US History 2: From the 1920s to the Affluent Society

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key policies, court decisions, labor actions, foreign policy doctrines, and civil rights events from the 1920s through the civil rights movement.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A major 1920s political scandal under Warren G. Harding involving the secret, no-bid leasing of federal naval oil reserves in Wyoming and California by corrupt administration associates.

Dawes Plan (1924)

An international financial agreement orchestrated by Chicago banker Charles Dawes that provided private American loans to stabilize Germany's economy and reduce its reparations payments.

McNary-Haugen Bill

Proposed agricultural relief legislation in 1927 and 1928 aimed at establishing crop price parity through federal purchase and foreign resale of farm surpluses; vetoed twice by President Calvin Coolidge.

Welfare Capitalism

A 1920s paternalistic corporate strategy offering employees pensions, stock options, and recreation programs designed to encourage company loyalty and discourage independent unionization.

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

A pioneering Black labor organization founded in 1925 by socialist leader A. Philip Randolph, becoming the most prominent Black union in the United States and securing AFL recognition in 1935.

Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

A working-class Pan-African movement founded by Marcus Garvey in 1916 that rejected integration and promoted Black nationhood, racial pride, economic self-help, and separate institutions.

Scopes Monkey Trial (1925)

A landmark Dayton, Tennessee legal confrontation between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan over teacher John Scopes's violation of a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

Johnson-Reed Act (1924)

Federal immigration restriction legislation that capped total annual European immigration at 165,000 using 1890 census quotas favoring Northern and Western Europe while completely excluding Asians.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

An agency created under Herbert Hoover in 1932 to provide federal emergency loans directly to large banks, railroads, and industrial firms rather than direct relief to unemployed citizens.

Bonus Army (1932)

An assemblage of roughly 20,000 World War I veterans who marched on Washington, D.C., demanding immediate cash redemption of their service certificates, violently dispersed by federal troops under Douglas MacArthur.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

A 1933 New Deal law designed to boost crop prices by paying farmers subsidies to reduce production, which disproportionately enriched large landowners while leading to the eviction of sharecroppers.

NIRA Section 7(a)

A clause in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 that formally affirmed the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, though it lacked an enforcement mechanism.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

A New Deal regional development corporation established in 1933 to construct dams, manage flood control, and produce cheap hydroelectric power across a seven-state rural river basin.

Indian Reorganization Act (1934)

Federal legislation reversing the Dawes Act's assimilation policy by ending the allotment of tribal lands, restoring surplus property, and authorizing tribal constitutions and self-government.

Share Our Wealth

A radical populist economic program launched by Louisiana Senator Huey Long proposing confiscatory taxes on large private fortunes to provide every family with a guaranteed income and home.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

A major Second New Deal agency headed by Harry Hopkins that placed approximately 8 million unemployed workers directly on the federal payroll to construct infrastructure and fund arts projects.

Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act of 1935)

Landmark federal legislation guaranteeing private-sector workers the right to unionize and strike, outlawing unfair labor practices, and establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936–37)

A tactical industrial strike by the United Auto Workers occupying General Motors plants in Michigan, preventing the entry of strikebreakers and compelling GM to recognize the union.

Economy Act of 1933

Federal legislation aimed at balancing the budget that prohibited both spouses in a married couple from holding federal government jobs, resulting in widespread terminations of married female employees.

Dies Committee

A special House committee formed in 1938 chaired by Texas Democrat Martin Dies to investigate alleged un-American subversion; a direct precursor to HUAC that attacked sit-down strikes and the Federal Theatre Project.

Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)

A federal committee established by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 via Executive Order 8802 following A. Philip Randolph's threatened March on Washington, tasked with investigating discrimination in defense industries.

Double V Campaign

A civil rights campaign popularized during World War II by the African American newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier, demanding victory over fascism abroad and victory over racial segregation at home.

GI Bill of Rights (1944)

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act granting returning World War II veterans college tuition, low-interest mortgages, and job training, whose race-neutral text was undermined by discriminatory local administration.

