American Society began the 1920s with a notorious economic boom and the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution which banned the production of consumption of alcoholic beverages best known as the Prohibition Law. The U.S. had just greatly contributed to the victory of Britain and France against the Central Powers in World War I, and the military effort led to an increase of the industrial capacity in the country. The cinematographic industry went through a rapid expansion and evolution culminating in the production of the first "talkies" or movies featuring a soundtrack with the environmental  and actors' voices. Also, there was a significant boom in the U.S. major cities nightlife, in spite of the Prohibition, hallmarking fashion in both clothing and music for the first time and the widespread participation of women in most aspects of the social life. The 1920s also saw the creation of great individual fortunes on the basis of speculation in the stock market, in a time when international markets were badly struggling as a consequence of the 1918 - 1919 Spanish influenza epidemic and the millions of dead people it caused (leading to a severe reduction of manpower in many countries) coupled with the misguided economic policies resulting from the Treaty of Versailles intending to crush Germany's economy while at the same time inadvertently  affecting all the international markets very negatively. Thus, nearly at the end of the 1920s, in October 1929, the U.S. would see the worst depression in its history to that day, worsened by climatic disasters such as the Dust Storms that practically ruined all the farms and crops in Arkansas, Oklahoma and other nearby states.
The beginning of the 1930s in the U,S, was a gloomy one. In adherence to a policy of "government non-intervention" adopted before World War I, president Hoover's administration was unable to cope with the Great Depression which went on until Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in 1933. He created a set of policies known as the "New Deal," consisting on the commissioning of public works throughout the country in order to create new jobs, abolition of the Prohibition, a revision of the regulations of the stock market, and other measures aimed at restoring the faith of investors and common people in the country in order to allow for the recovery of the banks. Nevertheless, unemployment rate would remain high for the remainder of the decade, and the event that would conclusively put an end to the Great Depression and restore the prosperity to the U.S. was World War II, which would result in an impressive growth of the American industry at all levels.
