Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Marchant, and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you're able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the boom years in the USA, where we're asking ourselves, how did the boom impact the lives of Americans? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to evaluate the impact of the boom years on prosperity in the USA.

There are three keywords which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are prosperity, boom years, and discrimination.

Prosperity is a situation in which someone is successful, usually by earning a lot of money.

Boom years are a period of time when businesses are doing well and wages are rising.

And unfair treatment to someone because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, age, disability, or religion is described as discrimination.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts, and we'll begin by thinking about comparing interpretations.

People and historians can form their own views of events from the past.

These views are referred to as interpretations.

It is common for interpretations of history to differ from one person to another and from one historian to another.

Historians often compare different interpretations.

It is important to be able to identify and demonstrate the differences between interpretations.

Two interpretations, A and B, are shown below.

Both interpretations offer views on experiences of prosperity during the boom years in the USA.

So interpretation A says, "The 1920s provided new opportunities for Americans.

"Women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves; "rising car ownership was just one sign of this." Interpretation B says, "Many Americans were left behind during the boom.

"For many minority groups, "there was little new wealth to celebrate.

"Whole regions like the South failed to enjoy "the type of growth enjoyed in the North." We'll think about each of those interpretations in a little bit more detail, to make sure we are really comfortable in explaining what they say.

So let's think about Interpretation A.

If we break it down, we can outline its point of view.

So, Interpretation A mentions new working opportunities.

This is important, as it suggests there were improvements in work during the 1920s.

It also talks about women and men.

This gives us the impression that a wide range of people benefited during this period of time.

It also talks about there being more money.

Well, that means that prosperity was being shown by rising wages.

And Interpretation A also refers to rising car ownership.

So that also gives an indication that there was prosperity as shown by a rise in consumer goods that people owned.

So, let's reflect on what we've just heard.

We have a statement on the screen that says Interpretation A suggests that there was little real prosperity during the 1920s.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that Interpretation A said that more Americans invested in stocks, and the second says that Interpretation A said that more Americans were able to purchase cars.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that B was the correct justification.

Interpretation A said that more Americans were able to purchase cars.

So we can tell that Interpretation A is suggesting that there was real prosperity during the 1920s.

And let's try another question.

Which quote best demonstrates that a wide range of Americans experienced rising prosperity during the boom years? Is it "The 1920s provided "new working opportunities for Americans," "Women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves," or "Rising car ownership was just one sign of this?" Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was B.

From the quote, "Women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves," we get a good sense that prosperity was widespread, that it wasn't restricted to people of just want sex in America during the 1920s.

So now let's have a more detailed think about Interpretation B and the view that it offers of the boom years.

So, one part of Interpretation B talks about many Americans being left behind.

So this gives a clear impression that prosperity was uneven.

People are being left behind.

They're not enjoying the same benefits as others.

It also mentions minority groups.

So we can see it's suggesting that groups like African Americans would've suffered.

African Americans having been one of the major minority groups in 1920's America.

And it also talks about whole regions like the South.

So again, it identifies regional inequality in this case, that some areas of the USA didn't experience the boom in the same way as others.

Okay, so let's make sure that our understanding is really secure.

We have a statement on the screen that says both Interpretation A and B offer positive views for prosperity in the USA during the boom years.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that Interpretation A suggests prosperity was widespread, but Interpretation B suggests that there were many inequalities; or justification B says Interpretation A offers a positive view of prosperity during the 1920s, but Interpretation B offers a negative view of the period.

So which one of those two justifications is better? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the better justification was A, the Interpretation A suggests prosperity was widespread, but Interpretation B suggests that there were many inequalities.

We could describe the difference between Interpretations A and B as being the difference between a positive and a negative view, but that's not actually very specific.

It's much better to follow the approach shown in justification A, where it gives the specific thing that said as a positive Interpretation A, that prosperity was widespread, and a specific negative thing from Interpretation B, that there were many inequalities.

And let's try one more question.

Which quote best demonstrates that there was regional inequality in the USA during the boom years.

Is it where Interpretation B said "Many Americans were left behind during the boom," where it said, "For many minority groups "there was little new wealth to celebrate," or where it said, "The South failed "to enjoy the type of growth enjoyed in the North?" Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

The quote that best demonstrates that there was regional inequality is where interpretation B said "The South failed to enjoy the type of growth enjoyed in the North." Quotes A and B both indicate that there was inequality, but not that this inequality was specifically a regional issue, an issue of there being differences between different areas.

So, we are now ready to put all of our knowledge and understanding into practise.

