Term | Definition |
Model T | a reliable car the average American can afford. |
scientific management | experts looked at every step of a manufacturing process. |
assembly line | arrangement of equipment and workers in which work passes from operation to operation in direct line until the product is assembled. |
consumer revolution | flood of new affordable goods in the decades after WW1. |
installment buying | method of purchase in which buyer makes a small down-payment and then pays off the rest of the debt. |
bull market | period of rising stock prices. |
buying on margin | system of buying stocks in which a buyer pays a small percentage of the purchase price while the broker advances the rest. |
Teapot Dome scandal | scandal during the Harding administration in which the Secretary of the Interior leased government oil reserves to private oilmen in return for bribes. |
Washington Naval Disarmament Conference | meeting held in 1921 and 1922 where world leaders agreed to limit construction of warships. |
Kellogg-Briand Pact | 1928 agreement in which many nations agreed to outlaw war. |
Dawes Plan | agreement in which U.S. loaned money to Germany so they make reparations payments to Britain and France. |
modernism | trend that emphasized science and secular values over traditional ideas about religion. |
fundamentalism | movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principals. |
Scopes Trial | 1925 trial of a TN school teacher for teaching Darwins theory of evolution. |
quota system | arrangement that limited the number of immigrants who could enter the U.S. from specific countries. |
Ku Klux Klan | organization that promotes hatred and discrimination against specific ethnic and religious groups. |
Prohibition | the forbidding by law of the manufacturing , transport, and sale of alcohol. |
Eighteenth Amendment | amendment banning the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol in the U.S. |
Volstead Act | law enacted by congress to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment. |
bootlegger | one who sells illegal alcohol. |
The Jazz Singer | the first movie with sound synchronized to the action. |
flapper | young women from the 1920s who defied traditional rules of conduct and dress. |
"Lost Generation" | term for American writers of the 1920s marked by disillusion with WW1 and a search for a new sense of meaning. |
Jazz | American musical form developed by African Americans |
Harlem Renaissance | period during the 1920s in which African Americans novelist, poets, and artist celebrated their culture. |