The greatest boom was in consumer goods e.g. cars (where nearly 27 million were registered in the USA), refrigerators, radios, cookers, telephones etc. Ordinary people were encouraged through advertising to buy these goods and many could now afford what had been luxuries before the war. The reason for this was that they earned higher wages because of the boom. Another reason was hire purchase, which was a new system, which was introduced. This meant that people could spread the cost over months and even years. But the main reason was that goods had become cheaper, for example in 1908 the average cost of a car was $850 and in 1925 the average cost of a car was $290.This was because of mass production methods used to produce many consumer goods. Assembly lines were built in factories and each worker concentrated on one small job only. The most famous example of this method was Henry Ford's factory, which was automatic as machines mainly built the cars. Since mass production and machines were introduced, one Model T car was produced every ten seconds. The boom in the car trade also lead to an upturn in related industries such as glass, rubber, steel and road construction. So as a result most Americans enjoyed a high standard of living. Food was plentiful and cheap thanks to the surplus amount produced on American farms. More and more people bought their own houses through mortgages.
They filled them with all kinds of consumer goods and parked their new cars in the garage. But the 1920’s boom was also the great age of popular entertainment. In the theatres and speakeasies, people were entertained by, singers and jazz and dance bands. The period is called the "Jazz Age". Radio stations popped up from all over America.
Above all it was the age of the cinema as the end of the 1920s sold 100 million cinema tickets each week. Thousands of black and white silent films were made in America in the 1920s, especially in Hollywood, which became the capital of the industry. Actors and actresses like Charlie Chaplin and Rudolf Valentino became stars and were known all over the world. The end of the 1920s had introduced sound and colour and in 1928 the first talkie was made, The Jazz Singer. Many people had enough spare cash to invest in stocks and shares. They often made a lot more money, because as industry's profits went up, so did the price of shares. This is called speculation and many people tried it, often using borrowed money. As the price of shares eventually began to fall and then collapsed, leaving many bankrupt.
In conclusion the 1920’s boom in America was a time of peace and prosperity and created jobs for people, and so lowering the unemployment rate. It was a time when America was economically stable, different cultures emerged such as the Hollywood movie (‘talkies’), jazz music and drinking. Generally everyone was happy at the current state in which the USA was.
