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Economic Prosperity:

The 1920s began with a post-World War I economic boom. The U.S. emerged as a major industrial and economic power.

The concept of mass production and assembly lines, pioneered by Henry Ford, revolutionized the manufacturing process, making products more affordable.

The Roaring Twenties:

The decade was known as the "Roaring Twenties" due to the cultural exuberance, jazz music, and lively social scenes in cities like New York and Chicago.

The flapper culture emerged, challenging traditional gender norms with women adopting more liberated lifestyles.

Prohibition:

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution introduced Prohibition in 1920, making the production and sale of alcohol illegal. This led to the rise of illegal bars known as speakeasies and increased organized crime.

Stock Market Boom:

The stock market experienced significant growth during the 1920s, and many Americans invested in the market, often buying stocks on margin (using borrowed money).

Great Migration:

The Great Migration saw a large number of African Americans moving from the rural South to urban areas in the North, seeking better economic opportunities and fleeing racial discrimination.

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The Great Depression:

The stock market crashed in 1929, leading to the Great Depression, the most severe economic downturn in U.S. history.

Unemployment soared, banks failed, and many people lost their homes and savings.

New Deal:

In response to the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, a series of programs and reforms aimed at addressing economic hardships, unemployment, and poverty.

Programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided jobs and public works projects.

Dust Bowl:

A severe drought combined with poor land management practices led to the Dust Bowl in the Midwest, causing widespread agricultural devastation and forcing many farmers to migrate to other regions.

Social Changes:

The Depression prompted a reevaluation of social structures and economic policies. Labour movements gained momentum, and there were calls for increased government intervention in the economy.

Rise of Totalitarianism:

Internationally, the 1930s saw the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan, setting the stage for World War II.

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The Great Depression - 5 Minute History Lesson

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For many, the 1920s was a time of excess, of extremes. It was Flappers, Jazz, and speakeasies; it was the Roaring Twenties. At the other end of the spectrum, however, Jim Crow and racism kept the nation segregated, and for many farmers the Great Depression had already essentially begun.

Steinbeck's writings chronicled a disappearing way of life. His major works set in the 1920s and 1930s examine the lives of people in rural, agrarian settings. But the frontier had been declared officially closed by the 1890 census and the census of 1920 found that the urban population had finally surpassed the rural population. The nation was becoming more and more industrialized, mechanized, and urban - trends that had widespread effects on the lives of Americans.

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Economy

World War I (1914-1918) put the American economy into high gear. Even prior to the United States joining the war, the nation was producing and exporting materiel of war for sale to, primarily, the Allied Powers. With America's entrance into the war in 1917, the economy became even more engulfed in wartime production. Factories output more weapons, mechanical parts, gunpowder, clothing for uniforms, and much more. Farmers purchased more land, expanded their farms, and produced large amounts of food and cotton to supply the demands of the war in Europe.

After the war this new, highly demanding market disappeared and the economy took a brief downturn. Factories that had been producing weapons and other materials no longer had a large demand to supply. Workers were laid off as industries downscaled and refocused on peacetime production. Farmers who had been producing massive amounts of crops for the war suddenly were left holding more than they could sell. Crop prices plummeted and unemployment was on the rise; the country was in a recession.

For farmers, this trend was made worse during the Twenties by a variety of manmade and natural factors. Overproduction on the land during the war years depleted the soil, making it less productive. Meanwhile, the decade saw droughts that made matters worse for farmers; these conditions would, unfortunately, continue to worsen until the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. With post war prices so low, many farmers lost their land when they could no longer keep up with their loan payments. Banks repossessed farmland and sold it, often, to large agribusiness operations. Family-owned farms worked by man and horse power were replaced by absentee landowners and tractors. This trend worsened during the Great Depression and is seen most starkly in the travails of the Joad Family in The Grapes of Wrath.

While farmers suffered throughout the 1920s, manufacturing rebounded in 1922 and continued to grow and prosper throughout the decade. This is seen most clearly in the automobile industry. The moving assembly line made manufacturing quicker and more productive, allowing automobiles to become less expensive and easier to purchase.

