Which busted industry, in your opinion, had the greatest effect on the American people? Why? Using what you have learnt, write an essay backing up your view. Article:Background: Though many American industries were booming in the 1920s, there were several that did not share in this prosperity. These were the traditional clothing industry, the coal industry and the ship-building industry. Booming industries The motorcar industry boomed as did the glass, steel, rubber and leather industries as all of these materials were needed to construct the Ford Model Ts. The manufacturing of household goods also was a growing industry. Radios, vacuum cleaners, fridges and telephones sold in their millions as Americans just had to buy them in order to keep up with the times and the Joneses. Rayon, the new cheap substitute for silk boomed. In 1900 only 12 000 silk stockings were sold, but in 1930 after the creation of rayon, over 300 million were sold to an estimated female population of 100 million. Busted industries The traditional clothing and textile industries suffered due to the production of new synthetic materials such as rayon, a cheap substitute for the expensive silk stockings which made “silk” clothing available to everyone. The coalmining industry experienced an extreme decline because of electricity and oil, the two new and more efficient sources of energy used to power homes and motorcars. As the workers in the coalmining industry were often highly underpaid too, there were many strikes. Shipbuilding also dropped as the US’s trading with other nations fell due to the lack of overseas trade. As the USA raised her import tariffs, so did the European countries. Eventually, neither country could afford to import the other’s goods . Therefore there was no need for cargo ships. Americans did not travel either as they could not afford it or were uninterested in it. A Ford Model T motorcar The farming industry i Europe stopped importing American food, partly because they could not afford it after the devastation of WWI and partly because the US tariffs made it impossible for them to export their goods to the USA. The American farmers were also battling with the competition from the extremely efficient Canadian wheat farmers. The fact that the USA’s population growth was slowing down due to changes in lifestyle and family planning did not help either. The underlying cause of all these problems was the enormous scale of overproduction, caused by new machinery and fertilisers, resulting in unwanted surplus crops. Therefore, Farmers were unable to sell all their produce.