Unit+6

1/31/2011

=﻿Steps to Declaring War: =


 * 1) Neutrality : President Woodrow Wilson encouraged America to remain neutral for a good part of the war, except that a majority weren't impartial to the situation. America had many more economic ties with Britain than anything else.
 * 2) Trade with the Allies (manufacture: their weapons, supplies)
 * 3) German unrestricted submarine warfare . (Lusitania)
 * 4) Zimmerman Telegram (gave away Germany's plan to urge Mexico to attack the U.S. by promising their land back)
 * 5) Russian Revolution
 * 6) Gave naval assistance to Britain.
 * 7) Americans recruited and selected to be a part of the ground forces to help Britain.
 * 8) Declare War.

2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

Key Characteristics of Post WWI America

 * Social environment = no longer receptive to progressive reform
 * Industrial Warfare
 * Postwar Recession = war debt, inflation: 1919 (wiped out modest wage gains)
 * Strikes/Riots = Boston Police Strike, Steelworkers' Strike
 * Racial violence = Chicago Race Riots
 * More Opportunities for Women = stable careers, voice in politics
 * Popular Antiradicalism = produced the Red Scare
 * League of Nations formed = Woodrow Wilson
 * Additional words in the Wordle: Palmer Raids, Red Scare = a period of general fear of Communism, Sacco + Vanzetti, 100% Americanism

Thought it looked a bit dull, so here's a more interesting visual: media type="custom" key="8349714"

2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

Preview of Chapter 24: The New Era - "Roaring Twenties"

 * Myth + Reality of the decade - **Myth**: it was an era of abundant wealth, conservatism, cultural frivolity; **Reality**: time of significant social, economic, and political change
 * American popular culture reshaped itself as a result of the urban, industrial, consumer-oriented society America was turning into
 * American government = experimented w/ new approaches to public policy
 * "New Era" - an age in which America was becoming a modern nation; mainly an urban, middle class idea that was sparked from the various opportunities that economic growth created for large groups of successful Americans; Also a time of liberation: people felt that it was possible for them to reject traditional social restraints and live a freer life
 * The reach of industrialization increased, cities grew rapidly, and the middle-class grew in size + power
 * Cultural conflict = result of the challenges to traditional values + ways of life
 * Many people rebelled against the new customs + morals of the urban middle class; many whites supported the organization known as the Ku Klux Klan
 * Many Americans called for a return to a more decentralized + smaller-scale society
 * The country's modernization = deep divisions within the nation shown through politics + culture
 * Technology = radio, advances in aviation, trains, electronics, home appliances (spurred economic boom)
 * Modern Administrative Systems - w/ efficient divisional organization; made it easier for companies to control its subsidiaries and simpler for corporations to expand further
 * "Welfare Capitalism" - some corporations shortened workweek, raised wages, instituted paid vacations, improved safety + sanitation in their factories
 * "Parity" - the idea of a complicated formula for setting an adequate price for farm goods + ensuring that farmers would earn back at least their production costs no matter how the nat'l or world agricultural market might fluctuate
 * Hollywood - Motion Picture Association, National Broadcasting Company
 * Harlem Renaissance - a period when African-American achievements in art + music + literature flourished
 * Pressing for Women's Rights - League of Women Voters



2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

C24 Glog on The New Deal:
media type="custom" key="8770144"

2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

The Decline of the "Self-Made" Man
The belief that any person could, through natural talent and hard work, achieve wealth and fame. It had been largely a myth, but a myth that had managed to remain a convincing for generations because it had enough basis in reality. There were also numerous people who allowed themselves to be goaded into risking much of what they had by the successful businessmen of the time who claimed to be "self-made" men.


