History of the United States II / Unit 9 USH2 1248 review, 2 to 3 minutes
Whether the Twenties Were Prosperous
The idea
Whether the nineteen twenties were prosperous depends on whose twenties the question asks about. The case for prosperity is real. A Model T fell from eight hundred fifty dollars to three hundred; cars on the road passed twenty-three million; Ford paid five dollars a day; household appliance spending more than doubled; and movies, radio and sport gave Americans new leisure. The case against is equally real. The Yawp says farmers' bankruptcies skyrocketed, that the decade saw stubborn poverty and unparalleled inequality, and that low taxes, easy credit and low interest rates overwhelmingly favoured wealthy investors. It lists what lay beneath the boom: flailing European economies, high tariffs, wealth inequality, a construction bubble, and a flooded consumer market. Digital History adds that the decade was one of deep cultural conflict as well as economic change.
In practice
A new car bought on credit in a city suburb, and a farm auction in the same year.
Where people slip
Two misreadings sit on either side. The first takes the Jazz Age image as the whole decade, which Digital History calls profoundly misleading and which cannot account for the farms or the inequality. The second treats the prosperity as an illusion, which cannot account for the cars, the wages and the new leisure millions really enjoyed. The anchor carries both halves. Theme nine asks for the distinction: aggregate growth and widely shared prosperity are different things. The decade had the first far more than the second, and the gap between them is where unit ten begins. Much of the growth rested on credit, and the Yawp notes that inventories piled up once the well-to-do stopped buying new goods.
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