Prohibition failed because gangs of criminals moved into the bootlegging business. They made so much money that they were able to pay off officials to kept themselves out of trouble.

The biggest gangster was Al Capone (read more…)

Prohibition was the banning of alcohol that began in the USA in 1920.

Speakeasies were the secret bars and saloons that illegally sold alcohol usually in back rooms or cellars (read more…)

Religious groups e.g. The Women’s Christian Temperance organisation believed drink was a source of evil.

Some of the negative affects of alcohol argued by the dries were (read more…)

The dries used World War One to try and get prohibition introduced. As many American brewers were of German descent, Germany and therefore alcohol was blamed for the war.

German drinking habits had led Germany to “brutality and cruelty” Also anyone “who works the land to produce drink instead of of bread” was considered to be damaging the war effort (read more…)

In 1920 the Volstead Act made it a criminal offence to make, import, buy or sell alcohol in the USA.

Some people were claiming that alcohol leads to murder, fever, cholera and other diseases. Some people tried to frighten people by saying that alcohol is cursed by God (read more…)

The Democrats had Roosevelt as their Presidential candidate. He was going to impose Higher taxes on the American people and in return he promised that his government would set up work schemes for the masses of unemployed people.

The Republicans had Hoover standing for re-election as President. He promised lower taxes and argued that this would give the American people more spending money which would help to economy improve (read more…)

Points in favour Hoover

Hoover was going to lower taxes.
He also promised an economic turnaround.

Points in favour of Roosevelt (read more…)

In the great depression, businesses lost a lot of money because they couldn’t sell all of their goods (overproduction) and because share prices dropped (because nobody wanted to invest)

This lead to fewer workers being employed by companies (read more…)

In 1929, 659 banks went bust. In 1931, 2294 banks went bust.

Both industrial and farming production fell by 40% and average wages fell by 60%.

In 1933, 14million Americans were unemployed (read more…)

The Wall Street Crash happened when people realised that share prices had risen too high as companies profits were falling as a result of mass(over)production.

Therefore people wanted to sell their shares (read more…)

To understand the great depression you first need to understand the Wall Street Crash. To understand to Wall Street Crash you must understand stocks and shares.

Shares are needed so that the capital to start and maintain a company can be raised. People buy shares in the hope of making a profit on their investment as all shareholders get a share of the company’s profits (read more…)

MASS PRODUCTION

Simple repetitive tasks that could be learnt by anyone replaced skilled craftsmen and so workers received lower wages.

The assembly line (invented by Henry Ford) revolutionised the way things were built as parts move to the workers instead of workers carrying parts around. Therefore companies like Ford were able to make more cars a lot more quickly which lead to cars becoming more and more affordable (read more…)

The USA had large natural resources such as coal, iron, oil and plenty of fertile land. Therefore they did not need to import much as they could sell lots off products to the rapidly growing American population.

Higher steel production is a good idication of a country’s strength and military power. To give you some idea of how well the USA was doing here is a the steel production of the top nations in the world at the time (read more…)

What were to 1920’s like?

Sales of consumer goods were booming

There was lots of entertainments such as aeroplane stunts, Los Angeles to New York City marathons and stunt sitting on flagpoles for record times.

There were massive advances in technology such as the first movies with sound and the explosion of Hollywood (read more…)