The Roaring Twenties Research Paper

The Roaring Twenties was a time of lavish lifestyles and prosperity for millions of people across the country. “Mass production and consumption of automobiles, household appliances, film, and radio fueled a new economy” and people became more cultured than in previous decades with exposure to movies and Broadway shows. The possible explanation for this was the war which created an influx of privatized wealth that showed itself in the lifestyles seen in the twenties. People started to question the condition of the world they lived in during the previous decades with works such as The Jungle being published which described the poor condition of stockyards and, in the twenties, there became a focus on working conditions in urbanized areas.

The 1930s displayed some of the worst living conditions in American history and is the complete opposite of the Roaring Twenties. People during the Great Depression could barely afford food yet alone sustain the affluent styles of the previous decade. The government attempted to assist people by creating the Works Progress Administration which “offered work to the unemployed on an unprecedented scale by spending money on a wide variety of programs, including highways and building construction, slum clearance, reforestation, and rural rehabilitation”. This allowed for money to be funneled into the economy to create some economic stimulus. The only issue with this was that unions no longer had control over the labor force because the WPA under cut all the prices of private organizations. So, on July 14th, 1939 there was a strike against the WPA in Philadelphia. The goal of the strike was to undermine the WPA and make the projects they were working on put into the private sector. The WPA made it a challenge for private contractors to get jobs because the government undercut any price that private contractors could make. The unions also would tell their members to withdrawal from the WPA and refuse any job offers from them. This is unique since most historians view the WPA as a crucial organization during the 1930s because it allowed people to get jobs and it helped grow the

People would go about living their daily lives with no real alteration to their routine. Peaceful discussions would be more common regarding labor relationships since there was no outside pressure on production. One exception to this would be when president Dwight D Eisenhower intervened in the United Steel Workers of America. He worked with negotiators on both sides to get an agreement passed but to no avail. The union wanted “a three-year contract for average increases of 15 cents an hour each year”. The company negotiator said in response that “the companies could not in good conscience be party to another round of the inflationary spiral”. Both sides did not want to budge even when there was a presidential intervention. The stubbornness on both sides cost the company product and cost the workers wages. What would have happened if an agreement had been made? How much more profit could that company have reinvested into the company and create more jobs? If the steel companies in this scenario had created all the steel that was lost as a result of the strike, other companies who relied on that steel could have created more jobs which would have boosted the country. The actions of those involved here influenced thousands of people around the