1921 Ford Model T

Ford's Model T, priced at $260 in 1920, became a car that working class families could afford. More manufacturing jobs meant more people in the workforce who could purchase those automobiles. The industry boomed, creating millions of jobs in related industries including steel, oil, highway construction, tourism, and more. Traveling by automobile was a newfound freedom for millions of Americans, one that allowed them to travel to destinations on their own schedule - and to places where the railroad did not go. This ability to pick up and travel at will would become essential to the migration of millions of people heading west, fleeing the Dust Bowl in the early 1930s.

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Social

The 1920s were a time of liberation for many. Women, after nearly a century of concerted effort, had finally won the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Millions of young men returned from fighting in Europe; they had seen the world and returned to find that life in rural America no longer interested them. Also, with the agricultural economy in such shambles, there was little hope for many young men returning home to life on a farm. Many moved to urban areas for opportunities, both economic and social.

Industrialization had been drawing young adults from rural farming areas into the urban, industrial working environments for decades; the process was accelerated by the war effort. Although Rosie the Riveter and World War II are generally thought of as the time when women joined the workforce in large numbers, this had been going on since the textile mills of the 19th century, and World War I accelerated the process. African Americans also joined the industrial workforce. Millions of African Americans left the South in what is known as The Great Migration, heading north and west to urban areas. This urban and industrial growth was enhanced when soldiers returned from the war, many of whom did not return to their rural roots. The 1920s saw a large population of young adults in urban areas with income to spend and relative freedom from their parents' watchful eyes.

Carroll Dickerson's Jazz Floor Show, Chicago, 1924

For them, the 1920s was a time of liberation, consumption, and excitement; a time of Jazz, Flapper dresses, and the speakeasy: The Roaring Twenties.

For African Americans the 1920s helped to give more momentum to the steadily building Civil Rights Movement. Many men fought in the war and helped to push the German army out of France. They were treated as heroes by the French people, but they fought in units segregated by race. Back home in the United States, Jim Crow continued to reign. When they returned home, these war heroes were again treated like second class citizens. The larger world called out to them, as did opportunities in large American cities, especially in the North where racism was less extreme. They joined a growing population of African Americans who had migrated out of the South for war time jobs.

Whether they moved out of the South or not, African Americans encountered rampant racism. Jim Crow still gripped the South, but the North was only better by comparison. Lynchings were still a reality across the nation. One of the last public lynchings occurred in San Jose, California in 1933, inspiring Steinbeck's "The Vigilante," published in The Long Valley. Although the lynching in San Jose was of two white men believed to have kidnapped and murdered the oldest son of a prominent San Jose family, the victim in "The Vigilante" was a black man.

Whether or not Steinbeck was making a larger point about racism and lynching, his choice reflects the broader image that black men were most often the targets of lynching. Steinbeck touches this issue again in Of Mice and Men with the character Crooks. The threat of lynching was a tangible fear to black men who dared to step "out of line" or who were successful in business. The civil rights and women's rights crusader Ida B. Wells was a prominent leader in the Anti-Lynching movement from the 1890s to her death in the 1931. Her pamphlets and speeches spoke of the realities of lynching and its use as a way to keep African Americans beneath whites.

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California and the West

Migration west continued throughout the 1920s. California in particular drew people chasing the American Dream. Land was still cheap during the Twenties and agriculture was still a growing business. Whether you were looking for work or to establish yourself as a farmer, California was an attractive destination.

California's economy depended heavily on migration. Land speculation and boosterism drew people to the state looking to start fresh and to make it big. Migrants came from the East and the South, but also from outside the United States. Filipino immigrants came to California in large numbers during the Twenties, mostly to work as farm laborers. Agribusiness was on the rise across the nation's farmland, and nowhere was this more prominent than in California. Agribusiness-friendly

Growers Associations would often use Filipino laborers instead of the more expensive white migrants - especially those that attempted to organize unions. This led to racial tension between whites and Filipinos in California that grew to a violent head in the 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike.

