Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, in 1929

MARIO RITTER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

The stock market crash of nineteen twenty-nine began a long and difficult period for the United States. President Herbert Hoover struggled to find solutions as the nation sank into the worst economic crisis in its history.

But the Great Depression was not the only problem demanding answers from Hoover. The president also had to deal with a number of foreign policy issues.

I'm Mario Ritter with Chris Cruise. This week in our series, we look at how the Great Depression affected relations between the United States and other countries.

(MUSIC: "Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I)"/Ray Charles)

CHRIS CRUISE: There were revolutions in South America. Japan launched a campaign of aggression in northeastern China. And the economic situation in America created serious problems in relations with Europe.

Hoover succeeded in some areas of his foreign policy. But he failed to solve America's economic troubles. And, like most Americans, he failed to recognize the importance of political changes taking place in Japan and Germany.

MARIO RITTER: Herbert Hoover's foreign policy was marked by his desire to make friends and avoid war.

Like most Americans, the new president had been shocked by World War One. Hoover had seen the results of that terrible war with his own eyes. He led the international effort to feed the many European victims of the fighting. The new president was also a Quaker, a member of the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers oppose war.

Hoover shared the wish of most Americans that the world would never again fight a major war. To him, the bloody bodies at Verdun, the Marne and the other battlefields of World War One showed the need to seek peace through negotiations.

CHRIS CRUISE: Hoover worked toward this goal even before he entered the White House.

Following his election, he had several months before becoming president. Hoover used this time to travel to Latin America for ten weeks. He wanted to show Latin American nations that they could trust the United States to honor their rights as independent nations.

Hoover kept his word. The year after he took office, his administration announced that it would recognize the governments of all Latin American countries, including governments that the United States did not like.

Hoover told the American people that he would not follow the Latin American policies of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Teddy Roosevelt decided in nineteen four that the United States had a right to intervene in Latin America if it disagreed with the actions of governments there. Hoover said this was wrong. He told the country that it was more important to use friendship than to use force.

(MUSIC)

MARIO RITTER: Hoover withdrew American forces from Nicaragua. He also arranged to withdraw them from Haiti. And he showed restraint as some fifty revolutions shook the nations of Latin America.

Some revolutionary governments opposed the United States. They refused to pay debts to American companies, or they claimed ownership of foreign property. But Hoover refused to advance American interests by force. He wanted to prove that the United States could treat Latin American nations as equals.

That policy was quite successful. Relations between the United States and Latin American countries generally improved under Herbert Hoover's leadership.

CHRIS CRUISE: The situation in Europe was much more difficult and much more serious for the United States. The problem was simple -- money. The Great Depression did not stop at America's borders. It moved to Britain, Europe and beyond. And it brought extremely hard economic conditions.

In Germany, the value of the national currency collapsed. Inflation forced people to buy goods with hundreds, thousands, even millions of German marks. They lost faith in the system. And they looked for some new leader to provide solutions.

The economic crisis also put great pressure on the international circle of debt that had been created after the war. Suddenly, American bankers could no longer make loans to Germany. This meant that Germany could not pay back war debts to France and the other Allied nations in "the war to end all wars." And without this money, the Allied nations could not repay money that they owed American banks.

The circle of debt fell apart.

(MUSIC: "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?"/Bing Crosby with Lennie Hayton and His Orchestra)

MARIO RITTER: The situation grew worse and worse throughout the early months of nineteen thirty. Hoover finally had to announce that all nations could delay their debt payments to the United States for one year.

Hoover's action did what he wanted it to. It put a temporary stop to the international debt crisis. But it caused great damage to private banks. People lost faith in the banking system.

Throughout Europe, people withdrew their money from banks. As a result, the European banks could not repay more than a billion dollars that they had borrowed from private American banks.

CHRIS CRUISE: This was not the only problem. Nations throughout Europe were also forced to take their currencies off the gold standard. This meant their money no longer could be exchanged for gold.

The economic situation grew worse. And, as it did, serious political tensions began to threaten peace in Asia and Europe.

MARIO RITTER: The threat in Asia became clear first.

Japan had defeated Russia in a war in nineteen five. This victory gave Japan control over the economy of the southern part of what was then called Manchuria, in northeastern China.

As years passed, Japan began to feel threatened by two forces. First, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek was trying to organize all of China under the control of his Nationalist forces. Second, Russia was extending the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Russian port city of Vladivostok.

Japan's army took control of the government in Tokyo in late nineteen thirty-one. The army was fearful of the growing threat to Japan's control of Manchuria. So it moved Japanese troops immediately into several Manchurian cities. And it claimed political control of the whole area.

President Hoover and most Americans strongly opposed Japan's aggression. But they were not willing to take any action that might lead to another world war.

(MUSIC)

CHRIS CRUISE: Japan's military leaders knew that the people of Europe and America had no desire to fight to protect China. And so the Japanese army marched on. It invaded the huge city of Shanghai, killing thousands of civilians.

Western leaders condemned the action. American Secretary of State Henry Stimson said the United States would not recognize Japanese control in these areas of China.

But, again, Hoover refused to consider any economic actions against the Japanese. And he strongly opposed taking any military action.

The League of Nations also refused to recognize Japan's takeover. It called Japan the aggressor in Manchuria. Japan reacted simply. It withdrew from the League of Nations.

MARIO RITTER: Most Americans were not happy about Japan's aggression. But they were not willing to fight force with force. This was less true, however, for Secretary of State Stimson.

Stimson was a follower of the old ideas of President Theodore Roosevelt. He believed a nation could only have a strong foreign policy by being strong and using its military power in times of crisis.

But Stimson's voice was in the minority. Most Americans did not believe Japan really threatened the security of the United States. And they were not ready to risk their lives to help people in China.

Opinions changed only after Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December of nineteen forty-one.

CHRIS CRUISE: The same story was true in Europe. But France was worried about the rising power of the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy and Spain. France proposed the creation of an international army.

Hoover opposed that idea. He called for all nations to reduce their weapons. He believed that negotiation, not force, was the way to solve the problem.

But the new leaders in Germany and Japan would listen much more closely to the boot steps of marching troops than to the high words of peace.

(MUSIC)

MARIO RITTER: Our program was written by David Jarmul. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at www.unsv.com. You can also follow our series on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.

I'm Mario Ritter with Chris Cruise. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #178

The son of a Depression-era refugee from Oklahoma who moved to California

BARBARA KLEIN: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.

STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember.

The stock market crash of nineteen twenty-nine marked the beginning of the worst economic crisis in American history. Millions of people lost their jobs. Thousands lost their homes.

During the next several years, a large part of the richest nation on earth learned what it meant to be poor.

Workers lost their jobs as factories closed. Business owners lost their stores and sometimes their homes. Farmers lost their land as they struggled with falling prices and natural disasters.

And Americans were not the only ones who suffered. This week in our series, we talk about the economic crisis that became the Great Depression.

(MUSIC "Creole Love Call"/Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra)

BARBARA KLEIN: One of America's greatest writers, John Steinbeck, described the depression this way:

"It was a terrible, troubled time. I can't think of any ten years in history when so much happened in so many directions. Violent change took place. Our country was shaped, our lives changed, our government rebuilt."

Steinbeck, winner of the nineteen sixty-two Nobel Prize in literature, said: "When the market fell, the factories, mines, and steelworks closed and then no one could buy anything, not even food."

