by The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through American History 1900 to the Present (pdf)
gress. Although overshadowed to some degree by the political situation in
Europe and the eventual start of WWI, the federal income tax would
have an economic impact on the country that no one could recognize at
that time.
Another seemingly small change that would have major repercussions
was the status of women. At the beginning of the century, it was expected
that the lives of women would continue much as they had always been,
centered on the home. The country’s economic development changed rap-
idly as the situation in Europe deteriorated. Once war was declared, the
economy became driven by the need to provide American fighting men
the tools they needed. The war was larger than any war man had experi-
enced up to that time. So many American men were sent overseas that
women volunteered to do the tasks that men had been doing. For the first
time in history, American women were working in numbers no one had
ever imagined. If many men expected women to return to the domestic
roles they had before the war, they were surprised. Women had entered
the American workforce. The initial effects on the economy would not be
seen until the 1920s.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
In 1914, a Bosnia nationalist assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo, Bosnia. The assassina-
tion most likely was intended to be a message to the Austro-Hungarians
that the area wanted its independence. The empire declared war on Ser-
bia, because the country was seen as being responsible for the duke’s
murder.
What had been a ‘ simple’’ assassination triggered the alliances that
had been established in the preceding years. Countries who were
obligated by their treaties to protect Serbia declared war on the Austro-
Hungarians. Countries that had treaties with the Austro-Hungarians
declared war on Serbia and its allies. It was not long before all of Europe,
as well as Russia and the Ottoman Empire, was involved in the largest
war seen in the world up to that time. The two sides were evenly
matched, so the war dragged on for years. Each side tried to acquire more
allies to tip the balance of power in its favor.
The 1910s
31
Although Theodore Roosevelt might have gotten the country involved
in the war earlier, he was no longer president. Woodrow Wilson did his
best to maintain the neutrality of the United States. This was not an
absolute neutrality because the United States had become closely tied to
England and France by trade agreements. The ‘ neutral’ president allowed
shipments of goods and supplies to be shipped to England and France.
When the British blockaded American ports to prevent the Germans
from entering, Wilson protested, but he never suspended trade.
Germany, in its attempt to tip the balance of power, began to use the
first effective submarine, or U-boat. The most famous sinking by a
U-boat may be that of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915 (Murrin et al.
2004). The lives of 1,198 people were lost, including 128 Americans. The
Lusitania was a passenger ship, and its sinking shifted the tide of Ameri-
can thinking away from neutrality. Wilson protested and Germans agreed
not to torpedo passenger ships, especially ships of neutral countries, but
that was a promise that Germany did not keep. Wilson maintained
American neutrality, against much criticism, until the publication of the
Zimmermann telegram, which reportedly came from the German minister
to Mexico. The telegram requested that the Mexican government attack
the United States in the event that the United States declared war on
Germany. Mexico’s reward for this ‘‘favor’ would be the return of lands
that the United States had obtained from Mexico over the years. That
land included Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. This telegram, as well as
the overthrow of the czarist regime by the Bolsheviks, forced Wilson to
ask Congress to declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917.
After the war, Wilson worked for a just peace and the development of
the League of Nations. He presented his plan, called Wilson’s Fourteen
Points, for what he believed was an appropriate resolution for all of the
countries involved. He also hoped that a global organization would help
prevent other wars, but his efforts to broker a peace that satisfied every-
one and a long-term global organization were not successful. Many others
felt that Germany should be severely punished for its behavior in the war.
Wilson’s critics did not realize that the so-called peace treaty and the lack
of a global organization that would work for peace would plant the seeds
for an even greater war.
ETHNICITY
Over the first two decades of the twentieth century, Americans saw an
increase in the number of immigrants of all nationalities. The 1910s were
the last major phase of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe,
32
POLITICAL AND CULTURAL EVENTS
and they fed into America’s burgeoning economy. When America left its
isolationism and began to trade heavily with other countries, goods
needed to be produced for trade. Manufacturing and industry needed
cheap labor, and much of it came from new immigrants. New immigrants
needed work, and they were willing to take the dirty and dangerous jobs
that most Americans did not want. These jobs were frequently found in
coal mines, steel mills, the railroads, and slaughterhouses.
