Auto industry vital for 0s prosperity

The USA was a very big country with a vast population and it had a larger and growing home market. It had all of its raw materials within the country itself, ad so did not rely on trade. It had many new industries and technology such as cars and telephones for its country which had adopted a new phase in which Americans changed their state of mind from saving their money for a rainy day, to spending the money now to make their homes look better and be full of consumer goods.

America’s Agriculture was very efficient too with the farmers producing more then they could sell. The 1920�s boom was created by several factors. The presidents of the twenties were all Republicans who supported business and the stock market.. They brought in lower tax rates and raised tariffs on foreign goods so they could not compete with American business. The presidents actually let people grow trusts so people could have whole responsibility over one sector of business such as oil or coal.

Woodrow Wilson had fought against this before but the republicans thought it brought prosperity

America’s economy had not suffered from World War One; in fact it had been strengthened by trading arms and lending money to the allies. America also sold many foodstuffs. America itself kept itself cut off from thr worlds affairs at the moment, including the war and trading until the world war started. Then it also took over Germany’s chemical industries that Germany had to give up.

America made an immense amount of money at this point.

For the first time items like cars and refrigerators were available and affordable to the middles classes and secondary industries such as advertising became very profitable. There was a change in the ideas and actions of society. People could afford to enjoy their leisure time and the leisure industries also boomed. Mass production started with the high demand for products, such as Ford cars, that people could now afford. The demand was much greater and more had to be made in less time than ever before, and this resulted unemployed people being hired. In turn, they were paid a much higher wage and could afford to spend more, on items like Ford cars. People’s standard of living increased greatly, as they were able to spend their money on extras like motor cars, fridges, radios and vacuum cleaners. Share prices rose and rose as businesses made more profits, and the workers had more income to invest in the stock market. People spent money as quickly as they got it. The motor industry was greatly benefited by the Boom as the amount of car sales, and so cars the roads rose. This meant jobs were created in building cars, building roads, building roadside diners and advertising; a tertiary industry. People also needed to spend their money. Department stores and supermarkets were popular places to go, and as they became increasingly popular larger and larger stores were made. Advertising started to play a more important part with these new products and places requiring publicity in increasingly competitive markets. The cars also meant people could live on the edge of the suburbs so it created jobs for builders etc. People were a lot happier with the cars.

Arguments

The whole concept of automobiles all linked in with happiness which was basically achieved by having a lot of consumer goods in your home and having a lot of money and a good job. Having an automobile meant that people could live on suburbs, where there was a lot of space and where land cost less, so houses were bigger. This was also one of the aims of a person. Automobiles meant people could live here in bigger homes, so already one of person’s wishes of prosperity had been filled. Cars also meant that more jobs were created, partly because the cars needed to be created and also the new houses to be built by the suburbs needed builders, and so many new jobs were created there. With this people could earn more money and buy more consumer goods and be led into a life of prosperity. If the car industry went down, there would be not many other roots to get jobs or money and so the prosperity would be eliminated. Cars were also a consumer good themselves. This made people happy too as their life dreams were of having a big house – achieved by living on the suburbs, having a nice job – done by making cars or building houses, plenty to eat – done by getting money from jobs and being able to buy lots of consumer goods, which was bought with money generated.

However, If the automobile had not been invented, people would have found another way to reach prosperity, such as going to the suburbs anyway, but actually opening op a community job somewhere closer to their home in the suburbs. Naturally other people hoping to reach prosperity would follow their lead and go there too, so a community would form and people could start jobs there, get goods into the suburbs and then start work there to earn more money to reach prosperity in a different but harder way. Looking at source 11, There are a few places with iron, oil and coal mining. If some of these locations were suburban, people could dig up raw materials and actually produce consumer goods. Other jobs could also have been used to make money in order to reach prosperity.

Conclusion

Prosperity could only be reached in certain ways. The main ways were to have a big house, lots of money so you could buy food and consumer goods and to have a good job. The invention of the Automobile meant that all of these could be satisfied. If someone bought a car, it would mean they could live on the suburbs, where land is plentiful and cheap. If more and more people want to go and live there, then builders are needed to build the houses for the people to settle in. also when the car itself was originally built, workers were needed to build it, so a lot of employment took place there. All of this employment now means that people can earn money and buy food and lots of consumer goods as well as having good jobs, all of the needs are fulfilled and therefore prosperity is reached. A car used to be able to achieve all of this, but without cars it could also be achieved but not easily and quickly. It would have taken time for people to realize and also people would not be willing to do it. If a family moved to the suburbs, other families would follow because many big houses could be built there. If this was achieved builders would follow to get jobs to build the actual houses. This is all assuming that the other rich people would follow. Soon a community might have developed and then jobs could have started. Also there were other industries available with jobs. These included iron, steel and coal as well as oil. These provided limited jobs however; so many people did not get jobs here.

The main point is that without cars it would not have been easy or sometimes possible to reach prosperity, because some demands of prosperity of people were quite high, including having a big house, which would only be possible in suburban areas as land is plentiful there. Without cars, living there would not be a possibility, so one of the demands could not be met, so prosperity could never fully be met.

Using these ideas, I have reached the conclusion that I agree with the statement. Prosperity would have been possible but very scarcely, because of lack of jobs and fulfilling of peoples wishes of life.