STEVE EMBER: An unemployed auto worker in Detroit, Michigan, described the situation this way:

"Before daylight, we were on the way to the Chevrolet factory to look for work. The police were already there, waving us away from the office. They were saying, 'Nothing doing! No jobs! No jobs!' So now we were walking slowly through the falling snow to the employment office for the Dodge auto company. A big, well-fed man in a heavy overcoat stood at the door. 'No! No!' he said. There was no work."

One Texas farmer lost his farm and moved his family to California to look for work. "We can't send the children to school," he said, "because they have no clothes."

(MUSIC "Gloomy Sunday"/Billie Holiday)

BARBARA KLEIN: The economic crisis began with the stock market crash in October nineteen twenty-nine. For the first year, the economy fell very slowly. But it dropped sharply in nineteen thirty-one and nineteen thirty-two. And by the end of nineteen thirty-two, the economy collapsed almost completely.

During the three years following the stock market crash, the value of goods and services produced in America fell by almost half. The wealth of the average American dropped to a level lower than it had been twenty-five years earlier.

All the gains of the nineteen twenties were washed away.

Unemployment rose sharply. The number of workers looking for a job jumped from three percent to more than twenty-five percent in just four years. One of every three or four workers was looking for a job in nineteen thirty-two.

STEVE EMBER: Those employment numbers did not include farmers. The men and women who grew the nation's food suffered terribly during the Great Depression.

This was especially true in two states, Oklahoma and Texas. Farmers there were losing money because of falling prices for their crops. Then natural disaster struck. Year after year, little or no rain fell. The ground dried up. And then the wind blew away the earth in huge clouds of dust.

"All that dust made some of the farmers leave," one Oklahoma farmer remembered later. "But my family stayed. We fought to live. Despite all the dust and the wind, we were planting seeds. But we got no crops. We had five crop failures in five years."

(MUSIC "Mean Low Blues"/Blues Birdhead)

BARBARA KLEIN: Falling production. Rising unemployment. Men begging in the streets. But there was more to the Great Depression. At that time, the federal government did not guarantee the money that people put in banks. When people could not repay loans, banks began to close.

In nineteen twenty-nine, six hundred fifty-nine banks with total holdings of two-hundred-million dollars went out of business. The next year, two times that number failed. And the year after that, almost twice that number of banks went out of business. Millions of persons lost all their savings. They had no money left.

STEVE EMBER: The depression caused serious public health problems. Hospitals across the country were filled with sick people whose main illness was a lack of food. The health department in New York City found that one of every five of the city's children did not get enough food.

Ninety-nine percent of the children attending a school in a coal-mining area of the country reportedly were underweight. In some places, people died of hunger.

(MUSIC "Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)"/Blind Willie Johnson)

STEVE EMBER: The quality of housing also fell. Families were forced to crowd into small houses or apartments to share costs. Many people had no homes at all. They slept on public streets, buses or trains.

One official in Chicago reported in nineteen thirty-one that several hundred women without homes were sleeping in city parks.

In a number of cities, people without homes built their houses from whatever materials they could find. They used empty boxes or pieces of metal to build shelters in open areas.

BARBARA KLEIN: People called these areas of little temporary houses "Hoovervilles." They blamed President Hoover for their situation. So, too, did the men forced to sleep in public parks at night. They covered themselves with pieces of paper. And they called the paper "Hoover blankets." People without money in their pants called their empty pockets "Hoover flags."

People blamed President Hoover because they thought he was not doing enough to help them. Hoover did take several actions to try to improve the economy. But he resisted proposals for the federal government to provide aid in a major way. And he refused to let the government spend more money than it earned.

Hoover told the nation: "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive decision."

Many conservative Americans agreed with him. But not the millions of Americans who were hungry and tired of looking for a job. They accused Hoover of not caring about common citizens.

One congressman from Alabama said: "In the White House, we have a man more interested in the money of the rich than in the stomachs of the poor."

(MUSIC "I Surrender, Dear"/Red Norvo and His Swing Septet)

STEVE EMBER: On and on the Great Depression continued. Of course, some Americans were lucky. They kept their jobs. And they had enough money to enjoy the lower prices of most goods. Many people shared their earnings with friends in need.

Years later, John Steinbeck wrote: "It seems odd now to say that we rarely had a job. There just weren't any jobs." But, he continued, "Given the sea and the gardens, we did pretty well with a minimum of theft. We didn't have to steal much." Farmers could not sell their crops, he explained, so they gave away all the fruit and vegetables that people could carry home.

BARBARA KLEIN: Other Americans reacted to the crisis by leading protests against the economic policies of the Hoover administration. In nineteen thirty-two, a large group of former soldiers gathered in Washington to demand help.

More than eight thousand of them built the nation's largest Hooverville near the White House. Federal troops finally removed them by force and burned their shelters.

(MUSIC "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime"/Rudy Vallee)

Next week, we will look at how the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties affected other countries.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: This program was written by David Jarmul. I'm Steve Ember.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Barbara Klein. You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts, MP3s, and podcasts at www.unsv.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #177

Crowds gather in the Wall Street district of Manhattan in reaction to the heavy losses on the stock market on October 24, 1929, or "Black Thursday"

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

The election of Herbert Hoover in nineteen twenty-eight made Americans more hopeful than ever about their future.

Hoover seemed to have just the right experience to lead the nation to more economic progress. He was an engineer and businessman who had served in the government as commerce secretary. He understood economics and had faith in the future of private business.

On a rainy day in March of nineteen twenty-nine, Hoover rode down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to become the new president. "I have no fears for the future of our country," he told the cheering crowd. "It is bright with hope."

This week in our series, Faith Lapidus and Bob Doughty tell more about the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: The clearest evidence of the public's faith in the economy is the stock market. And the New York Stock Exchange reacted to the new president with a wild increase in prices. During the months after Hoover's election, prices generally rose like a rocket. Stocks valued at one hundred dollars climbed to two hundred, then three hundred, four hundred. Men and women made huge amounts of money overnight.

Publications and economic experts advised Americans to buy stocks before prices went even higher. Time and again, people heard how rich they could become if they found and bought stocks for companies growing into industrial giants.

"Never sell the United States short," said one publication. Another just said, "Everybody ought to be rich."

BOB DOUGHTY: A number of economic experts worried about the sharp increase in stock prices that followed Hoover's election. The president himself urged stock market officials to make trading more honest and safe. And he approved a move by the Federal Reserve Board to increase the interest charged to banks.

However, both efforts failed to stop the growing number of Americans who were spending their money wildly on stocks.

Some experts pointed to danger signs in the economy during the summer of nineteen twenty-nine. The number of houses being built was dropping. Industries were reducing the amount of products that they held in their factories. The rate of growth in spending by average Americans was falling sharply. And industrial production, employment, and prices were down.

These experts warned that the American economy was just not strong enough to support such rapid growth in stock prices. They said there was no real value behind many of the high prices. They said a stock price could not increase four times while a company's sales stayed the same. They said the high prices were built on foolish dreams of wealth, not real value.

FAITH LAPIDUS: But the prices went still higher. Buyers fought with each other to pay more and more for company stocks. The average price of all stocks almost doubled in just one year.

It seemed everybody was buying stocks, even people with little money or economic training.

A clothing salesman got advice from a stock trader visiting his store and made two hundred thousand dollars. A nurse learned of a good company from someone in the hospital. She made thirty thousand dollars. There were thousands of such stories.