I want you to answer the following question.

How does Interpretation B differ from Interpretation A about prosperity in the USA during the boom years? I want you to explain your answer based on what it says in Interpretations A and B.

So make sure you're including some quotes to support the differences you identify.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all your hard work on that task.

So I asked you how does Interpretation B differ from Interpretation A about prosperity in the USA during the boom years? Your answer may have included: "Interpretation A suggests that prosperity "during the boom years in the USA was quite widespread.

"For example, the interpretation says that "'women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves.

' "However, interpretation B suggests "that prosperity was quite uneven "and that there was inequality during the boom years.

"For example, the interpretation says that "'for many minority groups there was "'little new wealth to celebrate.

'" So, well done for all your work on that task.

So now we're ready to move on to the second part of our lesson, where we're gonna focus on experiences of the boom years.

Interpretations A and B both focus on the idea that there were different groups in the USA who experienced the boom.

So some groups in the USA who experienced the boom years that we could think about include workers, women, Hollywood stars, African Americans, and recent immigrants.

We're gonna consider the experiences of each of these groups in turn.

So let's start by thinking about the experiences of workers.

The 1920s were a decade of rising employment.

If we think about the unemployment rate as an indicator of this, whereas in 1920, 5.

2% of the population was unemployed, by 1929 this was just 3.

2% of the population.

So if we then think about that further, rising employment would mean that more people were earning wages, and wages themselves also rose by over 20% during the 1920s.

So it wasn't just that people were gaining work, they were also earning more money during the 1920s.

Workers could, therefore, afford more consumer goods.

From 1911 to 1929, 15 million people purchased Ford Model Ts.

And if we look at radio ownership, where 60,000 radios were owned in the USA in 1921, that number had inflated up to 10 million radios being owned in the USA by 1929.

So, let's make sure our understanding of what we've just heard is really secure.

Which statement about the 1920s in the USA is most accurate? Employment rose but average wages fell, employment rose but average wages remained the same, or employment rose and average wages increased.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was C.

During the 1920s, employment rose and average wages increased in the USA.

In fact, wages rose by 20%, whilst unemployment fell from 5.

2% to 3.

2% across the decade.

And let's try another question.

This time we have a statement that says there was rising demand for consumer goods in the USA during the 1920s.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was true, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says Americans owned over 50 times more radios in 1929 than they had in 1921.

The second says Americans owned over 150 times more radios in 1929 than they had in 1921.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct justification was B, Americans owned over 150 times more radios in 1929 than they had in 1921.

Radio ownership grew from 60,000 in 1921 to over 10 million by 1929.

So now we can think about the experiences of women during the boom.

Female employment increased by 25% from 1920 to 1929.

However, women suffered from unequal pay.

In 1920, female cotton weavers were paid $3 less per week than the average male weaver.

Women also faced discrimination in the workplace, which blocked some careers.

For example, there were less than 100 female accountants by 1930.

Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that women were still able to enter some new professional careers.

For example, Ford promoted some women, like Lillian Shepherd, to become sales managers.

Okay, so let's check our understanding of what we've just heard.

I want you to write the missing keyword in the following sentence.

Blank in professional careers such as accountancy led to very few employers hiring women.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was discrimination.

Discrimination in professional careers such as accountancy led to very few employers hiring women.

For example, there were less than 100 women working as accountants across the USA in 1930.

So now we can think about another group.

And this time we're gonna focus on Hollywood stars.

The growing popularity of cinema led to widespread fame for some actors.

The star system also promoted and enriched leading actors like Charlie Chaplin, making them the focus of all promotional materials related to new films. Charlie Chaplin was able to become a millionaire as a result of the growing popularity of cinema and the star system.

Female actresses were also able to become very successful in Hollywood.

In 1926, Clara Bow was paid $1,600 per week for her acting work.

So thinking about what we've just heard, which statement is most accurate? Both men and women could become Hollywood stars, but no one made much money; both male and female Hollywood stars were able to become extremely wealthy; or only male Hollywood stars were paid large salaries? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was B.

Both male and female Hollywood stars were able to become extremely wealthy.

This included figures such as Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow.

So now we'll turn our attention to African American experiences during the boom years.

African Americans suffered disproportionately from the crisis in American agriculture during the 1920s.

This was because most African Americans lived and worked in the mainly agricultural south.

So, as farming started to struggle, this hurt the millions of African Americans who worked in that occupation.

In fact, 600,000 farmers lost their farms in 1924, demonstrating just how bad the agricultural crisis was.

