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Prosperity of the boom years in the US in the 1920s
Causes of the economic boom of the 1920s in america
Causes of the economic boom of the 1920s in america
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The 1920’s was a time of great optimism and lively culture for the higher class of America. The wealthy had extra money to buy expensive, lavish luxuries such as refrigerators, alcohol, radios, vacuums, and cars (Roaring Twenties, History). Life for a wealthy, high class individual during the 1920’s was extremely prosperous and filled with many opportunities to buy the newest technology, wear the finest clothing, and live the most extravagant life. Some of the luxuries that were purchased were new inventions, but most spent their dollars on clothing and parties. Parties were the biggest source of entertainment for the wealthy. Fine suits and beaded dresses were essential to a man’s and woman’s wardrobe and could only be made out of the best …show more content…
materials, such as silk or velvet (Shmoop). High class individuals were also entertained at speakeasies. A speakeasy was a bar that illegally sold alcohol during prohibition. One of the most important high class items purchased in the 1920’s was the automobile. By the end of the decade, 20% of the United States population owned a car (WWI and Prohibition). Millionaires of the 1920’s made their money by investing in profitable businesses that were mass producing new technologies and products.
Mass Production reduced consumer costs and produced goods at a quicker rate, making items less expensive and businesses more profitable (WWI and Prohibition). The rich also bought into the Stock Market with hopes of making it big. The returns in the stock market only benefited the wealthy because less than 1% of Americans owned stock (Roaring Twenties, History). The economic boom lead to increased production of goods, which then lead to the creation of more jobs, which all equaled high profits. The boom is defined as being a time that involves economic and technological growth within the U.S. During the 1920’s, thanks to the economic boom, the nation’s wealth doubled (WWI and Prohibition). Most people were moving into cities and away from the farm, causing farmers to go into debt and making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Farmers were going through tough times because there wasn't a demand for products and prices of crops were …show more content…
decreasing. The role of women during the decade changed tremendously when women were granted the ability to vote, in 1920, by the 19th amendment. The majority of women remained in the traditional role of housewife. However, the number of working women increased by 25% as a result of the work they had tackled during WW1, such as clerks and postal workers (Shmoop). Women gained their freedom and independence and soon became known for the image of a flapper. A flapper is a stylish, party girl known for dancing, smoking, and drinking alcohol. Roles of 1920's women in the workplace included factory workers, secretaries, and telephone operators. Many women did not gain respect, but they still fought major gender roles and social norms throughout the time period (Shmoop). The Great Gatsby is a great example of luxurious living during the 1920’s.
All of the characters in the book are extremely materialistic and careless. The motivation for their actions is driven by money and things. For example, Daisy left Gatsby because he could not provide the expensive life she wanted unlike her husband Tom. Now, Gatsby is rich so Daisy wants him back. And, at the end of the story, barely anybody comes to Gatsby’s funeral because they were not interested in him. Nobody came because the people who he tried to impress only cared for his money and parties. Money and materialism are the most apparent themes of The Great
Gatsby. The life of luxury of the 1920’s decade was prosperous for the wealthy, but filled with depression for the country farmers. Many rich individuals were extremely materialistic and cared only for their status, while others were only trying to survive. The economic boom created many jobs for American workers while creating a prosperous environment.
Technology played an important role in the daily lives of Americans in the 1920s. Many inventions and new developments occurred during this time. A large number of items that are used today were invented by individuals and teams in research laboratories. This technology brought many conveniences such as electrical power and indoor plumbing into the home. Radios gave people access to the news and provided entertainment. Mass culture was also born and the automobile became the largest consumer product of the decade. By 1929, one in five Americans had an automobile on the road. America experienced a decade of economic growth due to the impact of technology in the 1920s.
Many new industries were developed to support mass production of goods, such as, roads, tires, and all the items it took to build a vehicle for the automobiles.(David Shannon, 217) The chemical industry grew in the United States after First World War because America couldn't get the chemical anymore they had gotten from Germany. (Shannon, 219) Americans wanted the access to electric power which included: lights, radios, and washing machines. There was a mass movement of people from the country to the city looking for jobs. The rural life couldn't support a family like urban living could, people left the farming industry and moved to the manufacturing industries which damage the ability for agricultural to survive.(Shannon, 219) The effects of prosperity revolved around the automobile specifically younger people's ability to escape adult supervision.
The Great Gatsby shows the readers that people can be greedy of almost anything: material possessions, love, relations, energy, time, memories. What tells greed from other desires is not the object or item the person wants to acquire. It is the intensity of the desire and the part of the item or object that a person covets that define greed. The characters of the novel wanted to have absolute power and control over money, material possessions, other people and their feelings. The characters fail to recognize that the true reason for many of their actions is greed and it leads to their moral corruption.
During Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it is apparent to be an absurd time for the wealthy. The shallowness of money, riches, and a place in a higher social class were probably the most important components in most lives at that period of time. This is expressed clearly by Fitzgerald, especially through his characters, which include Myrtle Wilson, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and of course, Jay Gatsby. This novel was obviously written to criticize and condemn the ethics of the rich.