By early September, the stock market reached its high point of the past eighteen months. Shares of the Westinghouse company had climbed from ninety-one dollars to three hundred thirteen. The Anaconda Copper company had risen from fifty-four dollars to one hundred sixty-two. Union Carbide jumped from one hundred forty-five to four hundred thirteen.

Life was like a dream. But like any dream, it could not last forever.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: In September, nineteen twenty-nine, stock prices stopped rising.

During the next month and a half, stock prices fell, but only slowly. Then suddenly, at the end of October, the market crashed. Prices dropped wildly. Leading stocks fell five, ten, twenty dollars in a single day. Everyone tried to sell their stocks. But no one was buying. Fear washed across the stock market. People were losing money even faster than they had made it.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The stock market collapsed on Thursday, October twenty-fourth, nineteen twenty-nine. People remember the day as "Black Thursday," the day the dreams ended.

The day began with a wave of selling. People from across the country sent messages to their stock traders in New York. All the messages said the same thing: Sell! Sell the stocks at any price possible! But no one was buying. And so down the prices came.

The value of stock for the Montgomery Ward store dropped from eighty-three dollars to fifty in a single day. The RCA radio corporation fell from sixty-eight dollars to forty-four - down twenty-four dollars in just a few hours. Down the stocks fell, lower and lower.

Several of the country's leading bankers met to discuss ways to stop the disaster. They agreed to buy stocks in large amounts to stop the wave of selling. The bankers moved quickly. And for two days, prices held steady.

But then, like snow falling down the side of a mountain, the stocks dropped again. Prices went to amazingly low levels. One business newspaper said simply: "The present week has witnessed the greatest stock market disaster of all time."

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: The stock market crash ruined thousands of Americans. In a few short weeks, traders lost thirty billion dollars, an amount almost as great as all the money the United States had spent in World War One.

Some businessmen could not accept what had happened. They jumped from the tops of buildings and killed themselves. In fact, one popular joke of the time said that hotel owners had to ask people if they wanted rooms for sleeping or jumping.

But the stock market crash was nothing to laugh about. It destroyed much of the money that Americans had saved. Even worse, it caused millions of people to worry and lose faith in the economy. They were not sure what to expect tomorrow. Business owners would not spend money for new factories or business operations. Instead, they decided to wait and see what would happen.

This reduced production and caused more workers to lose their jobs. Fewer workers meant fewer people with money to buy goods. And fewer people buying goods meant less need for factories to produce. So it went. In short, economic disaster.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Why did the stock market crash? One reason, people had been paying too much for stocks. Everyone believed that prices would go higher and higher forever. People paid more for stocks than the stocks were worth. They hoped to sell the stocks at even higher prices.

It was like a children's balloon that expands with air, blowing bigger and bigger until it bursts.

But there were other important reasons. Industrial profits were too high and wages too low. Five percent of the population owned one-third of all personal income. The average worker simply did not have enough money to buy enough of all the new goods that factories were producing. Another problem was that companies were not investing enough money in new factories and supplies.

There were also problems with the rules of the stock market itself. People were allowed to buy stocks when they did not have the money to do so.

BOB DOUGHTY: Several government economic policies also helped cause the stock market crash of nineteen twenty-nine. Government tax policies made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And the government did little to control the national money supply, even when the economy faced disaster.

The stock market crash marked the beginning of the Great Depression -- a long, slow, painful fall to the worst economic crisis in American history. The Depression would bring suffering to millions of people. It would cause major political changes. And it would be a major force in creating the conditions that led to World War Two.

We will look at the beginning of the Great Depression in our next program.

(MUSIC)

JIM TEDDER: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Faith Lapidus and Bob Doughty. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #176

Herbert Hoover, right, and the president he followed in office, Calvin Coolidge

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

The presidential election of nineteen twenty-eight gave American voters a clear political choice. The Democratic Party nominated Al Smith. He was the popular governor of the state of New York. The Republican Party chose Herbert Hoover. He was an engineer and businessman who served as secretary of commerce for presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

This week in our series, Rich Kleinfeldt and Harry Monroe tell us about the presidential election of nineteen twenty-eight.

RICH KLEINFELDT: Governor Alfred Smith of New York had campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in nineteen twenty-four. But he was defeated at the party convention by a compromise candidate, John Davis.

Four years later, however, Smith could not be stopped. He had a strong record as governor of the nation's most heavily-populated state. He campaigned for the presidency on a policy of building new electric power stations under public control.

Smith knew that many conservative Americans might be worried by his new ideas and his belief in strong government. So he chose as his campaign manager a Republican industrial leader who had worked with General Motors, DuPont and other major companies.

Smith hoped this would prove his faith in the American private business system.

Al Smith

HARRY MONROE: Al Smith was a strong political leader and an effective governor. But he frightened many Americans, especially conservative citizens living in rural areas.

They lived on farms or in small towns. Al Smith was from the city. And not just from any city, but New York City, a place that seemed big and dirty and filled with foreign people and strange traditions. Al Smith's parents came from Ireland. He grew up in New York and worked as a salesman at the Fulton Fish Market.

Smith was an honest man. But many rural Americans simply did not trust people from big cities. Al Smith seemed to them to represent everything that was new, different, and dangerous about American life.

But being from New York City was not Al Smith's only problem. He also opposed the new national laws that made it illegal to buy or produce alcoholic drinks. And he had political ties to the New York political machine. But worst of all, in the eyes of many Americans, Al Smith was a Roman Catholic.

RICH KLEINFELDT: From George Washington through Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and up to Calvin Coolidge, every American president had been male, white, and a Protestant Christian. Of course, there was no law requiring a candidate to be Protestant. But millions of traditional Americans just were not ready to give their vote to a Roman Catholic.

Opponents of the Smith campaign generally did not speak openly about his religion. But many of them were afraid that Smith would take his orders from the Vatican in Rome, instead of working with the Congress in Washington.

Al Smith fought back. He told the country, "I am unable to understand how anything I was taught to believe as a Catholic could possibly be in conflict with what is good citizenship. My faith," he said, "is built upon the laws of God. There can be no conflict between them. "

HARRY MONROE: But many Protestant Americans thought there was a conflict. And they looked to the Republican Party to supply a strong candidate to oppose Smith and the Democrats.

The Republicans did just that. They nominated former secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover, one of the country's most popular men. Hoover was well-known to Americans. People trusted him. And they liked the way he had gained great personal success from poor beginnings.

In fact, Hoover's life story would have pleased Abraham Lincoln, another American who rose from a poor family to fame.

Hoover was born in the farm state of Iowa in eighteen seventy-four. His father was a poor metal worker who kept moving his family from state to state.

Herbert Hoover's father died when the boy was just six years old. His mother died four years later. Young Herbert had to move to the western state of Oregon to live with his mother's brother.

Herbert's uncle was luckier in life than Herbert's parents. He had made money in the land business. And he helped the boy gain admission to Stanford University in California. At the university, Herbert showed great skill in mathematics. And he decided to go into business as a geologist studying the science of the earth.

Herbert Hoover

RICH KLEINFELDT: After college, Herbert Hoover got a job as a mine worker. During the next several years, Hoover spent most of his time working as an engineer in foreign countries. And he succeeded beyond his greatest dreams. By the time he was forty years old, he had earned more than one million dollars.

After World War One, he organized the effort to provide food for starving people in Europe. He did an excellent job, winning praise from people in Europe and the United States alike. Next, Hoover joined the administration of President Warren Harding, serving as the secretary of commerce. Again, he did a very good job.