Further drawing migrants to California was the oil boom that took place during the 1920s. The oil industry exploded in the Los Angeles area. By 1923, California became the leading producer of oil, bringing more jobs and wealth into the state. As a result, Los Angeles grew rapidly and widely. The automobile made it possible for people to live further from work and the congested city centers. Suburbs sprawled inland, making Los Angeles County the wide-spread network of suburbs and highways that it still is today.

Signal Hill, Long Beach, CA, 1931

Along with migrants into the state came tourists, drawn to California's beaches and weather. The growing highway system and the freedom of the automobile fueled the tourist industry in California. But this economic growth, based on leisure time, consumption, and a surplus of jobs, made California particularly vulnerable to the effects of the Great Depression looming just around the corner. When the Stock Market crashed in 1929 and the Dust Bowl decimated the livelihood of farmers in the Midwest, leisure time and spending money dried up while millions of Dust Bowl refugees poured into the state, flooding the labor market and driving down wages.

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1920 - 1930 | John Steinbeck's Historical Context

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For many, the 1920s was a time of excess and extremes. It was Flappers, Jazz, and speakeasies. However, Jim Crow and racism kept the nation segregated...

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Soledad, California

The majority of the story Of Mice and Men takes place on a ranch in Soledad, California. The action is presented in only four settings at the riverbed, in the bunk house, Crooks' room, and the barn which lends to the dramatic quality of the text.

Salinas Riverbank

The story begins and ends at the Salinas riverbank a few miles outside of the ranch where George and Lennie start working. George and Lennie camp there for the night prior to moving on to the ranch in the morning. Readers are introduced to the men's dream of owning a plot of land there for the first time. George also forebodingly instructs Lennie to return to the riverbank in case he gets into any trouble. While at the beginning of the story the space represents hope in the American Dream, it comes to represent the shattering of that hope as George must shoot Lennie there in order to protect him from Curley's wrath at the end of the story.

The Bunk House

Lennie, George, and the rest of the ranch workers, except for Crooks, live in the bunk house. There the men make an attempt at creating some sort of home life and bonding with one another. The bunk house also serves as a symbol of elite masculinity is the text as outsiders such as the feminine Curley's wife and the African-American Crooks are usually barred entry. The men are quite antsy and desire Curley's wife to leave immediately when she makes an appearance. Steinbeck also reveals that Crooks has only been admitted into the bunk house for a holiday celebration.

Crooks Room/The Barn

Living in seclusion in a small, isolated room, Crooks lives a bitter and lonely life in the barn, which is a dark and foreboding place in the story. A critical conversation takes place there between Crooks and Lennie that reveals to readers how heavily solitude and loneliness can weigh on a person. That Crooks is forced to live in the barn with the animals also demonstrates his society's view of African-Americans as subhuman, more fit to dwell with the animals in the barn than in the bunk house with men during the time period. Finally, Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife in the barn at the end of the story.

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Of Mice and Men - Setting | Steinbeck in the Schools

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The majority of the story Of Mice and Men takes place in four settings: the riverbed, the bunk house, Crooks's room, and the barn.

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The 1930s were marred by the worst economic depression in the history of the United States. Nationwide the average unemployment reached nearly 25%, but was much higher in some areas and demographics.

Politically the nation was transformed dramatically, leaving behind a much different federal government and a much stronger executive branch. The most fundamental change, however, was the social and psychological impact that the Great Depression had on people. Not everyone lost their farm in the Dust Bowl and not everyone lost their life savings following the stock market crash; the Great Depression did, however, touch everyone's life. For many, the Great Depression challenged their faith in the American Dream and created a sense of helplessness that affected them deeply.

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Causes of the Great Depression

The Stock Market Crash in 1929 is often used as a benchmark for the start of the Great Depression. Between "Black Thursday" (October 24, 1929) and "Black Tuesday" (October 29, 1929) stock prices plummeted and billions of dollars were lost by investors. Most people, however, did not have their life savings tied up in the stock market. The fallout from the crash, however, devastated the economy and drove thousands of banks into bankruptcy. The nation's economic system was trapped in a rapid downward spiral.

