The Jazz Age: America in the 1920s

Abstract

Americans showed one way forward—innovation. Money would be a means of realising their ideals. It was an element in ‘the American Dream’. The first group of post-World War I experiments, the American way, would diverge from the old European routes. Instead of coming with rules that had to be obeyed, money, like other materials and techniques used to produce and distribute goods, could be improved. It, too, needed innovation and know-how. This would apply to central banking and the new ideas of ‘monetary policy’ as well as to new means of extending bank credit. This age put in place key building blocks of the consumer society.