Containment

The foundational Cold War foreign policy articulated by George F. Kennan that advocated confronting Soviet geopolitical expansion with countervailing political, economic, and military resistance.

Truman Doctrine

President Harry Truman's 1947 foreign policy pledge providing $400 million in economic and military assistance to Greece and Turkey to prevent communist takeovers, marking the initial implementation of containment.

Marshall Plan (1948)

A $16 billion American economic recovery program designed to rebuild war-torn Western Europe, foster economic stability to counter communist electoral gains, and expand foreign markets for US goods.

NSC-68 (1950)

A classified National Security Council policy report that rejected ongoing diplomatic accommodation with the Soviet Union and advocated a massive, permanent tripling of US military spending.

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

A restrictive labor law enacted over Truman's veto that curtailed union power by permitting state right-to-work legislation, prohibiting secondary boycotts, and requiring union leaders to sign non-communist oaths.

Dixiecrats

The segregationist States' Rights Democratic Party that broke from Harry Truman in 1948 under candidate Strom Thurmond in protest against the national Democratic Party's pro-civil rights platform.

Labor-Management Accord

A postwar arrangement wherein major labor unions relinquished control over managerial decisions and workplace organization in exchange for predictable wage hikes, health insurance, pensions, and COLAs.

Levittown

Postwar suburban planned communities pioneered by William and Alfred Levitt utilizing assembly-line prefabrication techniques to build inexpensive homes, supported by FHA loans but rigidly segregated.

Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)

A Supreme Court ruling determining that state judicial enforcement of racially restrictive private housing covenants violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Massive Retaliation

A Cold War defense strategy formulated by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, threatening disproportionate nuclear retaliation to deter Soviet expansion while curbing conventional military spending.

Southern Manifesto (1956)

A declaration signed by 101 Southern senators and representatives denouncing the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education as a clear abuse of judicial power and urging Massive Resistance.

Project C

The operational code name (meaning 'Confrontation') devised by Wyatt Tee Walker and the SCLC for the 1963 Birmingham campaign, aimed at provoking official resistance and mass arrests through direct action.

Bretton Woods Conference (1944)

An international economic gathering that established the US dollar as the global reserve currency backed by gold and founded the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Berlin Airlift (1948–1949)

A massive American and British logistical operation that sustained West Berlin by flying in food, coal, and essential supplies for nearly a year to bypass a Soviet ground blockade.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A mutual defense alliance formed in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and Western European nations to deter Soviet aggression, later incorporating West Germany.

Warsaw Pact (1955)

A collective military alliance established between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states in direct response to West Germany's integration into Western defense networks.

Operation Dixie (1946)

An ambitious post-World War II organizing drive by the CIO that failed to unionize Southern industrial workers due to hostile company towns and white resistance to interracial unions.

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

A presidential order signed by Harry Truman that formally desegregated the United States Armed Forces, ensuring that the Korean War would be fought with integrated units.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

A congressional committee that investigated domestic communist subversion during the Cold War, aggressively pressuring witnesses to name names and prompting industry-wide blacklists.

Rosenberg Trial (1951–1953)

The espionage prosecution and historic peacetime execution of a married couple convicted of conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Postwar Strike Wave (1945)

An industrial labor mobilization of nearly 5 million workers walking off the job to protect wartime purchasing power and secure wage hikes before price controls expired.

Progressive Party (1948)

A left-wing third party led by former Vice President Henry Wallace that challenged Truman by demanding peaceful coexistence with the USSR and an immediate end to segregation.

Jazz Ambassadors Program (1956)

State-sponsored international tours featuring prominent Black musicians aimed at countering Soviet propaganda regarding American racial violence and discrimination.

1953–1954 CIA Covert Operations

Secret American intelligence missions that overthrew democratically elected governments in Iran and Guatemala to protect strategic interests and install pro-Western regimes.