Slowly, many Americans began to resent the presence of these immi-
grants. Hostility intensified during WWI when latent fears rose to the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Tragedy. In
the factory. As the fire blazed through
the 1900s and early 1910s, it was com-
the top three floors, the employees tried
mon for young women to work in factory
to flee the building. Some were able to
jobs, especially in the garment manufac-
escape using the exterior fire escape
turing industry. They usually worked
before it collapsed, and others were able
long hours for low wages in unsafe con-
to make it to the roof and climb onto
ditions. It was typical for a woman to
adjacent buildings. One hundred forty-
work from 7:30 in the morning to 6:00
six were trapped inside the building and
at night six or seven days a week.
burned, suffocated, or jumped to their
These working conditions existed at
deaths.
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Man-
There was immediate public outrage,
hattan. The company employed 500
and the factory owners were brought to
people, mostly young women between
trial to determine whether they had pur-
the ages of 16 and 23. Most were recent
posefully locked the exits, trapping the
Italian and European Jewish immigrants
employees inside. Although they were
who spoke little English. They sewed
acquitted, the resulting anger and protest
garments by hand and on
sewing
had long-reaching effects. It solidified
machines and cut fabric from tissue pat-
the influence and support of the Interna-
terns that were suspended above the
tional Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union,
work areas on lines. Their factory was
who organized aid and relief for the vic-
illuminated with open gas lighting. Fab-
tims and their families. In addition, it
ric scraps littered the floors, and smok-
spurred the growth of the organization.
ing in the work space was common
Within a month, New York State
among the few male workers.
appointed a Factory Investigating Com-
On March 25, 1911, just before clos-
mission to conduct hearings about fac-
ing time, a deadly fire broke out near the
tory safety, which led to factory safety
top of the ten-story building that held
regulations in the state.
The 1920s
33
surface. German Americans were a focus of these fears, because they were
associated with America’s primary enemy in the war.
African Americans suffered from hostility as well. During the war,
they moved north for the higher wages being paid by industries suffering
from the labor shortage. As they migrated to cities in large numbers,
racial violence flared. Chicago, Houston, St. Louis, and Washington, DC,
all experienced race riots. Even in the south, people were angry that Afri-
can Americans were moving north and creating a labor shortage.
Some Americans organized around their fears and resentment, resulting
in the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had lain dormant for nearly
fifty years. The Klan took advantage of some of the rhetoric of WWI and
reestablished itself under the guise of Americans First. Klan members
tended to be white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and their hatred extended
beyond African Americans to include Jews, Catholics, and many people
who did not speak English, which in some communities meant immigrants
of any nationality. The war itself tended to limit the growth of the Klan
because most Americans were united in the war effort. After the war, issues
relating to discrimination did not get national attention until the 1920s.
T H E
1920S
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
The 1920s will be remembered for many things, not the least of which
will be the fact that Warren Gamaliel Harding was the first president of
the decade. Harding, a passive man who would do whatever the Republi-
can Party bosses told him to do, helped his friends and paid off political
debts by appointing people to government offices whether or not they
had any skills or knowledge of the office. Harding must have been a trust-
ing person, because he only seemed to have realized late in his presidency
that most of his ‘‘friends’’ had used their offices to gain money and enjoy
the ‘ perks’’ their positions could get them. One of the scandals uncovered
by the press was the fact that Albert B. Fall, the Secretary of the Interior,
leased the navy’s petroleum reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to two
oilmen. The oilmen, Harry Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny, showed their
appreciation by ‘ loaning’’ Fall hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Harding also had several adulterous affairs while in office, which the
press did not make public until after his death. Harding died of massive
heart failure before his term was completed, and the American public
learned the full extent of the improprieties of his administration after his
34
POLITICAL AND CULTURAL EVENTS
death. Many historians have considered Harding one of the worst presi-
dents, if not the worst, the country ever had.
Calvin Coolidge became president upon Harding’s death and quickly
replaced the cronies and incompetents that he inherited from Harding.
Known for his own personal honesty, Coolidge won the next election on
his own, with some help from a Democratic Party that was split over
politics.
