The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression

A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

1. The Postwar Boom: Europe Rebuilds, America Rises. Europe rebuilt unevenly after 1918 as the United States became the world's leading creditor and industrial power.
2. Fordism and the Birth of Mass Consumer Society. Henry Ford's assembly line and cheap installment credit built a new economy of mass production and mass consumption.
3. The Jazz Age: Music, Women, and the New Morality. Jazz, the flapper, and the vote for women marked a generational break from prewar social norms.
4. Europe's Golden Twenties: Weimar Germany and the Années Folles. Germany's 1923 hyperinflation gave way to Stresemann's stabilization while Paris flourished in its 'années folles.'
5. Speculation and Collapse: The Wall Street Crash of 1929. Rampant margin speculation drove the US stock market to a peak, then a catastrophic crash in October 1929.
6. Structural Causes and the Global Spread of the Depression. Overproduction, fragile banks, the gold standard, and tariffs turned a crash into a decade-long global crisis.
7. America in Crisis: Banking Collapse, Unemployment, and the Dust Bowl. Banking panics, deflation, mass unemployment, and the Dust Bowl devastated American life in the early 1930s.
8. Roosevelt's New Deal and the End of the Great Depression. Roosevelt's New Deal reshaped American government, though full recovery came only with wartime mobilization.