Given the economic difficulties they faced in the South, hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved to the North in a mass migration that's become known as the Great Migration.

However, when they arrived in cities in the North, African Americans often found that they could only secure work in low-paid jobs.

And some companies had all white policies when hiring workers.

So discrimination stood out as a key issue that still hurt their quality of life.

So let's make sure our understanding of what we've just heard is really secure.

We have a statement on the screen that reads discrimination was the only reason why African Americans struggled economically in the 1920s.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false, but we need to be able to justify our answer.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that most African Americans lived in the agricultural South, so suffered as farming declined.

The second says that most African Americans lived in the industrialised North, so suffered as factory production declined.

Which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct justification was A.

most African Americans lived in the agricultural South during the 1920s, so as farming declined, this had a disproportionately negative impact on African Americans.

And finally, we can think about the experiences of recent immigrants during the boom years.

Recent immigrants were mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Partly because of this, they faced intolerance once they arrived in the USA.

They often lived in ghettos, such as little Italy in New York, they worked long hours for low pay as they were exploited by workers who knew they were desperate to make some type of income, and they were even targeted by terror groups such as the KKK.

Recent immigrants were also targeted during the Red Scare, disrupting their ability to make a living in the USA.

In fact, 556 recent immigrants were deported after the Palmer Raids in 1919 and 1920, as they were accused of being anarchists and communists, groups who the US authorities said held un-American ideas.

The Sacco and Vanzetti case of 1921 also demonstrates how immigrants could be targeted, as during the case two Italian-born men, Sacco and Vanzetti, were given unfair biassed treatment by the judge and were ultimately executed for a crime that many people doubted that they had committed at all.

So, thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

Intolerance and discrimination led to many recently arrived immigrants living in blank like Little Italy in New York.

So what's the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was ghettos.

Intolerance and discrimination led to many recently arrived immigrants living in ghettos like Little Italy in New York.

So let's just remind ourselves of the two interpretations we saw earlier in the lesson.

They both offered views on experiences of prosperity during the boom years in the USA.

Interpretation A had said that, "The 1920s "provided new opportunities for Americans.

"Women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves; "rising car ownership was just one sign of this." Whereas, Interpretation B had said, "Many Americans were left behind during the boom.

"For many minority groups, "there was little new wealth to celebrate.

"Whole regions like the South failed to enjoy "the type of growth enjoyed in the North." So keeping those interpretations in mind, we're ready to put all of our knowledge into practise.

I want you to provide three examples which support the views given in Interpretation A and three examples which support the views given in Interpretation B.

These examples are gonna have to come from your own knowledge of the experience of different groups of Americans during the 1920s.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all your hard effort on that task.

So I asked you to provide three examples which support the views given in Interpretation A and three examples which support the views given in Interpretation B.

Your answers may have included for Interpretation A that average wages rose by 20% in the 1920s, that female employment increased by 25% between 1920 and 1929, and that radio ownership rose from 60,000 in 1921 to 10 million by 1929.

For Interpretation B, you may have given the following examples, female cotton weavers were paid $3 less per week than male colleagues; that 600,000 farmers, many in the South, lost their farms in 1924 alone; and that many recent immigrants could only find housing in ghettos like Little Italy.

So really well done for all of your work on that task, especially if you were able to get some particularly specific factual details in as your examples.

So now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson for the day, where we are gonna focus on evaluating interpretations.

Historians often have to evaluate interpretations.

This involves considering how convincing the views in those interpretations are.

To evaluate an interpretation, a historian must compare its views to their own contextual knowledge, what we already know.

This allows a historian to consider how accurate and representative the views in an interpretation may be.

By comparing an interpretation to their contextual knowledge, historians might conclude that the views in an interpretation are accurate and therefore convincing, inaccurate and therefore not very convincing, subjective or partial, i.

e.

, only representing the views or experiences of specific people or groups, and so not completely convincing.

So, thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to write the missing words from the following sentence.

Historians can compare the views in an interpretation to their own blank, blank, to evaluate how convincing they are.

Keep in mind that exam questions may ask you to use what our missing words are, too.

For example, they might say something like, explain your answer using Interpretations A and B and your blank, blank.

So pause the video here, write what you think the missing words are, and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, so well done to everybody who said that the missing words were contextual knowledge.

Historians can compare the views in an interpretation to their own contextual knowledge to evaluate how convincing they are.

So Interpretation A is shown below.

the interpretation offers a view on experiences of prosperity during the boom years.

We've already seen it earlier in today's lesson.