Another theme of “The Great Gatsby” is the idea of new and old money and how that affects who society thinks you should be with. Society in all of these texts has a great influence on why couples or lovers find it so hard to express and show or maintain their love.... ... middle of paper ... ... Fitzgerald has shown this with the differences between Gatsby and Tom. Tom is all about representing old money and inheriting his fortune alongside the old dynamics of American society, while Gatsby is representing the new money and the new change in society.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of a man of meager wealth who chases after his dreams, only to find them crumble before him once he finally reaches them. Young James Gatz had always had dreams of being upper class, he didn't only want to have wealth, but he wanted to live the way the wealthy lived. At a young age he ran away from home; on the way he met Dan Cody, a rich sailor who taught him much of what he would later use to give the world an impression that he was wealthy. After becoming a soldier, Gatsby met an upper class girl named Daisy - the two fell in love. When he came back from the war Daisy had grown impatient of waiting for him and married a man named Tom Buchanan. Gatsby now has two coinciding dreams to chase after - wealth and love. Symbols in the story, such as the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the contrast between the East Egg and West Egg, and the death of Myrtle, Gatsby, and Wilson work together to expose a larger theme in the story. Gatsby develops this idea that wealth can bring anything - status, love, and even the past; but what Gatsby doesn't realize is that wealth can only bring so much, and it’s this fatal mistake that leads to the death of his dreams.
People say that "money makes the world go around." It may, but in the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money is what causes greed and death. The novel is filled with multiple themes but one predominate theme that the author focuses on is immorality. The novel was written in the1920s which was a time that drew away from social and moral values and yearned for its greed and empty pursuit of pleasure. Gatsby, gains his wealth through bootlegging only because he wants to show Daisy his wealth. Sadly, his determination for his love is what gets him killed. The author uses different characters throughout the novel to present his theme. Symbols can also be found in The Great Gatsby. An example would be West Egg which represents the recent rich and East Egg which represents the established upper classes. The West Egg and East Egg symbolize the different social status of society.
In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.
Materialism has a negative influence on the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The most terrible thing about materialism even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offers a prospect of deliverance.” This quote, stated by Malcolm Muggeridge, says that people get bored with the things that they have when they get new things all of the time. When they get bored with these things, they turn to stuff like sex, alcohol, and drugs. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby are greatly influenced by money, and material things. The negative influence that materialism has on these characters is shown throughout the entire novel.
The characters in The Great Gatsby take a materialistic attitude that causes them to fall into a downward spiral of empty hope and zealous obsession. Fitzgerald contrasts Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway to display how the materialistic attitude of the 1920’s leads many to hopeless depression and how materialism never constitutes happiness. Fitzgerald uses Jay Gatsby, a character who spends his entire adult life raising his status, only to show the stupidity of the materialistic attitude. Rather than hard work, Gatsby turns to crime and bootlegging in order to earn wealth and status to get the attention of Daisy Buchanon, a woman he falls in love with five years earlier. "He [Gatsby] found her [Daisy] excitingly desirable. He went to her house… There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool then the other bedrooms… It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—It increased her value in his eyes" (155-156). Gatsby falls in love with everything about Daisy. It is not only her that Gatsby desires, it is her riches and possessions as well. The fact the many other gentlemen want Daisy simply increases her worth in Gatsby’s eyes. All of these things are the reasons Gatsby "commit[s] himself to the following of a grail" (156). The grail symbolizes a quest for perfection, the...
"The Great Gatsby" is a book full of passion. There is Gatsby 's passionate love for Daisy. There is Tom 's passion for money. When reading this book I realized that these people broke the American dream in their time. They couldn 't be happy when all they did was chase money. The Great Gatsby was full of themes, motif 's, and symbolism and the way that fitzgerald used his characters to get his point across of what it was like back them was marvelous. Gatsby just wanted the love of his life back, so he did everything he could so that he could support her. I think that out of every single character, Gatsby 's choices were the most pure. The only reason he wanted all of the money that he got was because he wanted to make the woman he loved happy,
Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.
In conclusion, The Great Gatsby reveals the carelessness and shallowness of the characters in the upper class. Society is totally corrupted and the character’s lives revolve around the money and extravagant lifestyles. All of the characters are surrounded with expensive and unnecessary itms, which in turn, dulls their dream of actual success. Scott F. Fitzgerald provides a powerful and everlasting message of a corrupt, materialistic society and the effects that it has on the idea of the American dream.
The boom began as a result of circumstances largely irrelevant to the general American population, but once set in motion the machine was driven by the people. People had the time and money to buy goods and invest in the economy, which boomed; so unemployment fell and wages rose. More people were employed and had money, which they used to buy consumer products, which then continued to fuel the booming economy. Therefore the main reason for the boom in the 1920s was the increased accessibility of consumer products, and the subsequent empowerment of the consumers. The boom in the 1920s marked the birth of mass market and the consumer-driven economy.
After people started buying too many new things, a crash happened. There were many reasons why this happened. For example, people viewed the stock market as a short term investment instead as a large one. The boom was enormous and the crash itself was huge. The Great Depression lasted in the 1920s and was the biggest one in Americas history. The crash could have been prevented if consumers did not purchase too much.