Taken from a historian writing in 2000.
The prosperity of the Coolidge era was huge, real, widespread but not ubiquitous and unprecedented. It was not permanent - what prosperity ever is? But it is foolish and unhistorical to judge it insubstantial because we now know what followed later. At the
time it was as solid as houses built, meals eaten, automobiles
driven, cash spent and property acquired. Prosperity was more
widely distributed in the America of the 1920s than had been possible in any community of this size before, and it involved the
acquisition, by tens of millions of ordinary families, of an economic
security that had been denied them throughout all previous
history.
How far do you agree with this interpretation?
Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain
your answer.
(16 marks)