U.S. History / Unit 7: The 1920s, Great Depression and New Deal
7.1 Prosperity and the Consumer Economy
Notes
After WWI, Republican presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover favored business, low taxes and limited regulation (laissez-faire).
- Henry Ford's moving assembly line cut the time to build a Model T from about 12 hours to about 90 minutes, making cars affordable.
- Cars changed life: suburbs, road building, gas stations and new freedom for young people.
- New appliances (radios, refrigerators, washing machines) spread as homes got electricity.
- Installment buying (buy now, pay over time) and advertising fueled spending, but also household debt.
- Not everyone shared in the boom: farmers faced falling prices all decade, and wealth was very unequal.
Practice
How did the moving assembly line affect the auto industry?
Faster production let Ford cut the Model T's price repeatedly.
A family in 1926 buys a radio by paying a small amount each month. This is called:
Installment credit let consumers buy goods before they had all the money.
Which group did NOT share much in the prosperity of the 1920s?
Crop prices fell after WWI, leaving many farmers in debt.
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