Hoover left the cabinet in nineteen twenty-five. But two years later, he organized efforts to provide relief for victims of a flood in the southern state of Mississippi. And again, Americans all around the country took note of this quiet, serious man who did such effective work in so many different kinds of situations.

Some Americans, however, did not like Hoover, including some people who usually supported Republicans.

For example, many professional Republican politicians did not trust him, because he had spent most of his life in business, not politics. Some stock market traders thought Hoover might change the rules on the New York Stock Exchange. And many farmers believed Hoover had no new ideas about how to solve their growing economic problems.

HARRY MONROE: This, then, was the choice Americans faced in nineteen twenty-eight. On the one hand, Al Smith. A Democrat. A Roman Catholic. A politician from the city. A man wanting some social change.

And on the other hand, Herbert Hoover. A Republican. A businessman who had proven the dream that even a poor boy could become great in America. A man who seemed to succeed with every effort he touched.

The main issue in the campaign was not economics or religion, but the new national laws banning alcoholic drinks. Hoover was for the laws; Smith against them. The two candidates also argued about how to provide aid to struggling farmers, and how to increase electricity and water supplies.

RICH KLEINFELDT: Herbert Hoover won the election of nineteen twenty eight. It was one of the greatest victories in presidential history. Hoover won fifty-eight percent of the votes. Smith got just forty percent. And Hoover captured four hundred forty-four electoral votes to Smith's eighty-seven.

And so it was that the engineer and businessman Herbert Hoover entered the White House in nineteen twenty-nine. There was some trouble the day he moved in. Outgoing President Coolidge was a man who watched every dollar he owned. And he accused some White House workers of stealing his shoes on the day of the inauguration. But -- finally -- safe, conservative, business-like Herbert Hoover was leading the country.

HARRY MONROE: The nation's stock market reacted by pushing stock prices to record high levels. Everyone expected that economic growth would continue and expand. But the happy times were just a dream. Within one year, the stock market collapsed. Millions of people lost their jobs. The nation fell into the worst economic crisis it had ever faced.

Herbert Hoover was not personally responsible for the crisis. In many ways, it was his own bad luck to be elected just before the disaster struck. But it was his job to guide the nation through its troubled waters. And he would prove to be the wrong person to give such leadership.

His four years in office would be one of the most difficult periods in the nation's history. We will look at President Hoover's administration in our next program.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Rich Kleinfeldt and Harry Monroe. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #175

British and American officials signing a British war loan in 1917

FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

The nineteen twenties are remembered as a quiet period in American foreign policy. The nation was at peace. Americans elected three Republican presidents in a row: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. These conservatives in the White House were generally more interested in economic growth at home than in relations with other countries.

But the United States had become a world power. It was tied to other countries by trade, politics and shared interests. And America had gained new economic strength.

This week in our series, Bob Doughty and Shirley Griffith discuss American foreign policy during the nineteen twenties.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Before World War One, foreigners invested more money in the United States than Americans invested in other countries -- about three billion dollars more. The war changed this. By nineteen nineteen, Americans had almost three billion dollars more invested in other countries than foreign citizens had invested in the United States.

American foreign investments continued to increase greatly during the nineteen twenties.

Increased foreign investment was not the only sign of growing American economic power. By the end of World War One, the United States produced more goods and services than any other nation, both in total and per person.

Americans had more steel, food, cloth, and coal than even the richest foreign nations. By nineteen twenty, the United States national income was greater than the combined incomes of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and seventeen smaller countries. Quite simply, the United States had become the world's greatest economic power.

A steel worker at a rolling mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: America's economic strength influenced its policies toward Europe during the nineteen twenties. In fact, one of the most important issues of this period was the economic aid the United States had provided European nations during World War One.

Americans lent the Allied countries seven billion dollars during the war. Shortly after the war, they lent another three billion dollars. The Allies borrowed most of the money for military equipment and food and other needs of their people.

The Allied nations suffered far greater losses of property and population than the United States during the war. And when peace came, they called on the United States to cancel the loans America had made. France, Britain, and the other Allied nations said the United States should not expect them to re-pay the loans.

BOB DOUGHTY: The United States refused to cancel the debts. President Coolidge spoke for most Americans when he said, simply: "They borrowed the money." He believed the European powers should pay back the war loans, even though their economies had suffered terribly during the fighting.

However, the European nations had little money to pay their loans. France tried to get the money by demanding payments from Germany for having started the war. When Germany was unable to pay, France and Belgium occupied Germany's Ruhr Valley. As a result, German miners in the area reduced coal production. And France and Germany moved toward an economic crisis and possible new armed conflict.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: An international group intervened and negotiated a settlement to the crisis. The group provided a system to save Germany's currency and protect international debts. American bankers agreed to lend money to Germany to pay its war debts to the Allies. And the Allies used the money to pay their debts to the United States.

BOB DOUGHTY: Some Americans with international interests criticized President Coolidge and other conservative leaders for not reducing or canceling Europe's debts.

They said the debts and the new payment plan put foolish pressure on the weak European economies. They said this made the German currency especially weak. And they warned that a weak economy would lead to serious social problems in Germany and other countries.

However, most Americans did not understand the serious effect that international economic policies could have on the future of world peace. They believed that it was wrong for the Europeans -- or anyone -- to borrow money and then refuse to pay it back.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Many Americans of the nineteen twenties also failed to recognize that a strong national military force would become increasingly important in the coming years. President Coolidge requested very limited military spending from the Congress. And many conservative military leaders refused to spend much money on such new kinds of equipment as submarines and airplanes.

Some Americans did understand that the United States was now a world power and needed a strong and modern fighting force.

One general, Billy Mitchell, publicly criticized the military leadership for not building new weapons. But most Americans were not interested. Many Americans continued to oppose arms spending until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in nineteen forty-one.

BOB DOUGHTY: American policy toward the League of Nations did not change much in the nineteen twenties.

In nineteen nineteen, the Senate denied President Wilson's plea for the United States to join the new League of Nations. The United States, however, became involved unofficially in a number of league activities. But it continued to refuse to become a full member. And in nineteen thirty, the Senate rejected a proposal for the United States to join the World Court.

The United States also continued in the nineteen twenties to refuse to recognize the communist government in Moscow. However, trade between the Soviet Union and the United States increased greatly during this period. And such large American companies as General Electric, DuPont, and R-C-A provided technical assistance to the new Soviet government.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The Coolidge administration was involved actively in events in Latin America. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes helped several Latin American countries to settle border disputes peacefully.

In Central America, President Coolidge ordered American Marines into Nicaragua when President Adolfo Diaz faced a revolt from opposition groups. The United States gave its support to more conservative groups in Nicaragua. And it helped arrange a national election in nineteen twenty-eight. American troops stayed in Nicaragua until nineteen thirty-three.

However, American troops withdrew from the Dominican Republic during this period. And Secretary of State Hughes worked to give new life to the Pan American union.

BOB DOUGHTY: Relations with Mexico became worse during the nineteen-twenties. In nineteen twenty-five, Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles called for laws to give Mexico more control over its minerals and natural wealth. American oil companies resisted the proposed changes. They accused Calles of communism. And some American business and church leaders called for armed American intervention.

However, the American Senate voted to try to settle the conflict peacefully. And American diplomat Dwight Morrow helped negotiate a successful new agreement.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: These American actions in Nicaragua and Mexico showed that the United States still felt that it had special security interests south of its border. But its peaceful settlement of the Mexican crisis and support of elections in Nicaragua showed that it was willing to deal with disputes peacefully.

