paris – Spirit of St. Louis;
• Passenger airlines established during 1920s.
• Amelia Earhart, American – in 1932 was first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic;
Aviation Advances
Radio and Movies Dominate Popular
Entertainment• Guglielmo Marconi – first successful experiments
with radio in 1895;
• Radio developed mostly through World War I;
• By 1920 the first commercial radio station --- KDKA in Pittsburgh was broadcasting;
• Radio swept the nation and soon every major city had stations broadcasting news, plays and live sporting events;
• Soon most families would own a radio;
Radios
Hollywood
• Motion pictures began with Nickelodeons in working-class, immigrant neighborhoods;
• Movie makers were charged with corrupting the youth, movie makers tried to make their movies more respectable.
• Movie makers had to find a way to make their product more in line with the dominant culture of a more conservative middle class society.
Hollywood
Hollywood “Big Eight Movie
Companies”• Paramount studies was the first of the studios at this time.
• The “Big Eight”
• Paramount
• Fox
• MGM
• Universal
• Warner Brothers
• Columbia
• United Artists
• RKO
Postwar Europe
• Unstable New Democracies• With the end of WWI, the last of Europe’s
absolute rulers were overthrown;• Provisional Government – Russia’s brief
democratic government;• Weimar Republic – Germany’s new democratic
government;• After WWI most European nations had
Democratic rule even if only temporary
Weimar Republic
• Set up in 1919;
• Named for the city where the national assembly met;
• Weak from the start;
• Germany lacked a strong democratic tradition;
• Germany had several major political parties and many minor ones;
• Millions of Germans blamed the Weimar government for the defeat and postwar humiliation by signing Treaty of Versailles
Inflation Caused Crisis in Germany
• Germany did not increase wartime taxes -- Germans just printed more money;
• After the war, Germany printed even more money to pay war reparations;
• Paper money lost its value and the German mark’s value fell sharply.
• Severe inflation set in;• In 1918, a loaf of bread cost less than a mark; In
1922 it was over 160 marks, and in 1923, more than 200 billion marks; ($10,000 American dollars)
• As a result – many Germans questioned the value of the Weimar Republic;
Hyperinflation
Dawes Plan
• In 1924, International Committee headed by American banker, Charles Dawes, provided for a $200 million loan from US banks to stabilize German currency and strengthen its economy;
• Plan set more realistic schedule for payment of Germany’s reparations;
• The plan helped slow inflation, the German Economy began to recover, and factories were at prewar production by 1929;
The Dawes Plan
Lasting Peace
• With German prosperity, Germany’s foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann and France’s foreign minister, Aristide Briand met to sign a treaty promising France and Germany would never go to war against each other;
• Germany agreed to respect the existing borders of France and Belgium;
• Germany was then admitted to League of Nations;
Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact
• US Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg, and France’s Aristide Briand arranged an agreement to “renounce war as an instrument of national policy.”
• Almost all nations signed this agreement;
• The League of Nations – the obvious group to enforce this treaty, had no armed forces ;
Kellogg Briand Pact
Financial Collapse
• The US economic prosperity largely sustained the world economy;
• In 1929, US factories turned out nearly half the world’s industrial goods;
• This productivity led to enormous profits but the new wealth was not evenly distributed;
• The richest 5% of the population, received 33% of all personal income in 1929;
Financial Collapse
• 60% of all American families earned less than $2,000 a year;
• Most families were too poor to buy the goods being produced;
• Unable to sell all their goods, store owners would cut back their orders from factories;
• Factories reduced production and laid-off workers;
• This began a downward economic spiral;
Financial Collapse
Financial Collapse
• Overproduction affected US farmers also;
• Scientific farming methods and new farm machinery dramatically increased crop yields;
• US farmers were producing more food, but faced new competition from farmers in Australia, Latin America, and Europe;
• There was a worldwide surplus of agricultural products which drove prices and profits down;
Financial Collapse
• Unable to sell their crops at a profit, many farmers could not pay off their bank loans;
• These unpaid debts weakened banks and forced some to close;
• This overproduction by factories and farms should have been a warning to those gambling on the stock market -- but no one heeded the warning;
The Stock Market Crashes
• 1929 – New York City’s Wall Street – financial capital of the world;
• Investors were optimistic about the booming economy;
• In order to invest in the boom economy – many middle-income people bought stocks on “margin” (on credit).