For farmers, the Great Depression had been creeping up on them for most of the 1920s. In the early 1930s, their struggle was made worse by a devastating series of long droughts. The extra dry conditions killed off much of the crops planted by farmers, leaving insufficient vegetation to hold the soil in place. Native grasses had developed long roots to seek out water in times of drought, roots which also served to hold the soil in place. With those grasses gone, crops dying, and the topsoil lying exposed in long furrows, strong winds were able to easily erode the land.

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The Dust Bowl

The severe drought conditions combined with farming techniques created the "perfect storm" conditions for the Dust Bowl. In 1931 great "black blizzards" began to occur. These "blizzards" were dust storms of immense proportions. The loose topsoil was whipped up and blown by the winds, leaving everything in its path coated in a fine dark silt. Massive storms picked up thousands of acres of soil and carried it all the way to the East Coast. These storms continued throughout the 1930s, displacing millions upon millions of tons of topsoil.

The Dust Bowl destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of farmers in the Great Plains region. Economically farmers had been suffering for a decade or more, the Dust Bowl made conditions even worse, pushing many into bankruptcy and foreclosure. Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the devastating effect the Dust Bowl had on the Joad family. The Joads, like hundreds of thousands of families in the region, lost their land when they couldn't repay bank loans. They were left with few choices - find work as laborers, or to move and try to find opportunity elsewhere.

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Agribusiness and Mechanized Farms

Foreclosed farmland was often sold to large landowners: agribusinesses which worked enormous tracts of land using tractors. Crops like wheat and cotton lend themselves well to mechanized planting and reaping, and tractors replaced the labor of hundreds of people. When an agribusiness took over the land of family farmers like the Joads, that land was combined with farms surrounding them which had been foreclosed on. One tractor could do the work that several families had been doing. As a result, there were few jobs available as farm laborers or tractor drivers. When the families lost their land, there was little chance that they could continue to work as farmers or laborers. The tractor had replaced them.

For several hundred thousand farmers in the Dust Bowl region, the only answer seemed to be to move - particularly out to California. Handbills, or flyers, advertised the abundance of jobs and land available in California. California agriculture relied, and still relies, on migrant farm laborers for the harvest seasons. Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men are migrant workers, traveling around California to where work was needed.

Although Lennie and George were successful in finding work by migrating across California, the Joads encountered a different scenario. The Dust Bowl drew more than 300,000 refugees into California during the 1930s. Although California farming required more labor, and therefore more people, there simply were not enough jobs available for the number of people migrating into the state. The Joads arrived in California to find that jobs were not plentiful and that opportunity was scarce. Their dream of laboring for a few months to scrape the money together to buy their own piece of land quickly fizzled away.

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Organized Labor and Strikes

Workers on Strike in CA

Agricultural workers began to unionize in the 1930s. In particular, Filipino workers in Salinas, California formed the Filipino Labor Union in 1933. In 1936 the union went on strike demanding wage increases. Their strike was brutally put down by a vigilante force organized by the local sheriff. The Salinas Lettuce Strike was a catalyst behind Steinbeck's work from 1936 to 1939. In Dubious Battle, published in 1936, is the story of labor unions struggling against California's growers' associations. More directly, Steinbeck chronicled the struggles of agricultural laborers in a series of articles called "The Harvest Gypsies" he wrote for the San Francisco News in October of 1936. "The Harvest Gypsies" was the first step in what would eventually become Steinbeck's epic novel The Grapes of Wrath.

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Welfare and "The Dole"

Prior to the New Deal, people who were "down on their luck," unemployed, or struggling did not have unemployment insurance and welfare to rely on. Local, private charities helped people in need to get back on their feet. Some cities and counties had programs to help the unemployed and homeless as well. It was taboo, however, to receive a "handout". What we would call welfare today was called "the dole" during the early 20th century. Being given money or food freely and not in return for work went against what many Americans saw as right or normal. To be reduced to asking for a handout was devastating psychologically and socially. People on the dole were looked down upon, and they looked down upon themselves as well.

