During the 1920's, USA became the most powerful economy in the world, there are many reasons for this which will be explained in the main part of my essay.
             After the First World War Woodrow Wilson wanted to play a part in shaping the peace. He came up with '14 points', one of them was the idea of a 'League of Nations', and he wanted USA to play a leading role in world politics. Unfortunately his political position was already weak, the American senate was worried that this would permanently involve USA in European affairs and rejected the treaties, meaning that they never joined the League of Nations. This helped the American Economy as they did not have to spend money on armed forces – there was no threat to them because of the natural barriers of the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. They also had Mexico to the South and Canada to the North, both friendly countries, which left money for new industries, effectively putting America first.
             This leads on to the American governments views on how the extra money put toward new businesses was used.
             The attitudes of the American government towards business and industry
             The attitudes of the American government was to give the business leaders a free hand to make maximum profits, the regulations over businesses were minimised, the government was said to have been restored "to its position as Umpire instead of player" by Herbert Hoover in a speech during the presidential Election in 1928. This encouraged people to work hard as they kept most of what their profits, although due to the lack of regulations, a lot of people were exploited.
             Some people who were exploited more than the average American were immigrants.
             Between 1820 and 1920, over 35 million immigrants reached USA, most were from Britain and Northern Europe and were Protestant, but after 1880 more came from Eastern Europe, Japan and China, in the 1920's the ideal citizen wa...