The State, the Unions, and the Fairer Sex:

The Twentieth Century American Economy

Today’s Plan

• Setting the Stage• The New Century• The Roaring ’20s• A New Deal• Cold War Prosperity• The Second Shift• Malaise and Morning• Legacy

Our Focus

• The Government– Including (especially) the legal regime

• Labor– Organized and otherwise

• Women– Their role in the economy

Setting the Stage

The Law

• Autonomous Individuals

• Liberty of Contract– So no regulation

• Freedom of Trade– So no outside interference– Court injunctions against picketing, etc.

• The Lochner Era

The Octopus

The Plight of (Southern) Farmers

• Sharecropping• Falling (and

unstable) cotton prices

• Railroad and interest rates

• Anti-Trust Law• Railroad Reg.

Labor and Women

• The Pullman Strike– Eugene V. Debs

Retrenchment• Labor: Samuel Gompers

– American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Suffrage: Carrie Chapman Catt– National American Woman Suffrage

Association

The New Century

1900 Occupations

1900 Occupations

1900 Occupations

James Duval Phelan

• Mayor of San Francisco

• 1901 Challenges– Carnegie Gift– San Francisco

Waterfront Strike

Urban Unrest

Los Angeles Times Bombing (1910)

• 20 Dead, 17 Injured

Industrial Disasters

• Triangle Fire (1911)– Triangle Shirtwaist

Company– 146 Dead

Women Workers

Fordism

Progressive Constitution

• 16th Amendment: Income Tax

• 19th Amendment: Women’s Suffrage

• Maternalist Welfare v. Liberty of Contract

Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

• “Trust-Buster”

• Railroad Regulation

• Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act

• New Nationalism

Eugene V. Debs

• Reform Socialism– Gov’t Control of

RR, Banks– Unemployment &

Min. Wage– Education

• Populist & Labor Communities

“While there is a lower class, I am in it,… while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

Wilson’s Economic Policy

• Lower Tarriff, Gov’t Loans for Farmers

• Protecting unions from anti-trust laws

• New Freedom

Wilson’s Big Government

• WWI– Espionage and

Sedition Acts– Debs in jail, again

• Red Scare– Crippling Labor

Roaring ’20s

“Silent Cal” Coolidge“The chief business of the American people is business”

• Return to “normalcy”

• Welfare Capitalism

• The American Plan

ERA Debate

Document 1

• What strikes you?

• What surprises you?

• What puzzles you?

• What connections do you see to other historical events/documents?

A New Deal

First New Deal

• Emergency Banking Act

• Glass-Steagall Act

• “Alphabet Soup” of Keynesian Economics– FDIC, NRA, CCC, TVA, AAA, FHA, SEC, etc.

Second New Deal

• Economic Security– Wagner Act– Social Security Act

• Holes in the Safety Net– Domestic & Agricultural Workers– Southern Veto

The Supreme Court Objects

• Interstate Commerce Clause (A1,S8,C3)– “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,

and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”

• Court Fight/Packing

• Economic Recovery/Security trumps Liberty of Contract

• In economic rights, class trumps individual

The New Deal and the Unions

• Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)– United Auto Workers (UAW)

• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

• “The President Wants You to Organize!”

Women

Modern Liberalism

• Balancing– Cultural Pluralism/Civil Liberties– Socially Conscious State/Economic Planning

Cold War Prosperity

Global U.S. Economy

• Military Keynesianism

• Dollar as the Global Benchmark Currency

• Economic Dominance Replaced Colonial Dominance

“Godless Communism”

• An offense to America’s religious ideals– As a “Christian Nation”– The second of the Four Freedoms

• A challenge to Free Enterprise– “socialized”

1950s Consensus

• Modern Republicanism– Moderated expansion of

New Deal

• Consensus– Individualism– Private Property– Defense Spending

The Kitchen Debate

• American Exhibition in Moscow

• Richard Nixon & Nikita Khrushchev

• Consumer Freedom and the People’s Capitalism

The Freeway System

Suburbanization

• Federal Housing Administration

• G.I. Bill• Defense

Spending• Freeway

Family

• Women/Housewives

• Cold War Weapon

• Center of:– Consumption– Leisure– Sexual Pleasure

Turning the Tide on Labor

• Post-WWII Unionism– 1955 AFL-CIO Merger– Slowing growth from 1950-1970

• Taft-Hartley

• Right-to-Work movement

Ronald Reagan

• New Deal Democrat– Actor/Spokesperson

• FDR, Army, Truman

– Union Leader• SAG

– Liberal Anti-Communist

• G.E. Spokesman– Value of business– Limited government, anti-tax message

Young Americans for Freedom

Document 2

• What strikes you?

• What surprises you?

• What puzzles you?

• What connections do you see to other historical events/documents?

The Second Shift

The Great Society

• Speech at Howard University

• Medicaid & Medicare

• Cabinet-Level Positions

• The War on Poverty– Food Stamps & Job Training

Second Wave Feminism

• Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

• Equal Pay Act• Civil Rights Act of

1964– Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Percent of Women in the Labor Wage Force

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1890 1920 1940 1960 1980 1999

All

White

Nonwhite

Percent of Married Women in the Wage Labor Force

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1890 1920 1940 1960 1980 1999

MarriedWomen

Women as Percentage of Total Wage Labor Force

0%5%10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%50%

1890 1920 1940 1960 1980 1999

TotalWorkforce

United Farm Workers (UFW)

Cesar Chavez

Dolores Huerta

Nixon’s New Federalism

• Restoring the balance between Federal and State governments

Actual Policy Changes:• Environment

– Environmental Protection Agency– Clear Air Act, Clean Water Act– Endangered Species Act

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

• Title IX

Malaise and Morning

The Decline of Cold War Prosperity

• Stagflation

• Decline of Manufacturing

• Rise of Sunbelt

1970s Political Battles

• ERA– Liberation/

Maternalist Divide

• Tax Revolt– Prop 13

Reagan Revolution

Reaganomics

• Supply-side/trickle-down economics

• Anti-union (air traffic controllers)

• Success in:– Business profitability– Rate of inflation– Stock market

Reaganomics

• Deindustrialization

• Growing economic divides

Federalist Society

• 1982, in opposition to “orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society.”

• Supreme Court: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito

Legacy

The New Economy, 1

• Clinton-era prosperity– Rising wages– Low unemployment– Rising stock market– Federal budget surplus

• Deregulation– Repeal of Glass-Steagall

• Tech Bubble (2000)

The New Economy, 2

• 2002 Recession– “Jobless Recovery”– Bush Tax Cuts

• 2008 Financial Meltdown– “subprime” mortgages– Mortgage-backed securities

• Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

Income Inequality

Unemployment

Unemployment

Unemployment

Unemployment