World War II

1216 Words3 Pages

After World War I, economy shot up causing historians to call the 1920s the ‘second industrial revolution.' The economy of the 1920's was a key change as it brought about new mass production, mass consumption, and set the stage for the ever-looming Great Depression. The 1920's saw a great boom in mass production which allowed for cheaper prices of technology products. This decade was marked by an enormous expansion of consumer credit, where Americans were used to finance purchases of new products such as the growing popularity of cars and radios, which were created by the mass production. The automobile, movie, radio, and chemical industries skyrocketed during this decade-one of the most important was the automobile industry. As mass-produced automobiles were churned in by Henry Ford, about 1.9 million cars had been sold by the end of 1929. The economy of the automobile society had a great impact on not only business, but also society. Henry Ford, who had revolutionized the new workers day and the concept of mass-production, had indirectly affected how Americans lived and behaved. Cars promoted other markets to grow, such as steel, rubber, glass, and petroleum. It also promoted urban and suburban growth, where a new class of Americans was rising. Now, citizens could drive to new places, meet new people, act differently…etc…The speed with which the products of mass production diffused through America was astonishing: not just automobiles but also washing machines, refrigerators, electric irons, electric and gas stoves--a whole host of inventions and technologies that greatly transformed that part of economic life that takes place within the household. However, this changing and rising American economy cause called one major consequence. For one of the major consequences of mass production was the building-up of the stock of capital goods for within-the-home production. And this of course, was the biggest key change…because it seemed like the rising stock market and industry of the 1920s would stay forever. This rising stock market led to the Great Depression…a downward spiral of economic depression.

The booming economy of the 1920's led to the Great Depression. It affected almost all of the industrialized world. The main cause of the depression was because of the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The mal-distribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels.

More about World War II

Open Document