America's policies in Latin America during the nineteen-twenties were in some ways similar to its policies elsewhere. It was a time of change, of movement, from one period to another. Many Americans were hoping to follow the traditional foreign policies of the past. They sought to remain separate from world conflict.

BOB DOUGHTY: The United States, however, could no longer remain apart from world events. This would become clear in the coming years. Europe would face fascism and war. The Soviet Union would grow more powerful. And Latin America would become more independent.

The United States was a world power. But it was still learning in the nineteen twenties about the leadership and responsibility that is part of such power.

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FAITH LAPIDUS: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Bob Doughty and Shirley Griffith. You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts, MP3s and podcasts at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #174

Voters in Lanham, Maryland, during the election of 1924

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president in nineteen twenty-three following the death of President Warren Harding. Coolidge quickly gained the trust of most Americans by investigating the crimes of Harding's top officials. The conservative economic policies of the new president also won wide support.

Coolidge had one year to prove his abilities to the American people before the election of nineteen twenty-four.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell us about that election.

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KAY GALLANT: Coolidge was a quiet man who believed in limited government policies. But his silence hid a fighting political spirit. Coolidge had worked for many years to gain the White House. He would not give it up without a struggle.

Coolidge moved quickly after becoming president to gain control of the Republican Party. He named his own advisers to important jobs. And he replaced a number of officials with people whose loyalty he could trust.

Most Republicans liked Coolidge. They felt his popular policies would make him a strong candidate in the presidential election. For this reason, Coolidge faced only one serious opponent for the Republican presidential nomination in nineteen twenty-four.

Coolidge's opponent was the great automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford of Michigan. Ford had been a candidate for Congress in nineteen eighteen. He lost that election. But after the election, some people in his company began to call for Ford to be the Republican presidential nominee in nineteen twenty-four.

Calvin Coolidge

HARRY MONROE: Ford was one of history's greatest inventors and manufacturers. But he had limited skills in politics. Ford was poorly educated. He had extreme opinions about a number of groups. He hated labor unions, the stock market, dancing, smoking, and drinking alcohol. But most of all, Ford hated Jews. He produced a number of publications accusing the Jewish people of organizing international plots.

At first, Ford appeared to be a strong opponent to Coolidge. But soon, he realized that Coolidge was too strong politically. His economic policies were popular among the people. And the nation was at peace. The party could not deny Coolidge's nomination. Ford himself put an end to his chances by telling the nation that it was "perfectly safe with Coolidge."

Calvin Coolidge won the presidential nomination easily at the nineteen twenty-four Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio. The Republican delegates chose Charles Dawes of Illinois to run with him as the vice presidential candidate.

KAY GALLANT: The Democratic Party was much more divided. Many of the groups that traditionally supported Democratic candidates now were fighting against each other. For example, many farmers did not agree on policies with people living in cities. The educated did not agree with uneducated people. And many Protestant workers felt divided from Roman Catholic and Jewish workers.

These differences made it hard for the Democratic Party to choose a national candidate. There was little spirit of compromise.

Two main candidates campaigned for the Democratic nomination. The first was former Treasury Secretary William McAdoo. McAdoo had the support of many Democrats because of his strong administration of the railroads during the world war. Democratic voters in Southern and Western states liked him because of his conservative racial policies and his opposition to alcohol.

The second main candidate was Alfred Smith, the governor of New York. Smith was a Roman Catholic. He was very popular with people in the Eastern cities, Roman Catholics, and supporters of legal alcohol. But many rural delegates to the convention did not trust him.

HARRY MONROE: The Democratic Party convention met in New York City. It quickly became a battle between the more liberal delegates from the cities and the more conservative delegates from rural areas.

It was July. The heat was intense. Speaker after speaker appealed to the delegates for votes. One day passed. Then another. For nine days, the nation listened on the radio as the delegates argued about the nomination.

The delegates voted ninety-five times without success. Finally, McAdoo and Smith agreed to withdraw from the race. Even then, the delegates had to vote eight more times before they finally agreed on compromise candidates.

The Democratic delegates finally chose John Davis to be their presidential nominee. Davis was a lawyer for a major bank. He had served briefly under President Wilson as ambassador to Britain. The delegates also chose Charles Bryan to be the vice presidential candidate. Bryan was the younger brother of the famous Democrat and populist leader, William Jennings Bryan.

Robert LaFollette

KAY GALLANT: There also was a third party in the nineteen twenty-four election. Many of the old progressive supporters of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson opposed the choices of the Republicans and Democrats. They thought the country needed another candidate to keep alive the spirit of reform.

Progressive candidates had done well in the congressional election of nineteen twenty-two. But following the election, communists had gained influence in one of the major progressive parties. Most progressives did not want to join with communists. So, they formed a new progressive party. The new party named Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin to be its presidential candidate.

LaFollette campaigned for increased taxes on the rich and public ownership of water power. He called for an end to child labor and limits on the power of the courts to interfere in labor disputes. And LaFollette warned the nation about the dangers of single, large companies gaining control of important industries.

HARRY MONROE: Coolidge won the nineteen twenty-four election easily. He won the electoral votes of thirty-five states to just twelve for Davis of the Democrats. LaFollette won only Wisconsin, his home state. Coolidge also won more popular votes than the other two candidates together.

The American people voted for Coolidge partly to thank him for bringing back honesty and trust to the White House following the crimes of the Harding administration. But the main reason was that they liked his conservative economic policies and his support of business.

KAY GALLANT: LaFollette's Progressive Party died following the nineteen twenty-four election. Most of his supporters later joined the Democrats. But the reform spirit of their movement remained alive through the next four years.

They were difficult years for Progressives. Conservatives in Congress passed laws reducing taxes for corporations and richer Americans.

HARRY MONROE: Progressives fought for reforms in national agriculture policies. Most farmers did not share in the general economic growth of the nineteen twenties. Instead, their costs increased while the price of their products fell. Many farmers lost their farms.

Farmers and progressives wanted the federal government to create a system to control prices and the total supply of food produced. They said the government should buy and keep any extra food that farmers produced. And they called for officials to help them export food.

Coolidge and most Republicans rejected these ideas. They said it was not the business of a free government to fix farm prices. And they feared the high costs of creating a major new government department and developing export markets.

Coolidge vetoed three major farm reform bills following his election.

KAY GALLANT: The debate over farm policy was, in many ways, like the debate over taxes or public controls on power companies. There was a basic difference of opinion about the proper actions of government.

More conservative Americans believed the purpose of government was to support private business, not to control it. But more liberal Americans believed that government needed to do more to make sure that citizens of all kinds could share the nation's wealth more equally.

Coolidge and the Republicans were in control in the nineteen twenties. For this reason, the nation generally stayed on a conservative path. The Democrats and Progressives would have to wait until later to put many of their more liberal ideas into action.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts, MP3s and podcasts at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #173

Louis Armstrong

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

The early years of the twentieth century were a time of movement for many black Americans. Traditionally, most blacks lived in the Southeastern states. But in the nineteen twenties, many blacks moved to cities in the North.

Black Americans moved because living conditions were so poor in the rural areas of the Southeast. But many of them discovered that life was also hard in the colder Northern cities. Jobs often were hard to find. Housing was poor. And whites sometimes acted violently against them.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell about the life of black Americans in the nineteen twenties and how they helped form traditions.

