The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 1919, and officially ended World War I between Germany and the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, and the ). The agreement included a controversial War Guilt clause that blamed for the Great War and imposed heavy debt payments on Germany known as reparations. Many historians believed the Treaty of Versailles to the outbreak of the Second World War due to the impact of reparations.

For the United States, however, World War I was great and ushered in the Roaring 1920s as a decade of unprecedented , new patterns of , such as purchasing consumer goods like radios, cars, vacuums, beauty products or clothing

The expansion of in the 1920s allowed for the sale of more consumer goods and put within reach of average Americans. Now individuals who could not afford to purchase a car at full price could pay for that car over time -- with interest, of course!

With so many new products and so many Americans eager to purchase them, became a central institution in this new consumer economy.