Post WWI Science: Einstein and Relativity

• The postwar period following World War I was a time of uncertainty, invention, and creativity. Trends in physics, psychiatry, art, literature, communication, music, and transportation continue to influence modern life.
• The horrors of World War I shattered the Enlightenment belief in continued progress and reason. People questioned traditional beliefs and embraced new scientific developments. Technological improvements in transportation and communication and unconventional ideas in literature, philosophy, and music also emerged.

A New Revolution in Science

• Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud's ideas greatly impacted the 20th century. They were part of a scientific revolution comparable to Copernicus and Galileo.

Impact of Einstein's Theory of Relativity

• Albert Einstein, a German-born physicist, introduced ideas about space, time, energy, and matter. He theorized that the speed of light is constant, while space and time are relative. Relative motion is the key, the theory of relativity.
• Einstein's ideas had implications beyond science, challenging Isaac Newton's view of a world with absolute laws of motion and gravity.

Influence of Freudian Psychology

• Austrian physician Sigmund Freud's ideas were also revolutionary. He believed human behavior is largely irrational and stems from unconscious drives.
• Freud's theories weakened faith in reason but gained widespread influence by the 1920s.

Literature in the 1920s

• World War I led writers and philosophers to question accepted ideas about reason and progress. Disillusionment led to doubts about religious beliefs, expressed through disturbing visions of the present and future.
• T.S. Eliot wrote about Western society's lost spiritual values.
• William Butler Yeats conveyed a sense of impending dark times.
• Franz Kafka wrote novels about people trapped in threatening situations. James Joyce gained attention for his stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses.
• Some thinkers turned to existentialism, and Jean Paul Sartre believed life has no universal meaning. Each creates it through choices and actions.

Writers of the "Lost Generation"

• Many American writers, musicians, and painters, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, left the United States to live in Europe during the 1920s, seeking meaning in life.

Revolution in the Arts

• New directions in painting and music started before World War I but evolved afterward.
• Artists rebelled against realistic styles and sought to depict emotion and imagination.
• Expressionist painters like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky used bold colors and distorted forms.
• Inspired by African art, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso founded Cubism in 1907.
• Surrealism, inspired by Freud's ideas, sought to link the world of dreams with real life, with artists aiming to tap into the unconscious mind.
• The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky used irregular rhythms and dissonances.
• Arnold Schoenberg rejected traditional harmonies and musical scales.
• Jazz emerged in the United States, developed by musicians, mainly African Americans.

Society Challenges Convention

• World War I disrupted traditional social patterns, leading to a new sense of individual freedom during the 1920s.
• Women abandoned restrictive clothing and hairstyles.
• They wore shorter garments, cut their hair, and wore makeup. They also drove, drank, and smoked in public. As the number of women seeking new careers in medicine, education, journalism, and other professions increased
• Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman spoke in favor of birth control.

Technological Advances Improve Life

• Scientists developed new drugs and medical treatments, while wartime technological advances improved transportation and communication. Cars now had electric starters, air-filled tires, and more powerful engines.
• The use of automobiles increased for average families, leading to lifestyle changes like traveling for pleasure and moving to the suburbs.
• International air travel emerged, with Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927 capturing world attention, and most major airlines were established during the 1920s.

Radio and Movies Dominate Popular Entertainment

• Guglielmo Marconi's radio experiments led to the real first public radio station of KDKA in Pittsburgh began broadcasting.
• Motion pictures became a major industry.
• Charlie Chaplin became famous during this time.
• Advances in transportation and communication brought the world closer, depending on the economic well-being of major nations.

A Worldwide Depression

• An economic depression in the United States spread globally and lasted for a decade. Social and economic programs were introduced worldwide to combat the Great Depression and are still operating to this day.
• By the late 1920s, European nations were rebuilding war-torn economies with U.S. loans; however, the U.S. economy had weaknesses and the most severe economic downturn the world had been created.

Postwar Europe

• World War I left every major European country nearly bankrupt and Europe's domination in world affairs dwindled after the war.

Unstable New Democracies

• Europe's absolute rulers were overthrown after World War 1 and new governments were formed.
• Many citizens lacked experience in representative government and coalition governments, being alliances of several parties, were needed in order to form a parliamentary majority. Coalition seldom lasted long due to a lack of agreement from parties
• The weaknesses of coalition governments became a major problem in times of crisis and voters then sacrificed democratic government.

The Weimar Republic

• Germany's new democratic government set up in 1919, called the Weimar Republic, had weaknesses: a lack of democratic tradition, multiple political parties, and the blame from Germans who considered it responsible for the country's defeat.
• Germany printed money to pay for the war, leading to the mark's diminished value and causing severe inflation.
• Germany recovered from the 1923 inflation thanks to the Dawes Plan; by 1929, German factories produced as much as they had before the war.
• Prosperity led the minister of Germany into improving relations with France., they signed a treaty that France and Germany agreed on.

Financial Collapse

• In the late 1920s, American economic prosperity sustained the world economy, but its weakening caused the whole world's economic system to collapse in 1929. Wealth was not evenly distributed in the U.S.
• By 1929, factories produced half of the world's goods, however, families were too poor to buy the goods being sold. Store owners eventually cut back their orders from factories and factories then reduced production and laid off workers.

Stock Market Crash

• Overproduction affected American farmers. Farmers could not may they pay off the bank loans from crop profits and they caused the unpaid debts weakened banks and forced some to close.
• By September 1929, panic caused stock price to plummet. Prices plunged to a new low on Tuesday, October 29, with a record 16 million stocks sold, and the market collapsed.

The Great Depression

• Unemployment rose, factory production was cut in half, thousands of businesses failed, and banks closed; by 1933, one-fourth of all American workers had no jobs.
• Since American bankers were worried due to the depression, they demanded and pulled European loans. The U.S. Congress placed high taxes on goods that were supposed to stay in the U.S.

Effects Throughout the World

• The United States put a high tariff on imported. Many other countries put more expensive tariffs themselves which was a chain reaction. American loans and investments left German and Austrian hard hit, Austria's largest bank failed. In Asia, and in Latin America. crops had dramatically fallen because of U.S. and European demand.

The World Confronts the Crisis

• Each country met the Depression in a certain way.

Britain Takes Steps to Improve Its Economy

• Britain elected a multiparty coiliton. British voters elected the National Government and measures were put in place to encourage industrial growth. Unemployment decreased and production had risen, Britain avoided political extremes and preserved democracy.

France Responds to Economic Crisis

• The economic crisis affected political status., governments were falling like dominoes. So moderates/supporters had created a coalition, helping workers out. Although France preserved Democratic government at the time, unemployment became high.

Socialist Governments Find Solutions

• Socialist governments, such as Sweden, created cooperative community action to help each other out by building back up their economy. Sweden had also sponsored public works projects to allow workers to keeps working and producing. Taxes were raised on all citizens and Democracy remained intact.

Recovery in the United States

• The United States elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would give confidence to people and rebuild their nation.
• The New Deal did reform the American economy. The government would spend more to implement action and create jobs. The New Deal would also establish the country's faith and defeat bodily dissability.