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KAY GALLANT: The years just before and after nineteen twenty were difficult for blacks. It was a time of racial hatred. Many whites joined the Ku Klux Klan organization. The Klan often terrorized blacks. Klan members sometimes burned fiery crosses in front of the houses of black families. And they sometimes beat and murdered blacks.

The Ku Klux Klan also acted against Roman Catholics, Jews, and foreigners. But it hated blacks most of all.

Klu Klux Klan members, around 1922

HARRY MONROE: The United States also suffered a series of race riots in a number of cities during this period. White and black Americans fought each other in Omaha, Philadelphia, and other cities.

The worst riot was in Chicago. A swimming incident started the violence. A black boy sailing a small boat entered a part of the beach used by white swimmers. Some white persons threw stones at the boy. He fell into the water and drowned.

Black citizens heard about the incident and became extremely angry. Soon, black and white mobs were fighting each other in the streets.

The violence lasted for two weeks. Thirty-eight persons died. More than five-hundred were wounded. The homes of hundreds of families were burned.

The violence in Chicago and other cities did not stop black Americans from moving north or west. They felt that life had to be better than in the South.

KAY GALLANT: Black Americans left the South because life was hard, economic chances few, and white hatred common. But many blacks arrived in other parts of the country only to learn that life was no easier. Some blacks wrote later that they had only traded the open racism of the rural Southeast for the more secret racism of Northern cities.

Blacks responded to these conditions in different ways. Some blacks followed the ideas of Booker T. Washington, the popular black leader of the early nineteen hundreds.

Washington believed that blacks had to educate and prepare themselves to survive in American society. He helped form a number of training schools where blacks could learn skills for better jobs. And he urged blacks to establish businesses and improve themselves without causing trouble with whites.

Other blacks liked the stronger ideas of William Du Bois.

Du Bois felt that blacks had to take firm actions to protest murders and other illegal actions. He published a magazine and spoke actively for new laws and policies to protect black rights. Du Bois also helped form a group that later became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP became one of the nation's leading black rights organizations in the twentieth century.

Booker T. Washington

HARRY MONROE: Probably the most important leader for black Americans in the nineteen twenties did not come from the United States. He was Marcus Garvey from the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Garvey moved to New York City in nineteen sixteen. He quickly began organizing groups in black areas.

His message was simple. He said blacks should not trust whites. Instead, they should be proud of being black and should help each other. Garvey urged blacks to leave the United States, move to Africa, and start their own nation.

Marcus Garvey organized several plans to help blacks become economically independent of whites. His biggest effort was a shipping company to trade goods among black people all over the world.

Many American blacks gave small amounts of money each week to help Garvey start the shipping company. However, the idea failed. Government officials arrested Garvey for collecting the money unlawfully. They sent him to prison in nineteen twenty-five. And two years later, President Coolidge ordered Garvey out of the country.

Marcus Garvey's group was the first major black organization in the United States to gain active support from a large number of people. The organization failed. But it did show the anger and lack of hope that many blacks felt about their place in American society.

(MUSIC)

KAY GALLANT: Blacks also showed their feelings through writing, art and music. The nineteen twenties were one of the most imaginative periods in the history of American black art.

Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen were three of the leading black poets during this time. McKay was best known for his poems of social protest. Hughes produced poems about black life that experts now say are among the greatest American poems ever written.

Black writers also produced longer works. Among the leading black novelists were Jessie Faucet, Jean Toomer, and Rudolph Fisher.

(MUSIC)

HARRY MONROE: The nineteen twenties also were an exciting time for black music. Black musicians playing the piano developed the ragtime style of music. Singers and musicians produced a sad, emotional style of playing that became known as the blues. And most important, music lovers began to play and enjoy a new style that was becoming known as jazz.

Jazz advanced greatly as a true American kind of music in the nineteen twenties. Musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Eubie Blake played in gathering places and small theaters. White musicians and music experts from universities came to listen. Soon the music became popular among Americans of all kinds and around the world.

KAY GALLANT: Blacks began to recognize in the nineteen twenties their own deep roots in the United States. They began to see just how much black men and women already had done to help form American history and traditions.

The person who did the most to help blacks understand this was black historian Carter G. Woodson. Woodson received his training at two leading universities: Harvard in Massachusetts and the Sorbonne in France. He launched a new publication, the Journal of Negro History, in which he and other experts wrote about black life and history. Historians today call Woodson the father of the scientific study of black history.

HARRY MONROE: The nineteen twenties also were a period in which a number of blacks experimented with new political ideas and parties. The difficult social conditions of the period led many blacks to search for new political solutions.

Two leftist parties -- the Socialists and the Communists -- urged blacks to leave the traditional political system and work for more extreme change. Two leading black Socialists, Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph, urged blacks to support Socialist candidates. However, they gained little popular support from blacks.

Communists also tried to organize black workers. But generally, black voters showed little interest in communist ideas.

The most important change in black political thinking during the nineteen twenties came within the traditional two-party system itself. Blacks usually had voted for Republicans since the days of Abraham Lincoln. But the conservative Republican policies of the nineteen twenties caused many blacks to become Democrats.

By nineteen thirty-two, blacks would vote by a large majority for the Democratic presidential candidate, Franklin Roosevelt. And blacks continue to be a major force in the Democratic Party.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #172

A chemist with the Internal Revenue Board inspects bottles used to illegally sell alcohol

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

Americans experimented with many new customs and social traditions during the nineteen twenties. There were new dances, new kinds of clothes and some of the most imaginative art and writing ever produced in the United States.

But in most ways, the nineteen twenties were a conservative time in American life. Voters elected three conservative Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. And they supported many conservative social and political policies.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe continue the story of American conservatism during the nineteen twenties.

KAY GALLANT: One such policy concerned immigration. Most Americans in the nineteen twenties had at least some ties through blood or marriage to the first Americans who came from Britain. Many people with these kinds of historic ties considered themselves to be real Americans, true Americans.

Americans traditionally had welcomed newcomers from such western European countries as Britain, France, or Germany. But most of the people arriving in New York City and other harbors in the nineteen twenties were from the central, eastern and southern areas of Europe.

Some Americans became afraid of these millions of people arriving at their shores. They worried that the immigrant newcomers might steal their jobs. Or they feared the political beliefs of the immigrants.

Calvin Coolidge

HARRY MONROE: Pressure to control immigration increased following the world war. Congress passed a bill that set a limit on how many people would be allowed to enter from each foreign country. And, the Congress and President Calvin Coolidge agreed to an even stronger immigration law in nineteen twenty-four.

Under the new law, limits on the number of immigrants from each foreign country depended on the number of Americans who had families in that country. For example, the law allowed many immigrants to enter from Britain or France, because many American citizens had families in those countries. But fewer people could come from Italy or Russia, because fewer Americans had family members in those countries.

The laws were very difficult to enforce. But they did succeed in limiting the number of immigrants from certain countries.

KAY GALLANT: A second sign of the conservative feelings in the nineteen twenties was the nation's effort to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, or liquor. This policy was known as Prohibition, because it prohibited -- or banned -- alcoholic drinks.

Many of the strongest supporters of Prohibition were conservative Americans living in rural areas. Many of them believed that liquor was evil, the product of the devil.

A number of towns and states passed laws banning alcohol sales during the first years of the twentieth century. And in nineteen nineteen, the nation passed the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This amendment, and the Volstead Act, made it unlawful to make, sell or transport liquor.

