Progressive Era Through the Great Depression

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ASSIGNMENT 2 PROGRESSIVE ERA THROUGH The GREAT DEPRESSION The Prosperity Era or what is also known as the roaring twenties were a fun time for Americans and a time full of changes. “The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture”; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. However, for a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed” (http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties). It was a time that came after America had flexed its muscles as a world super power. Feeling safe and secure within our borders and with military forces positioned around the world it was a period to let the good times roll. This time of good and plenty that was fueled by a post war consumer economic boom lasted for the better part of the nineteen twenties. The Prosperity period of wealth for a good portion of the nation’s population gave way to what has been known as the Great Depression beginning in the late nineteen twenties. “At least in part, the Great Depression was caused by underlying weaknesses and imbalances within the U.S. economy that had been obscured by the boom psychology and speculative euphoria of the 1920s. The Depression exposed those weaknesses, as it did the inability of the nation's political and financial institutions to
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