19th century

1. The USA in the second half of 19th –
the 20th centuries

2. Industrial growth and Great Depression
in the second half of 19th – the first part of the 20th
century
During the second half of 19th
– the first part of 20th century
the USA was becoming the
world’s leading industrial
power and great fortunes were
made by shrewd businessmen.
The first transcontinental
railroad was completed in
1869.

3. ● The petroleum industry prospered,
dominated by John D. Rockefeller’s
giant Standard Oil Company.
● Andrew Carnegie, who came to
America as a poor Scottish immigrant,
built a great empire of steel mills and
iron mines – which he sold in 1901 for
nearly 500 thousand million dollars.
Textile mills multiplied in the South,
and meatpacking plants sprang up in
and around Chicago.
Andrew Carnegie

4. ● An electrical industry was created
by a series of inventions – the
telephone, the phonograph, the light
bulb, motion pictures etc.
● In Chicago architect Louis Sullivan
used steel frame construction to
develop an American contribution
to the cities of the world – the
Architect Louis Sullivan skyscraper.

5. ● Industrialization brought with it the rise of organized labour. Many of the
workers in the new industries were immigrants.
● Between 1865 and 1910, 25 million people came to the United States, many
of them settled in major American cities. Immigrants often suffered
discrimination from native-born Americans – who, of course, were
themselves descended from immigrants. Still, America offered the
immigrants more religious liberty, more political freedom and greater
economic opportunities than they could find in their native lands.
● Since the founding of Jamestown,
the first permanent European
settlement in North America, in 1607,
the United States has accepted two-thirds
of all the world’s immigrants – a total
of 50 million people.
Jamestown

6. ● Although the economy was booming
and prosperity was spreading, up to
half of all industrial workers still lived
in poverty – and many of those
workers were women and children.
Many states passed laws restricting
child labour, protecting women
workers, limiting work hours and
providing workmen’s compensation.
Women agitated for the right to vote,
and by 1914 several states had granted
that right.

7. ● In 1921, Congress enacted
immigration limits. These
restrictions favoured
immigrants from Britain,
Ireland, Scandinavia and
Germany – “Anglo-Saxon”
and “Nordic” stock. Small
quotas were reserved for
eastern and southern
Europeans; none at all for
Asians.

8. The Ku Klux
Klan
● The 1920th were an extraordinary
and contradictory decade. It was
the age of Prohibition.
● In 1920 alcoholic beverages
were outlawed by a
Constitutional Amendment. But
drinkers cheerfully evaded the
law in thousands of illegal bars,
and gangsters made fortunes
supplying illegal liquor.
Composer George Gershwin

9. ● The Ku Klux Klan, revived in 1915,
attracted millions of followers and
terrorized blacks, Catholics, Jews
and immigrants. At the same time,
there was a flowering of black
literature – the “Harlem
Renaissance” – and jazz caught the
imagination of many white
Americans, including composer
George Gershwin.

10. Henry Ford and his Model T
● For business, the 1920th were golden
years of prosperity.
● The United States was now a consumer
society, with a blooming market for
radios, home appliances, synthetic
textiles and plastics. The businessman
became a popular hero.
● One of the most admired men of the
decade was Henry Ford, who introduced
the assembly line into automobile
production. Ford was able to pay high
wages and still earn enormous profits by
manufacturing the Model T – a simple,
basic car that millions of buyers could
afford.
Henry Ford

11. “Black Thursday”
There were, however, problems in the
prosperity of the 1920th.
Overproduction of crops depressed
food prices, and farmers suffered.
Industrial workers were earning better
wages, but they still did not have
enough purchasing power to continue
buying goods, produced by the
factories.
On October, 24, 1929 – “Black
Thursday” – a wave of panic selling of
stocks swept the New York Stock
Exchange. By 1932, thousands of
banks and over 100,000 businesses
had failed. Industrial production was
cut in half, farm income had fallen by
more than half, wages had decreased
60 percent, new investment was down
90 percent and one out of every four
workers was unemployed.

12. Watch the video about “Black Thursday” in the USA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKkCp-sS8Yc
After watching the video answer the following questions:
● What does “Black Thursday” mean?
● What are the causes of the stock market crash?
● What was the government policy for recovering of the
economy?
● Name the consequences of “Black Thursday”.