HARRY MONROE: Prohibition laws failed terribly from the start. There was only a small force of police to enforce the new laws. And millions of Americans still wanted to drink liquor. It was not possible for the police to watch every American who wanted to buy a drink secretly or make liquor in his own home.

Not surprisingly, thousands of Americans soon saw a chance to make profits from the new laws. They began to import liquor illegally to sell for high prices.

Criminals began to bring liquor across the long, unprotected border with Canada or on fast boats from the Caribbean islands. At the same time, private manufacturers in both cities and rural areas began to produce liquor. And shop owners in cities across the country sold liquor with little interference from local police.

By the middle of the nineteen twenties, it was clear to most Americans that Prohibition laws were a failure. But the laws were not changed until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt in nineteen thirty-two.

KAY GALLANT: A third sign of conservatism in the nineteen twenties was the effort by some Americans to ban schoolbooks on modern science. Most of the Americans who supported these efforts were conservative rural Americans who believed in the traditional ideas of the Protestant Christian church. Many of them were fearful of the many changes that had taken place in American society.

Science became an enemy to many of these traditional, religious Americans. Science seemed to challenge the most basic ideas taught in the Bible. The conflict burst into a major public debate in nineteen twenty-five in a trial over Charles Darwin's idea of evolution.

HARRY MONROE: British scientist Charles Darwin published his books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" in the nineteenth century. The books explained Darwin's idea that humans developed over millions of years from apes and other animals.

Most Europeans and educated people accepted Darwin's theory by the end of the nineteenth century. But the book had little effect in rural parts of the United States until the nineteen twenties.

William Jennings Bryan led the attack on Darwin's ideas. Bryan was a rural Democrat who ran twice for president. He lost both times. But Bryan remained popular among many traditional Americans.

Bryan told his followers that the theory of evolution was evil, because it challenged the traditional idea that God created the world in six days. He accused scientists of violating God's words in the Bible.

Bryan and his supporters called on local school officials to ban the teaching of evolution. Some state legislatures in the more conservative southeastern part of the country passed laws making it a crime to teach evolution theory.

KAY GALLANT: In nineteen twenty-five, a young science teacher in the southern state of Tennessee challenged the state's new teaching law. The teacher -- John Scopes -- taught Darwin's evolution ideas. Officials arrested scopes and put him on trial.

Some of the nation's greatest lawyers rushed to Tennessee to defend the young teacher. They believed the state had violated his right to free speech. And they thought Tennessee's law againt teaching evolution was foolish in a modern, scientific society. America's most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, became the leader of Scopes' defense team.

Bryan and other religious conservatives also rushed to the trial. They supported the right of the state of Tennessee to ban the teaching of evolution.

The trial was held in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. Hundreds of people came to watch: religious conservatives, free speech supporters, newsmen and others.

The high point of the trial came when Bryan himself sat before the court. Lawyer Clarence Darrow asked Bryan question after question about the bible and about science. How did Bryan know the Bible is true. Did God really create the earth in a single day. Is a day in the Bible twenty-four hours. Or can it mean a million years.

HARRY MONROE: Bryan answered the questions. But he showed a great lack of knowledge about modern science.

The judge found Scopes guilty of breaking the law. But in the battle of ideas, science defeated conservatism. And a higher court later ruled that Scopes was not guilty.

The Scopes evolution trial captured the imagination of Americans. The issue was not really whether one young teacher was innocent or guilty of breaking a law. The real question was the struggle for America's spirit between the forces of modern ideas and those of traditional rural conservatism. The trial represented this larger conflict.

KAY GALLANT: American society was changing in many important ways during the early part of the twentieth century. It was not yet the world superpower that it would become after World War Two. But neither was it a traditional rural society of conservative farmers and clergy. The nineteen twenties were a period of growth, of change and of struggle between the old and new values.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #171

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

There were many changes in the social customs and day-to-day life of millions of Americans during the administration of President Calvin Coolidge.

Many young people began to challenge the traditions of their parents and grandparents. They experimented with new ideas and ways of living. People of all kinds became interested in the new popular culture. Radio and films brought them exciting news of court trials, sports heroes and wild parties.

The nineteen twenties also was one of the most active and important periods for the more serious arts. Writers, painters, and other artists produced some of the greatest work in the nation's history.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe take a look at American arts during this exciting period.

KAY GALLANT: Most Americans approved strongly of the economic growth and improved living conditions during the nineteen twenties. They supported the conservative Republican policies of President Calvin Coolidge. And they had great faith in the country's business leaders and economic system.

However, many of the nation's serious artists had a different and darker view of society. They were troubled deeply by the changes they saw. They believed that Americans had become too interested in money and wealth.

These artists rejected the new business society. And they also questioned the value of politics. Many of them believed that the first World War in Europe had been a terrible mistake. These artists had little faith in the political leaders who came to power after the war. They felt a need to protest the way the world was changing around them.

HARRY MONROE: The spirit of protest was especially strong in serious American writing during the nineteen twenties. Many of the greatest writers of this period hated the new business culture.

One such writer was Sinclair Lewis. He was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Lewis wrote about Americans living in the towns and villages in the central part of the United States. Many of the people in his books were foolish men and women with empty values. They chased after money and popularity. In his famous book "Main Street," Lewis joked about and criticized small-town business owners.

Social criticism also was central to the writing of the newspaper writer H. L. Mencken, from the eastern city of Baltimore. Mencken considered most Americans to be stupid and violent fools. He attacked their values without mercy.

Of course, many traditional Americans reacted strongly to such criticism. For example, some religious and business leaders attacked Mencken as a dangerous person whose words were treason against the United States. But many young people thought Mencken was a hero whose only crime was writing the truth.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

KAY GALLANT: The work of Lewis, Mencken, and a number of other writers of the nineteen twenties has been forgotten by many Americans as the years have passed. But the period did produce some truly great writing.

One of the greatest writers of these years was Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway wrote about love, war, sports, and other subjects. He used short sentences and rough words. His style was sharper and different from traditional American writing. And his strong views about life set him apart from most other Americans.

Another major writer was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald wrote especially about rich Americans searching for happiness and new values. His books were filled with people who rejected traditional beliefs. His book "The Great Gatsby" is considered today to be one of the greatest works in the history of American writing.

A third great writer of the nineteen twenties was William Faulkner.

Faulkner wrote about the special problems and ways of life in the American south. His books explored the emotional tension in a society still suffering from the loss of the Civil War sixty years before. Some of Faulkner's best books were "The Sound and The Fury," "As I Lay Dying" and "Absalom, Absalom." Like Hemingway, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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HARRY MONROE: The nineteen twenties also produced the greatest writer of theater plays in American history, Eugene O'Neill.

O'Neill was an Irish-American with a dark and violent view of human nature. His plays used new theatrical methods and ways of presenting ideas. But they carried an emotional power never before seen in the American theater. Some of his best known plays were "Mourning Becomes Electra," "The Iceman Cometh" and "A Long Day's Journey into Night."

A number of American writers also produced great poetry during the nineteen twenties. Probably the most famous work was "The Waste Land," a poem of sadness by the writer T. S. Eliot.

KAY GALLANT: There also were important changes in American painting during the nineteen twenties. Economic growth gave many Americans the money to buy art for their homes for the first time. Sixty new museums opened. Slowly, Americans learned about serious art.

Actually, American art had been changing in important ways since the beginning of the century.

In nineteen-oh-eight, a group of New York artists arranged a historic show. These artists tried to show real life in their paintings. They painted new kinds of subjects. For example, George Bellows painted many emotional and realistic pictures of the sport of boxing. His work, and the painting of other realistic artists, became known as the "Ash Can" school of art.