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Politics

Hoover and the Great Depression

In 1928, Herbert Hoover was elected President of the United States. He was a popular choice during a time when most of the American economy was prospering. During World War I Hoover had been the head of the U.S. Food Administration and coordinated charities and food conservation to support the war effort. In the first year of his presidency, however, the stock market crashed and the country rapidly slid into economic depression. Hoover's response was guided by his belief, and experience, that private industries and charities should come to the rescue of the poor and destitute.

Hoover pushed for legislation that propped up the collapsing banking industry and increased the federal budget for public works programs. He also helped to create the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which provided federal loans to big businesses such as railroads, banks, and insurance companies. This was federal relief money directed at the top of the economic pyramid. The theory was that these loans would "prime the pump" of the economy and get it restarted. Many people were angered that relief was directed at large corporations and financial institutions, rather than directly helping the unemployed and homeless. Hoover, as a result, became the scapegoat for the Great Depression.

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FDR and the New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and served through two of the nation's most challenging periods: The Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt knew that the key to pulling the country out of the depression was action. The American people needed to know that the government was trying to help them, that they were no longer going to be left out of relief efforts. Roosevelt was not afraid to try a new program only to scrap it later if it was ineffective. Roosevelt's plans gave assistance to the helpless and hope to the despairing.

Roosevelt is perhaps most famous for the New Deal. The New Deal was a series of laws and programs passed under Roosevelt that aimed at rescuing the people from the downward spiral of the depression. Rather than only directing relief and government funding to banks, investors, and large corporations, Roosevelt's New Deal programs targeted the unemployed and farmers directly as well.

Grand Coulee Dam, Washington

Roosevelt's New Deal attacked the Great Depression in a way that was advocated by the economist John Maynard Keynes. An economic crisis the size of the Great Depression, Keynes argued, required an enormous injection of cash flow into the economy. However, so much money was needed that the only possible source was the federal government. Keynes recommended massive federal spending to reverse the Great Depression.

Later, the New Deal focused more on reforming the nation's economic system. Many regulations were put into place and organizations created to stop a future collapse of the economy. These reforms were aimed at stopping large corporations, banks, and investment firms from recreated the conditions that led to the stock market crash in 1929 and to the banking collapse that followed. But wealthy, conservative people, the very ones who the regulations targeted, hated the New Deal and Roosevelt. They often referred to FDR derisively as "that man" or "that man in the White House."

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Psychological Effects of the New Deal

Historians and economists still argue over how effective the New Deal was in rescuing the American economy. Regardless of the New Deal's economic success, Historians generally agree that psychologically the New Deal had an enormous impact. Putting people back to work gave them more than a handout, it gave them a means to be productive. It put them back on par with the rest of society. The New Deal restored the faith that hard work paid off; it gave hope to people who had lost everything, including their dignity.

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Social

New Deal programs helped to put people back to work and to lift the morale of the nation, but they did not benefit everyone equally. Women and minorities were often intentionally excluded from the work created by New Deal programs. Jobs were typically reserved for men because men were seen as the breadwinners in the family unit. When women were employed under New Deal programs, they were paid less than men.

Minorities were also marginalized by the New Deal programs. Usually, the focus was to hire white men, and when non-whites were given jobs in a New Deal project, they were typically segregated from white workers. The New Deal was a big change in the way the federal government was involved in the economy and the well-being of Americans, but it was not so great a leap forward for women and minorities.

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1930 - 1940 | John Steinbeck's Historical Context

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The 1930s were marred by the worst economic depression in the history of the United States. Nationwide the average unemployment reached nearly 25%...

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Roaring 20's, Great Depression, and WWII Timeline

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The 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol. It implemented what is otherwise known as prohibition, which satisfied the portion of the country advocating for such. However, crime associated with the smuggle of liquor was rampant and the amendment was too vague to really enforce.

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Context of Of Mice and Men - Schooling Online