Key Terms 7-7 & 7-8

Black Tuesday

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929 crash of the U.S. stock market. This event has historically marked the beginning of the Great Depression, though it was not the depression's root cause.

Reconstruction Finance
Corporation

New Women (Flappers)

1920s term for the modern, sexually liberated woman. The new woman, popularized in movies and magazines, defied traditional morality.

Harlem Renaissance

The work of Harlem-based African American writers, artists, and musicians that flourished following World War I through the 1920s.

Dust Bowl

Lost Generation

Term coined by the writer Gertrude Stein to describe the writers and artists disillusioned with the consumer culture of the 1920s.

Sacco and Vanzetti Case

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants charged with murdering a guard and robbing a shoe factory in Braintree; Mass. The trial lasted from 1920-1927. Convicted on circumstantial evidence; many believed they had been framed for the crime because of their anarchist and pro-union activities.

Indian Citizenship Act

Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S in 1924

United Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA)

A black nationalist organization founded in 1914 by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey in order to promote resettlement of African Americans to their "African homeland" and to stimulate a vigorous separate black economy within the United States.

National Origins Act

1924 act establishing immigration quotas by national origin. The act was intended to severely limit immigration from southern and eastern Europe as well as prohibit all immigration from East Asia.

Reconstruction Finance
Corporation

Agency established in 1932 to provide emergency relief to large businesses, insurance companies, and banks.

Great Depression

Worldwide economic collapse caused by overproduction and financial speculation. It affected the United States from October of 1929 until the start of World War II in 1939.

Dust Bowl

Name for the southern plains of the United States during the Great Depression when the region experienced massive dust storms due to soil erosion caused by poor farming practices and drought.

Bonus Army

World War I veterans who marched on Washington, D.C. in 1932 to demand immediate payment of their service bonuses. President Hoover refused to negotiate and instructed the U.S. Army to clear the capital of protestors, leading to a violent clash.

Hawley Smoot Act

1930 act designed to increase tariffs on agricultural and industrial imports in order to aid struggling farmers. However, the act caused retaliatory tariffs by other countries, which broadly hurt American business.

Scottsboro Nine

Nine African American youths convicted of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931. The Communist Party played a key role in defending the Scottsboro Nine and in bringing national and international attention to their case.

New Deal

The policies and programs that Franklin Roosevelt initiated to combat the Great Depression. The New Deal represented a dramatic expansion of the role of government in American society.

21st Amendment

Amendment which ended the Prohibition of alcohol in the US, repealing the 18th amendment

National Labor Relations Board

Organization created by the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The NLRB protected workers' right to organize labor unions without business owner interference.

Court Packing Plan

1937 proposal by Franklin Roosevelt to increase the size of the Supreme Court and reduce its opposition to New Deal legislation. Congress failed to pass the measure, and the scheme undermined Roosevelt's popular support.

Emergency Banking Act

1933 New Deal executive order that shut down banks for several days to calm widespread panic during the Great Depression.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

1933 New Deal act that raised prices for farm produce by paying farmers subsidies to reduce production. Large farmers reaped most of the benefits from the act. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1936.

Fair Labor Standards Act

1938 law that provided a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour and a forty-hour workweek for employees in businesses engaged in interstate commerce.

Works Progress Administration

a program created by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 to boost employment and the purchasing power of cash-strapped Americans

Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC)

Federal agency created under the New Deal in 1933. It insured bank deposits up to $5,000, a figure that would substantially rise over the years.

Social Security Act

(FDR) 1935, guaranteed retirement payments for enrolled workers beginning at age 65; set up federal-state system of unemployment insurance and care for dependent mothers and children, the handicapped, and public health

Indian Reorganization Act (IRA)

1934 - Restored tribal ownership of lands, recognized tribal constitutions and government, and provided loans for economic development.