Another important group of modern artists was led by the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. This group held a major art show in nineteen thirteen in New York, Chicago, and Boston. The show presented modern art from Europe. Americans got their first chance to see the work of such painters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

The show caused a huge public debate in the United States. Traditional art critics accused the organizers of the show of trying to overthrow Christianity and American values. Former president Theodore Roosevelt and others denounced the new art as a threat to the country.

However, many young American painters and art lovers did not agree. They became very interested in the new art styles from Europe. They studied them closely.

Soon, Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, and other American painters began to produce excellent art in the new Cubist style. John Marin painted beautiful views of sea coasts in New York and Maine. And such artists as Max Weber and Georgia O'Keeffe painted in styles that seemed to come more from their own imagination than from reality.

As with writing, the work of many of these serious modern painters only became popular many years later.

HARRY MONROE: The greatest American designer of buildings during the nineteen twenties was Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright believed that architects should design a building to fit its location, not to copy some ancient style. He used local materials in new ways. Wright invented many imaginative methods to combine useful building design with natural beauty.

But again, most Americans did not know of Wright's work. Instead, they turned to local architects with traditional beliefs. These architects generally designed old and safe styles for buildings -- for homes, offices, colleges, and other needs.

KAY GALLANT: Writers and artists now look back at the roaring nineteen twenties as an extremely important period that gave birth to many new styles and ideas.

Hemingway's style of writing continues to influence American writers. Many painters say the period marked the real birth of modern American art. And architecture students in the United States and other countries now study the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The changes in American society caused many of these artists much sadness and pain in their personal lives. But their expression of protest and rich imagination produced a body of work that has grown in influence with the passing years.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #170

Congressman T.S. McMillan of Charleston, South Carolina with two women who are doing the Charleston dance near the Capitol building in Washington D.C.

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.

The nineteen twenties were a time of economic progress for most Americans. During the administrations of President Warren Harding and President Calvin Coolidge, many companies grew larger, creating new jobs. Wages for most Americans increased. Many people began to have enough money to buy new kinds of products.

The strong economy also created the right environment for many important changes in the day-to-day social life of Americans. The nineteen twenties are remembered now as an exciting time that historians call the "Roaring Twenties."

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell more about that period.

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KAY GALLANT: The nineteen twenties brought a feeling of freedom and independence to millions of Americans, especially young Americans. Young soldiers returned from the world war with new ideas. They had seen a different world in Europe. They had faced death and learned to enjoy the pleasures that each day offered.

Many of these young soldiers were not willing to quietly accept the old traditions of their families and villages when they returned home. Instead, they wanted to try new ways of living.

HARRY MONROE: Many young Americans, both men and women, began to challenge some of the traditions of their parents and grandparents. For example, some young women began to experiment with new kinds of clothes. They no longer wore dresses that hid the shape of their bodies. Instead, they wore thinner dresses that uncovered part of their legs.

Many young women began to smoke cigarettes, too. Cigarette production in the United States more than doubled in the ten years between nineteen eighteen and nineteen twenty-eight.

Many women also began to drink alcohol with men in public for the first time. And they listened together to a popular new kind of music: jazz.

Young people danced the Fox Trot, the Charleston, and other new dances. They held one another tightly on the dance floor, instead of dancing far apart.

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KAY GALLANT: It was a revolution in social values, at least among some Americans. People openly discussed subjects that their parents and grandparents had kept private.

There were popular books and shows about unmarried mothers and about homosexuality. The growing film industry made films about all-night parties between unmarried men and women. And people discussed the new ideas about sex formed by Sigmund Freud and other new thinkers.

An important force behind these changes was the growing independence of American women. In nineteen twenty, the nation passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

Of equal importance, many women took jobs during the war and continued working after the troops returned home. Also, new machines freed many of them from spending long hours of work in the home washing clothes, preparing food, and doing other jobs.

HARRY MONROE: Education was another important force behind the social changes of the nineteen-twenties. More and more Americans were getting a good education. The number of students attending high school doubled between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty. Many of the schools now offered new kinds of classes to prepare students for useful jobs.

Attendance at colleges and universities also increased greatly. And colleges offered more classes in such useful subjects as teacher training, engineering, and business administration.

Two inventions also helped cause the social changes. They were the automobile and the radio. The automobile gave millions of Americans the freedom to travel easily to new places. And the radio brought new ideas and experiences into their own homes.

Probably the most important force behind social change was the continuing economic growth of the nineteen twenties. Many people had extra money to spend on things other than food, housing, and other basic needs. They could experiment with new products and different ways of living.

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KAY GALLANT: Of course, not all Americans were wearing strange new "flapper" clothes or dancing until early in the morning. Millions of Americans in small towns or rural areas continued to live simple, quiet lives. Life was still hard for many people including blacks, foreigners, and other minority groups.

The many newspaper stories about independent women reporters and doctors also did not represent the real life of the average American woman. Women could vote. But three of every four women still worked at home. Most of the women working outside their homes were from minority groups or foreign countries.

The films and radio stories about exciting parties and social events were just a dream for millions of Americans. But the dreams were strong. And many Americans -- rich and poor -- followed with great interest each new game, dance, and custom.

HARRY MONROE: The wide interest in this kind of popular culture was unusually strong during the nineteen twenties. People became extremely interested in exciting court trials, disasters, film actors, and other subjects.

For example, millions of Americans followed the sad story of Floyd Collins, a young man who became trapped while exploring underground. Newsmen reported to the nation as rescue teams searched to find him. Even the "New York Times" newspaper printed a large story on its front page when rescuers finally discovered the man's dead body.

Another event that caught public attention was a murder trial in the eastern state of New Jersey in nineteen twenty-six.

Newsmen wrote five million words about this case of a minister found dead with a woman member of his church. Again, the case itself was of little importance from a world news point of view. But it was exciting. And Americans were tired of reading about serious political issues after the bloody world war.

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KAY GALLANT: The nineteen twenties also were a golden period for sports.

People across the country bought newspapers to read of the latest golf victory by champion Bobby Jones. "Big Bill" Tilden became the most famous player in tennis. And millions of Americans listened to the boxing match in nineteen twenty-six between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. In fact, five Americans reportedly became so excited while listening to the fight that they died of heart attacks.

However, the greatest single sports hero of the period was the baseball player, Babe Ruth.

Ruth was a large man who could hit a baseball farther than any other human being. He became as famous for his wild enjoyment of life as for his excellent playing on the baseball field. Babe Ruth loved to drink, to be with women, and to play with children.

Babe Ruth

HARRY MONROE: The most famous popular event of the nineteen twenties was neither a court trial nor a sports game. It was the brave action of pilot Charles Lindbergh when he flew an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping. He was the first man in history to do this.

Lindbergh flew his plane alone from New York to France in May, nineteen twenty-seven. His flight set off wild celebrations across the United States.

Newspapers carried story after story about Lindbergh's success. President Coolidge and a large crowd greeted the young pilot when he returned to Washington. And New York congratulated Lindbergh with one of the largest parades in its history.

Americans liked Lindbergh because he was brave, quiet, and handsome. He seemed to represent everything that was best about their country.

KAY GALLANT: The nineteen twenties was also a time of much excellent work in the more serious arts. We will take a look in our next program at American art, writing, and building during the exciting "roaring twenties".

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at www.unsv.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #169