American_in_the_1920's

America in the 1920’s appeared to be a wealthy country on the outside, but had many oncoming problems to behold on the inside. America in the mid 1920’s suffered severely economically and socially where a strong nationalism was occurring and an economic downfall was heading there way as the Great Depression was approaching the country. The United States suffered socially from the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, and Immigration. On the economic side, the US suffered through over production, the wide use of credits, and the increase of tariffs. America’s social society was heading no where after the First World War. Although there society is slipping; America’s immigration rate was greatly increased. After the war, many Americans wanted to stop the immigrants from entering America due to the fact that the country was heading into growing Nationalism. As a result, a series of immigration acts were passed throughout the 1920’s such as the Immigration Act of 1924, National Origins Act, and the Asian-Exclusion Act. As the American society was becoming more and more racist, an American Nationalism organization was formed in Georgia known as the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was a racism grouped created in the mid 1920’s in which they excluded and hated the Catholic Europeans, African Americans, Asians, and any race that is not considered to be “White-American”. The organization was so popular during that time that nearly 5 million Americans joined the KKK by 1925. As a matter of fact, the Klan grew rapidly by the 1930’s spreading to the other American States such as Detroit, Memphis, Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas. Some common activities of the KKK involved beatings, lynching, and arson. The formation of the Ku Klux Klan and the Immigration Acts are surely enough to inform that America was not in a good state of society. However, it gets worst for America when Prohibition of alcohol was placed on the country for nearly 12 years. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was passed to ban alcohol. Prohibition had a great impact on the American society because it increased the crime rate of illegal smuggling of alcohol and the rise of the American Gangster. During the time of Prohibition, it was common for independent citizens to produce alcoholic beverages in their own homes and to sell them in illegal black markets. America’s society was not stable back in the 1920’s; it brought a lot of fear, intimidation, crime, and racism into the country. As there society crumbles, so will their economy in the future. America was unfortunately hit the hardest during the Great Depression. What caused the Great Depression was through the process of three main actions: Over production, the use of credits, and tariffs. American industries before the great depression were producing too much of their consumer goods than people could afford to buy them. This also applied to the agricultural productions where they were over producing as well. As a result, agricultural products dropped by 30% and unemployment rates went up when factories closed down. The second cause of the Great Depression was the use of credits in the 1920’s. Buying on credit was a huge problem back then. Many people bought the very popular consumer products like the automobile, refrigerator, etc with money that they did not have. With the system of credit, buyers could make weekly, monthly, and yearly payments on products that they desired. Until the stock market crashed, it unfortunately placed millions of people in debt because they could not afford to pay back the money that they owe. The third cause of America’s economic downfall was the increase of tariffs in the trade industry. After the First World War, the United States did not get any payment in return for helping the allies. As a result, the US isolated themselves from the rest of the world to protect their own industries by raising tariffs so that people would only purchase American goods. America was in a poor economic state where the unemployment rate was high and millions of people were in debt when the Great Depression was placed on the country. America as a country suffered severely socially and economically. The formation of the Ku Klux Klan brought the ideas of Nationalism and racism into the society as well as the Immigration Acts. Economically, America suffered the most where millions were out of jobs and in debt at the same time. To conclude, America was appeared to be a wealthy country on the outside, but contained many problems on the inside.