After the First World War Woodrow Wilson wanted to play a part in shaping the peace. He came up with '14 points', one of them was the idea of a 'League of Nations', and he wanted USA to play a leading role in world politics. Unfortunately his political position was already weak, the American senate was worried that this would permanently involve USA in European affairs and rejected the treaties, meaning that they never joined the League of Nations. This helped the American Economy as they did not have to spend money on armed forces - there was no threat to them because of the natural barriers of the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. They also had Mexico to the South and Canada to the North, both friendly countries, which left money for new industries, effectively putting America first.

This leads on to the American governments views on how the extra money put toward new businesses was used.

The attitudes of the American government towards business and industry

The attitudes of the American government was to give the business leaders a

Ø 'America in the 1920's' by JT Patterson

People who were not a 'WASP' were not treated equally, an example of this would be Sacco and Vanzetti. They were Italian immigrants accused of murdering two men during a robbery in 1920. The evidence against them was inconclusive but the judge was biased and described the as "Wops" and "those anarchist bastards". The two men were executed by electric chair on the 24/8/1927.

During the 1920's, everyone saw the profits to be gained by investing in the stock market, between 1923-1926 share prices rose by 54% representing the response of the stock market to the high earnings in the industry. A large upward surge in the stock market began in 1927 and the boom was out of control by 1929. The average price of shares increased by nearly 300%

There was a great increase in hire purchase, in 1920 three out of four radios were bought this way also over half of all cars and furniture were bought on hire purchase.

Levels of investment, unemployment and wages, buying 'on credit'.

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Approximate Word count = 1473
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)