America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality

What America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality covers

America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality is examined in Paper 1, Understanding the modern world. It covers the ‘Boom’, social and cultural developments, A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension, American society during the Depression, the effectiveness of the New Deal on different groups in society, the impact of the Second World War, post-war American society and economy, racial tension and developments in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s and America and the ‘Great Society'.

The 9 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• The ‘Boom’Hire purchase, Henry Ford's Model T and the moving assembly line, advertising and the new household goods, tariffs and laissez-faire, the Americans left out of the prosperity, and the buying of shares on the margin that fed the speculation of the late 1920s.Open →
• Social and cultural developmentsHollywood and the coming of sound, Charlie Chaplin, where jazz came from and Louis Armstrong, why the older generation objected, the flapper, the vote for women in 1920, and how far women's lives changed.Open →
• A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tensionProhibition and the speakeasies, Al Capone and the St Valentine's Day Massacre, why the ban ended in 1933, the immigration quotas and life for new immigrants, the Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Scare and the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.Open →
• American society during the DepressionMass unemployment and the Hoovervilles, the ruin of farmers and the Dust Bowl, the bank failures, Hoover's beliefs and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Bonus Army of 1932, and Roosevelt's promise of a New Deal and his landslide victory.Open →
• The effectiveness of the New Deal on different groups in societyThe bank shutdown, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Wagner and Social Security Acts, what black Americans and women gained, the Supreme Court clash, the critics, and the fireside chats.Open →
• The impact of the Second World WarHow war production ended unemployment, Lend Lease and the boom in exports, Rosie the Riveter and what became of women's war work, the segregated army and the Tuskegee Airmen, the Double V campaign, the migration north, and Roosevelt's order on the defence industries.Open →
• Post-war American society and economyThe prosperity of the 1950s and the GI Bill, suburbs such as Levittown and the American Dream, the people left out of the affluent society, McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist, and the rise of television and Rock and Roll.Open →
• Racial tension and developments in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960sSegregation in the South, Brown v Board of Education, Little Rock, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King's non-violence and the March on Washington, Malcolm X, Black Power, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.Open →
• America and the ‘Great Society'Kennedy's New Frontier and its limits, Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and federal money for schools, and the women's movement from Betty Friedan and the Equal Pay Act to NOW, the Equal Rights Amendment, Phyllis Schlafly and Roe v Wade.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Medicare vs Medicaid

  Medicare: help with hospital and medical bills for Americans over 65. Medicaid: federal money to the states so families on very low incomes could get treatment.

• New Frontier vs Great Society

  New Frontier: Kennedy's reform programme promising action on poverty, schooling, medical care and civil rights. Great Society: Johnson's vision of an America where federal money and law had abolished poverty and racial injustice.

• Wagner Act vs Social Security Act

  Wagner Act: 1935 law guaranteeing the right to join a trade union and bargain collectively. Social Security Act: 1935 law creating old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is meant by hire purchase?

   Model answer

   Buying goods with a small deposit and then paying the rest in weekly or monthly instalments, which let ordinary families take an expensive item home at once.

2. 2

   Which car did Henry Ford build in enormous numbers in the 1920s?

   Model answer

   The Model T, which grew cheaper year after year until around half the cars in the world were Fords.

3. 3

   How did the moving assembly line cut the cost of building a car?

   Model answer

   Each worker repeated a single simple task as the vehicle moved past, so a car took far fewer hours of labour to finish.

4. 4

   Why was advertising so important to the consumer society of the 1920s?

   Model answer

   Newspapers, magazines, billboards and radio persuaded Americans to want goods they had never owned, creating the demand that kept the factories profitable.

5. 5

   Name three new household goods that spread through American homes during the 1920s.

   Model answer

   Vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and radios.

6. 6

   What was a tariff meant to do for American industry?

   Model answer

   Taxing foreign goods made them dearer than home-produced ones, so Americans bought American and domestic firms kept the market to themselves.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality revision questions

What does America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality cover in AQA GCSE History?

9 subtopics: the ‘boom’, social and cultural developments, a divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension, american society during the depression, the effectiveness of the new deal on different groups in society, the impact of the second world war, post-war american society and economy, racial tension and developments in the civil rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s and america and the ‘great society'. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality organised?

By the AQA 8145 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.