Video: Twentieth Century History
BOOM AND BUST
Every year, a million new arrivals came from all over ______to the ______because they had heard that it was a land of opportunity, where they could be free to work and earn a livelihood for themselves and their family.
In ______, Americans welcomed back their troops who helped to beat the Germans over in Europe.
President ______returned from the peace conferences, eager to win his people’s approval of the ______Treaty. He wanted America to join with the other nations into a great ______, to avoid future war. America wanted isolation from Europe and desired no part in the affairs of Europe.
In the early 1920s, a wave of strikes and demonstrations threatened to disturb the public peace. Many Americans were convinced that ______and ______were plotting revolution in America.
______became the president in 1920.
American small towns had always influenced American politicians. Pressures from small towns, especially from the ______, brought in the famous 18thamendment to the constitution, the ______of the selling and buying of alcoholic drinks.
“The salon is well named the poor man’s club. It keeps its members and their families always poor.”
Warren Harding was never a hard working president and many members of his Ohio gang in government in Washington were guilty of corruption, although Harding himself was never accused. Albert Hall was found guilty of selling government land at ______in Wyoming.
On a trip to Alaska in ______, President Warren Harding collapsed and died. ______, the vice-president, took over at the White House.
Coolidge was an honest, home-spun man and believed that “the business of America is business,” and he saw every reason to protect American business form foreign competition. So, America put high ______or taxes on goods coming from abroad. In reply, foreign countries raised their taxes in return against American goods, driving America of much of its overseas trades.
Wages were certainly good. Car maker, ______, was paying wages of 5 dollars a day in his Detroit factories. His acres of assembly lines poured out Model _____ cars at an astonishing rate of 1 in every 3 minutes. The motor car industry was by far the largest in the country and it stimulated other trades, including ______, ______, and ______.
The 20s were the years of growth and boom in all consumer industries. This was the era of ______, new gadgets, and new fashion; including radios, refrigerators, electric cleaners, washing machines, telephones, and typewriters.
The 20s was also the great age of ______and the ______replaced music halls and theatres. The American public was being pressurized to spend more and more in the shops. ______advertisers were quick to use the new medium of cinema. ______programs put out regular commercials to reach people in their own houses. People were flooded by advertisements in magazines, on billboards, in newspapers, and in mail-order catalogues.
The poor tenant farmers or ______of the middle-west and deep-south, were put up in a vicious circle of high rent, low prices for their crops, and lack of machinery. There were thousands of evictions. The blacks, at the bottom of the heap, made little or no progress up the social scale since slavery had ended in ______.
The sinister ______or KKK put fear into people’s hearts by spreading hate against the blacks, Jews, Catholics, and foreigners.
______, the traveling men, or evicted farmers, unemployed men of all kinds hitched free rides on the railroad, in search for seasonal work and returned to the cities in the winter.
______of the sale of alcohol made bars and salons illegal, but ______or drinking clubs sprang up everywhere. ______thrived on prohibition by organizing illegal alcohol business on a large scale.
______, the Chicago gangster, did more than 60 million dollars worth of business in alcohol in 1927.
As 1929 approached, businesses were still booming. The whole nation seemed to be ______Street crazy. Everybody was buying on credit, even stocks and shares. Everything was on credit and everyone lived on the profit someone else was expected to make.
The ______Age saw great changes in the social habits of young American. They had cars and visited ______halls and nightclubs, where the ragtime and jazz gave black musicians an escape route from ______.
There were few danger signs. People could see no reason why the stock market should not go on producing higher and higher share prices and more and more profits for their shareholders. On ______, 1929, panic set in when several companies went bankrupt. Nearly 30 million shares changed hands that first day. In the days that followed, shares plummeted to rock bottom.
President ______was elected in 1928. He tried to restore people’s confidence, but the crisis was impossible to change. Rich men lost vast fortunes overnight. Millions of small investors were left with nothing. Shops, companies, whole industries began to go out of business. Millions were soon to lose even their jobs.
The boom was over and the ______had come. Its shock waves not only rocked the foundation of the American economy, but they were to be felt around the world.