FCLLI7_americas_economy

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America's economy 
 
America's economy underwent major changes during the 1920's due to consumerism. 
Automotive companies employed 1 out of every twelve men in America. New 
technology, such as conveyor belts, made working in factories for efficient and time 
worthy. These conveyor belts at Ford plants cut work time from twelve and a half 
hours to one and a half hours to build one car. Automotive companies were also a big 
help for steel, glass, rubber, and gas sales. Prices for equipment and materials to 
make the cars continued to decrease in the 1920's and Ford cut their prices six times 
between 1921 and 1925. This left the price for a car at $290. This was less than three 
months pay for and average American. Ford also introduced a $5 minimum wage and 
cut the hours down from nine to eight hour a work day for his employees. If that 
wasn't enough Ford also cut the number of days of work from six to five days a week. 
The higher wage gave employees more spending money to buy more products. Some 
of the older generations were not happy about how easily these cars could be 
bought. They thought it gave teens too much freedom and privacy. The cars were 
referred to by the older generations as "portable bedrooms." In 1919, there were 
roughly 6.7 million cars in America, but by 1929 there were about 27 million. The 
United States spent over $2 billion a year to build and repair roads. From 1920 to 
1929 483,000 miles of road were built throughout the U.S. Sadly, nearly 30,000 
people died in traffic related accidents per year in the 1920's. The 1920's was a big 
decade for the economy, it had it's great up's in the beginning, but put Americans on 
a road to failure in the late 1920's, the Great Depression. On January 16, 1920, 
prohibition was put into effect. It was led by the Anti-Saloon League and the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union. These two groups believed that ending the 
sale of liquor would end corruption, machine politics, help labor productivity, and 
Americanize immigrants. They also believed that it would end spousal abuse and 
child abuse. The Anti-Saloon League called Milwaukee's breweries "the worst of all 
our German enemies." The eighteenth amendment banned the manufacture and sale 
of liquors. The death rate from alcoholism was cut by 80% in 1921. The Ammendment 
to stop alchohol use was barely approached. Too few police officials made a good 
effort to stop the manufacture and consumption of alcohol. As an example, before 
Prohibition in 1919, Cleveland had 1,200 legal bars and in 1923 there were more than 
3,000 illegal speakeasies and 10,000 stills. Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933. 
Today alcohol has lead to more than half our nation's homicides and a portion of 
domestic abuse.