 * Dance Halls:**
 * They provided a public space where young people could mingle with their peers and escape restrictions placed on them by society
 * Live music: musicians played a vast range of music from ballroom dance music to big band, swing + jazz
 * It's where employed men and women found some form of a relaxing refuge after work
 * Paticularly popular with: young men + women from working-class, immigrant communities
 * Many dance halls were created primarily as a result of: the new forms of jazz brought to the urban North from African-Americans from the South during the Great Migration (World War I)
 * The phonograph (a form of a record player) + radio made it more and more popular
 * Dance halls became part of the youth culture of the time, and many families tried to stop their children from going to such festivities because they were afraid it would pull them out of the family + community
 * Some large dance halls in the big cities of the time: Roseland + the Savoy in New York, Trianon + the Aragon in Chicago, the Raymor in Boston, Greystone in Detroit, the Hollywood Paladium
 * Some dance halls were indoor, some were outdoor, some were capable of accomodating thousands of couples at once
 * "taxi-dance" ballrooms - allowed men to buy tickets to dance with "hostesses" + "instructresses"; They were sometimes closed by municipal authorities for inappropriate dancing + prostitution; At least 60 city governments passed regulations (1920s) restrcting the styles of public dancing
 * White working-class people would sometimes encounter a large number of different ethnic groups at once but rarely would the groups ever mix (Ironic, isn't it?)
 * The dance hall is the well-known forerunner of the nightclub




 * The Cinema:**


 * Movies were becoming a popular + powerful form of mass communication
 * The addition of sound to motion picures created nationwide excitement (began in 1927: w/ the 1st feature-length "talkie," //The Jazz Singer// w/ Al Jolson)
 * The film industry was eventually forced to create "standards" for its films
 * Motion Picture Association created - hired former postmaster general Will Hays to head it; He was allowed to review the films and ban anything likely to offend viewers (or politicians); Hays imposed a safe, sanctimonious conformity for many years on the film industry
 * Most productions were filmed in or near Hollywood, which still dominates worldwide film-making
 * America's productions inspired similar ones in other countries: the Soviet Union responded to the popularity of Walt Disney's Micky Mouse cartoons and invented a cartoon hero of their own: a porcupine, designed to entertain in a way consistent with socialist values (+ not the capitalist ones they believed Hollywood conveyed)
 * The greatest output of feature films in the U.S. occurred in the 1920s and 1930s (averaging about 700 film releases in a year)
 * Two decades after WWI, the U.S. had more than 40% of the world's cinemas
 * Some argue that movies were then, and are still, America's most influential cultural sport
 * Film-making still flourishes all around the world: Bollywood
 * **The Big Five Studios formed around 1920s-1930s: Warner Bros. Pictures, Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount Pictures), RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures, MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Fox Film Corporation (later branch: 20th-Century Fox)**



2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

Herbert Hoover's Presidency: 31st President of the United States
Hoover considered himself a notable progressive (widely regarded as the most progressive member of the Harding + Coolidge Administrations), and became a firm supporter of the idea of "associationalism", a business concept that envisioned the creation of national organizations of businessmen in particular industries. He won the presidential election of 1928 with the Republican nomination. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 hit less than 8 months after he took office. In the end, he basically failed to end the downward economic spiral, and therefore was not re-elected in 1932.

Here's a video of him during his campaign in 1928: media type="youtube" key="oKwkT4Mh87M?rel=0" height="349" width="425"

2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

Top 10 Key Terms of Chapter 24:
In no particular order...
 * 1) Youth Culture
 * 2) Modern Administrative Systems
 * 3) "Welfare Capitalism"
 * 4) The "American Plan"
 * 5) Mechanized Farming
 * 6) Growing Mass Consumption
 * 7) Hollywood
 * 8) League of Women Voters
 * 9) Failure of Alcohol Prohibition
 * 10) Harlem Renaissance

2/7/2011 - 2/11/2011

[[image:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XfW43FadKXw/TO5w4ZUkQII/AAAAAAAAAGM/n2dP4dto6lk/s1600/stages-of-stock-market-emotion-10122008.jpg width="570" height="318"]]
A stock market is basically a public entity in which people trade, buy, and sell either company stock, shares, and bonds. In my opinion, it's all about how lucky you are, what information you can access, and how much you're willing to risk. Individuals who own stock have to decide frequently whether to hold onto their stocks/shares because you think they'll become more valuable later on (therefore they'll be able to sell it for more money) or sell right away because they think the value of their stocks will go down. If you're lucky, you'll have a friend or associate that could give you tips in regards to certain trends that could occur in the stock market, but besides that it seems like a sometimes logical, but largely a guessing game of trends and values. Stockholders can hold their assets from days to years in order to sell their stocks at what they believe will be the most beneficial time for them (the time in which their stocks will be worth the most). The stock market is all about supply and demand, and when something is scarce its price usually skyrockets.People invest in certain things hoping they'll earn back more than they invested, and companies go public to make money as well. In the end, everyone's just trying to get out at least a little richer than when they got in.