Why Is Consumerism So Important In The 1920s

After World War One had ended, many Americans felt that they deserved to splurge on luxury goods, such as new cars and radios, to reward themselves after such a tragic event. The roaring twenties were a period of prosperity for America, where consumerism was at an all time high and so was the demand for goods. Because many Americans could not afford their desires with their meager wages, the government decided to open up the credit system to everyone, and not just businesses. Credit became wildly popular, and during this time many people purchased items they could not have been able to afford without credit. For many, credit gave them a false sense of what they could afford, and they sunk into debt. The high demand for goods in the 1920s led

In 1929, the Federal Reserve Board dramatically increased interest rates to slow inflation, which ended up being a huge mistake. This increase heavily impacted Americans’ spending habits, and punished their reliance on credit. This led the US economy into a standstill, where the demand for goods was low, but companies had many things to sell leftover from the period of high consumerism. Unsound Banking and investing practices were also a major cause of the Great Depression. Margin investing was the practice of getting a loan from the stock market to be able to invest more money. Investors were only required to pay 10% the amount of what they desired to invest, and the rest was loaned to their accounts. This money was not the investor’s to keep though, because margin calls occurred which requested immediate payback of what was loaned out to them. If the investor’s stocks had decreased in value, they would not be able to pay back what they were loaned, unless they pulled money from other investments or filed for bankruptcy. Professional investors were also investing their clients’ money on margin without their knowledge, which led to many issues when their clients lost all of their money. Banks also began loaning out money to be invested. They believed that the stock market would continue to do well, and that any money they loaned out would give them more money in

Eventually, the federal government was obligated to provide some sort of relief to the men who were out of work and starving. They created work camps that paid men 20 cents a day for construction work. The conditions in these camps were abysmal, and led to the most violent episode of the Canadian Depression, the Regina riot. The protest against the horrible conditions in the camps resulted in this riot, which killed two people and injured hundreds. Another riot occurred three years later on June 19, 1938 in Vancouver, which is now known as Bloody Sunday. This protest of over 1,000 participants was organized when the federal government rescinded their financial support of the labor camps. The protest resulted in a riot which hospitalized 46