Question | Answer |
Urbanization | Movement to the cities- by 1920 there were more people living in the cities than the country |
Assembly Line | Created mass production of products leading to cheaper more affordable products, invented by Henry Ford |
Suburbanization | Beginning with the automobile in the 1920s, people began to move into residential areas right outside the city then drive into work. It will hit its peak in the 1950’s |
Buy now, pay later | Will cause a boom in the 1920’s economy but also lead to the Great Depression as people in the 1920’s could buy products they could not afford on installment plans, paying a little each month. |
Labor Saving Machines | Machines such as dishwashers and washing machines that made housework for women easier, giving them more free time but maintaining traditional female roles as wives and mothers. |
Flappers | Women of the 1920’s who defied traditional gender roles by chopping off their hair, wearing shorter dresses, and going out at night, seen by most as a sign of a decline in moral values |
The Great Migration | migration of many African Americans to northern and Midwestern cities to escape violence and poverty in the South, gaining available factory jobs in the north |
Harlem Renaissance | Rebirth of African American art, music, and literature because of the growing Black middle class in Northern cities during the Great Migration |
Jazz Era | Traditional “Black” style of music coming out of the south but quickly spread to whites creating a shared musical culture and breaking down some racial boundaries, helping drive the Civil Rights Movement after WWII |
Birth of a Nation | Leads to a resurgence of the KKK when this first feature length film emphasizes African American stereotypes and portrays the KKK as heroes |
Xenophobia | extreme fear or hatred of foreigners |
Bolshevik Revolution | Russian Revolution that lead to the country becoming Communist in 1917 |
Red Scare | Afraid that communism would spread to the US, in the 1920’s the US began passing anti-communist legislature such as deporting, jailing, and interrogating anyone believed to have communist connections. |
Palmer Raids | Attorney General Palmer arrested over 4000 people thought to have communist connections, holding them without bail, and later deporting several hundred |
KKK of the 1920’s | began targeting more than African Americans including immigrants, communists, Catholics, Jews, bootleggers, and gamblers as they saw themselves as “Moral Regulators” until their own scandals made them lose public support |
Quota Laws | in the 1920’s US began restricting the number of immigrants who could enter the country. Specifically from Eastern and Southern Europe as well as Asia |
Prohibition | 18th Amendment made it illegal to sell alcohol. Passed due to anti-German feelings during WWI and grain shortages |
Volstead Act | passed to define formally what was intoxicating liquids and ensure the enforcement of the 18th amendment (prohibition) |
Speakeasies | secret bars that illegally sold alcohol during prohibition |
Bootleggers | criminals who transported illegal alcohol |
Organized Crime | A well organized group of criminals who use violence, intimidation, and bribery in order to carry out criminal acts. These increased during prohibition as many became profitable bootleggers |
21st Amendment | ended prohibition |
Fundamentalism | literal belief in the Bible or other Religious Text |
Conservatives | group of people who did not favor changes socially or politically |
Liberals | group that welcomed social or political changes |
Scopes Trial | showed the battle between conservative Christians and liberal Scientists when a biology teacher was arrested for teaching the Theory of Evolution although this was against the law in Tennessee, Also known as the Monkey Trial, the teacher was convicted and |
Consumerism | the need and desire for material goods |
Speculation | making risky investments in businesses or the stock market believing the value of the stock/company will continue to go up and up |
Buying on Margin | Purchasing only a part of a stock then taking out a loan for the rest, planning to pay the loan back, with interest, when the stock price went up and the person made money |
Black Tuesday | Stock market losing a considerable amount of value and banks began to demand that people pay back their loans (on products and stocks), when they could not, many people and banks when bankrupt, marking the beginning of the Great Depression |
Panic | when a dip in the economy causes people to rush to their banks and withdraw their money, fearing they could lose everything. This hysteria will further the Great Depression when banks run out of more and more money and can no longer give people their mone |
Dust Bowl | overproduction of farmers, and over grazing of cattle in the Midwest, partnered with an extreme drought will cause the soil to be dry and without nutrients, causing massive dust storms and destroying the lands ability to be farmed, hurting the rural econo |
Herbert Hoover | president at the end of the 1920’s whose policies are credited with causing the Great Depression |
Hoovervilles | nickname for the temporary shantytowns build out of found materials to house the people that became homeless during The Great Depression, named because President Hoover will be blamed for the depression |
Frankin D. Roosevelt | president whose policies are accredited with ending the The Great Depression. He will also be president during WWII and the only President to serve more than 2 terms in office. |
Fireside Chats | FDR’s addresses to the nation on the radio which began to restore confidence in the government and economy |
New Deal | FDR’s plan to get the US out of the Great Depression using Relief to those struggling Recovery (creating jobs building public works) and Reform (putting legislation in place that would stop a depression from occurring again) |
Public Works Programs | groups funded by the government to give young men jobs building national parks, installing electric lights, building fire towers, schools, highways and other things that would benefit the public as a whole |
Agricultural Adjustment Act | gave government loans and subsidies (payments) to farmers to stop overproduction and stabilize prices. Ended up hurting sharecroppers who saw some of their land being taken out of production to stop too many crops from being produced |
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation | government insures your money in a bank up to 100,000 if that bank failed. This encouraged people to redeposit their money in the bank and was intended to keep them from withdrawing it in the event that an economic slump hit again. (stopping PANIC) |
Tennessee Valley Authority | built hydroelectric power creating jobs to bring cheap electricity to parts of the South still without electricity, helping the south prosper faster than it had post-Civil War |
National Labor Relations Act:(Wagner Act) | set minimum wage laws, maximum hour laws, and said workers are allowed to create unions |
Social Security Act | Established a government funded retirement plan for workers over 65 and later for disabled individuals |
Court Packing Scheme | FDR’s plan to enlarge the size of the Supreme Court to ensure there are enough judges to support his legislature (is constitutional but was unfavorable by the public so he withdraws the proposal) |
Fair Employment Practices Commission | protected the rights of African American workers in wartime industries |