The United States of America

Checks & Balances

The “Checks & Balances” was created to bring balance to the system. It gives all branches of the government equal power. The following diagram helps you visualise.

The Great Crash of 1929

It all began in the year 1920 when everyone enjoyed drinking and having parties. People began making films and started watching them. As a hobby they invested their money in the stock market. Everyone withdrew all their money from the banks and only invested them in the stock market buying as many stocks as they could. The value of the stocks increased day by day until one point where the companies had a downfall. Everyone wanted to sell the stocks but it was impossible because there was no more money left. Money was a conundrum. The people started panicking because they had no money left. Many started to suicide and more majority of people had to live on the streets. The day of the stock market crash is remembered as the “Wall Street Crash of 1929“.

George Washington

The Great Depression

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution in the USA was the second Industrial Revolution after the first Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. In the second revolution, there were new products invented. There were new machines, factories and more. They were many entrepreneurs and businessmen born. The new revolutionary products that were invented for example are Telegraph, Telephone, Cars, Light Bulb, etc. These new inventions changed the way the people lived. They could now travel faster, communicate easily and do much more. The following chart will show the inventions invented and its inventors.

America’s Independence

The Roaring Twenties

The United States became the first nation in history to build its way of life on selling vast quantities of goods that gave ordinary people easier and more enjoyable lives. These “consumer goods” poured off the assembly lines of big new factories. Between 1919 and 1929 such mass-production factories doubled their output.

The growth of industry made many Americans well off. Millions earned good wages. Thousands invested money in successful firms so that they could share in their profits. Many bought cars, radios other new products with their money. Often, they obtained these goods by paying a small deposit and agreeing to pay the rest of the cost through an “instalment plan.” Their motto was “Live now, pay tomorrow”- a tomorrow which most was convinced be like today only better, with even more money swelling their wallets.

Businessmen became popular heroes in the 1920s. Men like Henry Ford were widely admired as the creators of the nation’s prosperity. “The man who builds factory builds a temple,” said Calvin Coolidge, the President from 1923 to 1929. “The man who works there worships there.”

Coolidge’s words help to explain the policies of American governments in the 1920s. These governments were controlled by the Republican party. Republicans believed that if the government looked after the interests of the businessman, everybody would become richer. Businessmen whose firms were doing well, they claimed, would take on more workers and pay more wages. In this way, their growing wealth would benefit everybody.

To help businessmen Congress placed high import taxes on goods from abroad. The aim was to make imported goods more expensive so that American Manufacturers would have less competition from foreign rivals. At the same time, Congress reduced taxes on high incomes and company profits. This gave rich men more money to invest.

Yet there were lots of poor Americans. A survey in 1929 showed that half the American people had hardly enough money to buy sufficient food and Clothing. In industrial cities of the North such as Chicago and Pittsburgh, immigrant workers still laboured long hours for low wages in steel mills, factories and slaughterhouses. In the South thousands of poor farmers both black and white, worked from sunrise to sunset to earn barely enough to live on. The wealth that Republicans said would benefit everybody never reached people like these.

The main reason for poverty among industrial workers was low wages. Farmers and farm workers had a hard time for different reasons. In the South, many farmers did not own the land they farmed. They were sharecroppers. For rent, a sharecropper gave the landowner part of what he grew – often so much that he was left with hardly enough to feed his family.

Henry Ford

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, who founded the Ford Motor Company. He made Automobiles for every American; every American could afford buying a ford. Henry Ford was born on a farm in Greenfield Township, Michigan. While his parents were working on the farm, he used to build machines and find out new stuff. After his mother’s death in 1876, his father expected him to take over the farm but he didn’t like farm work. In 1891, he became an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. After he was promoted to chief engineer in 1893, he had enough money and time to give attention to his personal experiments. When Ford was introduced to Thomas Edison, Edison approved to Ford’s Automobile. He completed his second automobile in 1893. In 1903, he founded the Ford Motor Company. As years passed by the Ford Motor Company was successful with its automobiles. The Ford Company was very successful with the T Model, which was Ford’s favorite car. After a while, during the world war, Ford entered the aviation business. They produced planes for the war. In 1925, they got back into the automobile business. When Ford’s son was involved in the business, they stopped producing the T Model. But after few years it was produced again. His son died in 1943 with a heart failure. After four years (1947), Ford died at the age of 83 on April 7.