Now, if we were to evaluate Interpretation A, we might come up with a response like Lucas's, where he says, "Interpretation A is convincing "because it emphasises how many Americans "enjoyed new work opportunities "and rising incomes in the 1920s.

"For example, it says women and men alike "had more money to enjoy themselves.

"This view is supported by the fact "that not only did overall unemployment fall from 5% to 3% "between 1920 and 1929, "but female employment rose by 25% in that same period.

"This suggests that there was widespread experience "of new prosperity due to growing work opportunities "across the USA." So Lucas's evaluation represents a very strong response to the interpretation, and we're gonna think about exactly why it's so strong.

For one, Lucas begins his evaluation by summarising the views in Interpretation A.

Lucas also provides a quote from the interpretation to support the summary of its view.

Then what's really important is Lucas moves on to offering his own contextual knowledge, offers factual details that relate to the view offered in Interpretation A.

And then to really make sure that Lucas is evaluating the interpretation, the end of his response makes sure that he explains why the contextual knowledge he provided is relevant.

He talks about the fact that if unemployment fell from 5% to 3% and that female employment rose by 25%, it's explained that that means we can see there was widespread experience in new prosperity, which is the same conclusion as the view offered in the source.

So it's important, when you're evaluating an interpretation, that you summarise the view of the interpretation, provide a quote to back up your summary, but then that you move on to compare it to your own knowledge and explain how your own knowledge either supports or challenges the view in that interpretation.

So, let's check our understanding of what we've just heard.

What should historians do when providing contextual knowledge to evaluate an interpretation? Should they explain what quotes for the interpretation mean, list as many facts and details as they know about the topic in the question, or selectively provide examples which are relevant to the view in the interpretation? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

So let's just remind ourselves of our two interpretations that we've been looking at throughout this lesson.

Both interpretations offer views on experiences of prosperity during the boom years in the USA.

Interpretation A said that "The 1920s provided new opportunities for Americans.

"Women and men alike had more money to enjoy themselves; "rising car ownership was just one sign of this." Interpretation B said, "Many Americans were left behind during the boom.

"For many minority groups, "there was little new wealth to celebrate.

"Whole regions like the South "failed to enjoy the type of growth enjoyed in the North." So, thinking about these interpretations, I want you to write one paragraph to explain why Interpretation B's view could be considered convincing.

Explain your answer based on your contextual knowledge and what it says in the interpretation.

And then once you've done that, I want you to answer the following question.

Which interpretation, A or B, gives the more convincing opinion about prosperity in the USA during the boom years? You'll write one paragraph to explain your judgement for this question.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all your hard work on that task.

So firstly, I asked you to write one paragraph to explain why interpretation B's view could be considered convincing.

Your answer may have included: "Interpretation B is convincing, "as it highlights the uneven prosperity "experienced in America during the boom years.

"The interpretation says that for many minority groups "there was little new wealth to celebrate.

"The experience of African Americans "and recent immigrants supports this view.

"Many African Americans worked on farms in the South, "so suffered badly from poverty "as thousands of farms began to close during the 1920s.

"In northern cities, discrimination meant that "many recent immigrants could only secure exploitative jobs, "where they worked long hours for low pay." So if your own answer looks something similar to that model for question one, really well done.

And then for the second part of task C, I asked you which interpretation, A or B, gives the more convincing opinion about prosperity in the USA during the boom years, and asked you to write one paragraph to explain your judgement.

So, your answer could have included: "Both Interpretation A and B offer views, "which are correct, depending upon which groups in the USA "a historian chooses to focus on.

"Although the average worker, movie stars, "and other groups enjoyed good employment "and rising incomes, "it is also clear that many in the USA, "including millions of African Americans, "faced economic struggle, "as these groups who struggled during the boom years "made up a significant proportion of the overall population.

"Interpretation B's view that economic gains "and prosperity were uneven and left behind many Americans "seems more convincing than Interpretation A's emphasis "on widespread prosperity." So, again, really well done if your own response looks something like that model, which we've just seen there.

So now we've reached the end of our lesson for today, which puts us in a good position to summarise our learning.

We've seen that overall the amount of people in work in the USA increased during the 1920s, and many people had more money to spend.

Not all people shared the same experience of the boom, though.

Individual backgrounds affected experiences.

Groups such as women and African Americans often experience less economic improvement than white men because of discrimination.

And areas like the North of the USA experienced more growth than the mostly agricultural South.

So really well done for all of your effort during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through the resources and to think together about how the lives of Americans were impacted by the boom.