United States Events

After WWI America was one of the only countries to prosper. Advances in technology were made and automobile could be purchased at much lower cost. They were no longer owned exclusively by the rich, but now the middle class could take part in the luxuries offered by the automobile. Some of the benefits of owning a car was traveling, families could take trips and it also allowed them to live outside of cities and commute to work. Woman also changed dramatically and shifted away from traditional stereotypes. One of these changes was that women got jobs. During WWI many women went to work in factories to support soldiers, but after the war they continued to work. They also cut their hair short, began to wear makeup and wore looser clothing.

A connection across to the booming culture of the time is how much of a staple the car is in our daily lives. We use it for the exact same reasons and many more. Think of how different your life would be if you didn't have a car. Woman are not only workers in society, they also own companies and hold high political offices. The times were good, but they almost seemed to good to be true. Sad fact of the matter was that it was to be good to be true. Hard times were just around the corner.

One of the most devastating events in American History was the Stock Market Crash in 1929. The Stock market crash was also a leading cause of the The Great Depression, when one fourth of all Americans were unemployed. The Stock Market crash was mainly due to people buying stock on margin. The large amounts of Stock people owned were essentially worthless because they bought the stock on margin. So when people started to sell, it snowballed into everyone selling at once with no buyers. The crash effected everyone from the rich to the poor. The rich closed their businesses and the poor were left without jobs when the businesses closed.

A connection across time would the current recession we are in today. Our recession is not nearly as bad as the Great Depression, but many of the same things are reoccurring over 70 years later. Of course it was much more severe, but unemployment has recently increased and businesses are in tough financial situations. Business owners' solutions are to lay people off or close that position all together. These kind of events were also present during the Great Depression.