The Stock Market Crashes
• In September, 1929, some investors thought the stock prices were unnaturally high and started selling their stocks;
• By Thursday, October 24, the gradual lowering of stock prices became an all-out slide downward;
• This resulted in a panic! Everyone wanted to sell stocks and no one wanted to buy;
• On Tuesday, October 29, “Black Tuesday,” a record 16 million stocks were sold and the market collapsed. This was the beginning of the Great Depression
Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929
The Great Depression • Investors who bought stocks on margin could
not pay what they owed and the stocks were now worthless.
• Within months of the crash, unemployment rates began to rise and industrial production, prices, and wages declined;
• This long business slump would be called the Great Depression;
• The stock market crash alone did not cause the Great Depression but quickened the economy’s collapse.
The Great Depression
The Great Depression
• By 1932, factory production was cut in half;
• Thousands of businesses failed and banks closed;
• 9 million people lost the money in their savings accounts from failed banks;
• Many farmers lost their lands because they could not make mortgage payments;
• In 1933, one-fourth of all American workers had no jobs;
Breadlines
The Great Depression
Global Depression• The collapse of the American economy sent shock
waves around the world;
• US bankers demanded repayment of their overseas loans and American investors withdrew their money from Europe; the country hardest hit by this was Germany due to unpaid war debts and inflation of the German Mark.
• The US market for European goods dropped sharply and Congress placed high tariffs (taxes) on imported goods so US dollars would stay in the US;
• This policy backfired – other countries imposed higher tariffs and world trade dropped by 65%!
• Unemployment rates soared!
Depression
The World Confronts Crisis
• Britain takes Steps to Improve its Economy;• Voters elected multiparty coalition known as National
Government;• Passed high protective tariffs;• Increased taxes• Regulated the currency;• Lowered interest rates to encourage industrial
growth;
These measure brought a slow and steady recovery;
By 1937, unemployment was cut in half and production was above 1929 levels;
Britain avoided political extremes and preserved democracy;
France Responds to Economic Crisis
• France’s economy was more self-sufficient – it was heavily agricultural and less dependent on foreign;
• Still, by 1935, one million French workers were unemployed;
• This contributed to political instability – In 1933, 5 coalition governments formed and fell;
• Political leaders were frightened by the growth of antidemocratic forces in France and other parts of Europe;
France Responds to Economic Crisis
• In 1936, moderates, Socialists, and Communists formed a coalition – The Popular Front;
• The Popular Front passed a series of reforms to help the workers;
• Price increases quickly offset wage gains;
• Unemployment remained high;
• France also preserved a democratic government;
Socialist Governments Find Solutions
• Socialist governments in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway met the challenge of economic crisis successfully; Their recovery programs on existing tradition of cooperative community action;
• In Sweden government sponsored massive public works projects that kept people employed and producing;
• All Scandinavian countries raised pensions for elderly, increased unemployment insurance, subsides for housing, and other welfare benefits;
• These were paid for by taxes;
• Democracy remained intact;
US Recovery
• In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected;
• His confidence reassured the millions of Americans who felt bewildered by the Depression;
• New Deal – large public works projects to provide jobs for unemployed; increase in government spending
• Government agencies gave financial help to businesses and farms;
• Large amounts of public money spent on welfare and relief programs.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
US Recovery• The Roosevelt administration believed
government spending would create jobs and start a recovery;
• Regulations were imposed to reform the stock market and banking system;
• The New Deal did eventually reform the US economic system;
• Roosevelt’s leadership preserved the country’s faith in its democratic political system and established him as a leader of democracy in a world threatened by ruthless dictators;