Coolidge’s Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was considered
the man best educated and qualified to succeed Coolidge. Seen as one of
the architects of the apparent prosperity of the 1920s, Hoover won the
1928 election easily. Alhough he wanted to end poverty and improve the
status of the working man, Hoover believed that the economy would be
maximized if businesses learned to associate and communicate with each
other. Like earlier Republicans, he believed that the best government was
one that did not interact with individuals. He encouraged corporations to
talk to each other and learn to solve problems so that all business would
help each other, instead of meeting in competition. Although he was
unable to achieve this ideal, Hoover’s popularity was high for his first year
in office.
After the stock market crash in 1929, Hoover began to realize that
corporations would not communicate as he had hoped they would. He
still believed that limited government was the best way to help the coun-
try and refused to consider anything that seemed to be a government
handout. He might have wanted to help the poor and homeless, but his
policies were mostly aimed at helping businesses and the wealthy grow
stronger. Many Americans lost faith in him after the crash, and many
others strongly disapproved of his management of the Great War veterans
who came to Washington, DC, seeking financial assistance. Many Ameri-
cans considered Hoover indifferent to the ‘ little man’ and state of the
national economy. He never regained the popularity he had in his first
year. Although he was not individually responsible for the economic
downturn, many Americans blamed him for it, and he was overwhelm-
ingly defeated in the 1932 elections.
ECONOMIC TRENDS
Coolidge and the leading Republicans believed that business was the key
to American prosperity, so his presidency was kind to big business and the
already rich entrepreneurs. Coolidge’s administration was close to bankers
and tended to advocate policies that benefited only those who worked on
Wall Street.
The 1920s
35
The administration would slash taxes for the very rich, increase the
taxes on the middle class, raise tariffs on imports, and would not consider
canceling the reparations from any of the European countries that owed
the United States money as a result of the Great War. The country began
to isolate itself from Europe and Asia but would be aggressive for Ameri-
can investors in Latin America. Coolidge would even station marines in a
variety of Latin American countries if local uprisings threatened any
American investments in those countries.
Farmers had a difficult time during the 1920s. During WWI, farmers
increased their production to meet the demands of the war. When the
war was over, they were left with few buyers and surplus crops. Food pri-
ces plummeted, and many farmers and young people who had grown up
on farms moved to the city to find fac
tory work.
With the proliferation of factory work, young people moved into cities
to get the high-paying factory jobs. Usually little experience or education
was required for this type of work, so apprenticeships and schooling were
no longer part of a young person’s career path. Although the factory jobs
paid well, they were mundane, and there were few opportunities for
advancement.
Factories produced goods and Americans bought them. The idea of
‘ buy now, pay later’ became popular, not simply to start a crop or begin a
business but to buy goods that a family might want. Many families began to
go into debt to buy consumer goods such as washing or sewing machines.
Advertisers began learning the psychology of advertising, and they began
campaigns that told people they ‘ couldn’t live without’ their products. Peo-
ple who never thought of athlete’s foot, bad breath, or any of a number of
problems suddenly felt a compulsion to buy products to prevent whatever
problem the advertisers from Madison Avenue convinced them they
needed. Businesses grew, but so did the debt incurred by most Americans.
The economy was stoked by new technologies. Industries welcomed
faster, more efficient machinery into their factories. Consumers purchased
modern ‘ labor-saving’’ devices as well as items that had been extravagant
luxury items, such as automobiles, a decade earlier. Prices were good and
people became focused on consumption. The focus on saving money was
replaced with spending it.
A new scientific approach was applied to business management. Fred-
erick Taylor, as former machinist, studied the interaction between workers
and machines to determine how to get them to work together best. Dur-
ing the 1920s, business was now considered a profession, and the study of
business was legitimized by the emergence of business schools such as the
Harvard Graduate School of Business, which was established in 1924.
36
POLITICAL AND CULTURAL EVENTS
The passion that Americans acquired for consumerism was equal to
their enthusiasm for the stock market. During the 1920s, ordinary people
began investing in the stock market, an activity that they rarely did before.
Some borrowed money or paid ‘ on margin’ to acquire stocks. Both meth-
ods indebted the shareholder and set the scene for devastating financial
losses later in the decade.