Key Figures and Events in 20th Century American History

A. Philip Randolph

Labor and civil rights leader in the 1940s who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; he demanded that FDR create a Fair Employment Practices Commission to investigate job discrimination in war industries.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933)

New Deal program that paid farmers not to produce crops, it provided farmers with income while reducing crop surpluses and helped stabilize farm production.

Alfred (Al) Smith

First Catholic ever nominated for president; he lost in 1928 because of the nation's prosperity, but his religion, urban background, and views on Prohibition (he was a 'wet') cost him votes as well.

American Liberty League

A conservative anti-New Deal organization; members included Alfred Smith, John W. Davis, and the Du Pont family. It criticized the 'dictatorial' policies of Roosevelt and what it perceived to be his attacks on the free enterprise system.

Atlantic Charter (1941)

Joint statement issued by President Roosevelt and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill of principals and goals for an Allied victory in World War II; it provided for self-determination for all conquered nations, freedom of seas, economic security, and free trade.

Black Cabinet

An informal network of black officeholders in the federal government; led by Mary McLeod Bethune, William Hastie, and Robert Weaver, they pushed for economic and political opportunities for African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s.

Bonus Army (1932)

Group of jobless World War I veterans who came to Washington to lobby Congress for immediate payment of money promised them in 1945; Hoover opposed payment, and when he used the U.S. Army to drive the veterans out of the capital, he was portrayed as cruel and cold-hearted.

Brain Trust

Name applied to college professors from Columbia University such as Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle, and Raymond Moley who advised Roosevelt on economic matters early in the New Deal.

Charles Coughlin

Catholic priest who used his popular radio program to criticize the New Deal; he grew increasingly anti-Roosevelt and anti-Semitic until the Catholic Church pulled him off the air.

Court-packing plan

Roosevelt's proposal in 1937 to 'reform' the Supreme Court by appointing an additional justice for every justice over age 70; following the Court's actions in striking down major New Deal laws, FDR came to believe that some justices were out of touch with the nation's needs.

Fireside chats

Roosevelt's informal radio addresses throughout his presidency; they gave the people a sense of confidence that he understood their problems and was trying to help solve them.

Frances Perkins

Roosevelt's secretary of labor (1933-1945); the first woman to serve as a federal Cabinet officer, she had a great influence on many New Deal programs, most significantly the Social Security Act.

Francis Townsend

Retired physician who proposed an Old Age Revolving Pension Plan to give every retiree over age 60 $200 per month, provided that the person spend the money each month in order to receive their next payment.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

President (1933-1945); elected four times, he led the country's recovery from the Depression and to victory in World War II.

Harry S. Truman

Vice president who became president when FDR died in April 1945; he was elected on his own in 1948.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)

Raised the duties on imported foreign goods to all-time highs; intended to boost American industry and employment, it actually deepened the Depression.

Herbert Hoover

President (1929-1933) who is blamed for the Great Depression; his inflexibility and refusal to give direct relief doomed his programs and his presidency.

Hoovervilles

Camps and shantytowns of unemployed and homeless on the outskirts of major cities during the early days of the Depression.

Huey Long

Flamboyant Louisiana governor and U.S. senator; he challenged FDR to do more for the poor and needy and proposed a popular 'Share-Our-Wealth' program.

Hundred Days

Term applied to the first weeks of the Roosevelt Administration, during which Congress passed 13 emergency relief and reform measures.

Lend Lease (1941)

Program authorizing the president to lend or lease equipment to nations whose defense was deemed vital to the U.S. security.

National Labor Relations Act (1935)

Created a National Labor Relations Board that could compel employers to recognize and bargain with unions.

National Recovery Administration (1933)

Agency that created a partnership between business and government to fight the Depression.

Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937)

Series of laws that provided Americans could not ship weapons, loan money, travel on belligerent ships, extend credit, or deliver goods to any belligerent countries.

New Deal (1933-1938)

Roosevelt's program of domestic reform and relief; the three Rs of Relief, Reform, and Recovery did not end the Depression, but they gave hope and security and made government more responsive to the people in bad economic times.

Pearl Harbor

United States naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, with serious U.S. losses: 19 ships sunk or destroyed and over 2,000 deaths; the attack brought the United States into World War II.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932)

Hoover's economic recovery program that provided government loans to businesses, banks, and railroads; it was 'pump priming,' but it was too little ($300 million) too late to make any real improvement in the economy.

Rugged individualism

Hoover's philosophy that called on Americans to help each other during the Depression without direct government relief; he feared too much government help would weaken the American character, endanger liberty, and lead to totalitarianism in the United States.

Second Front

Proposed Anglo-American invasion of France to relieve the Soviets, who were fighting a German invasion of the USSR; originally scheduled for 1942, it was not delivered until D-Day in June 1944.

Second New Deal (1935-1936)

Name given to a series of proposals that FDR requested and Congress passed to reinvigorate the New Deal as recovery from the Depression began to lag; they were antibusiness in tone and intent and included the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Social Security Act, National Labor Relations Act, and the Wealth Tax Act.

Social Security Act (1935)

Required both workers and their employer to contribute to a federally run pension fund for retired workers; it also provided federal disability and unemployment assistance. Although benefits were meager, it was the first significant government program to provide for retired, disabled, or unemployed Americans.

Chiang Kai Shek

Ineffective and corrupt leader of China in 1930s and 1940s; he was a wartime ally of the United States, but was unable to stop Communists from seizing power in 1949. Chiang's exile to Taiwan was a major American setback in the early days of the Cold War.

Domino Theory

Eisenhower's metaphor that when one country fell to Communists, its neighbors would then be threatened and collapse one after another like a row of dominoes; this belief became a major rationale for U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Douglas MacArthur

World War II hero who led United Nations forces during the Korean War; his outspoken opposition to President Truman's decisions to limit the war cost him his command. He wanted to bomb China, and Truman rejected the idea as too reckless.

Dwight Eisenhower

World War II hero and President, 1953-1961; his internationalist foreign policy continued Truman's policy of containment but put greater emphasis on military cost-cutting, the threat of nuclear weapons to deter Communist aggression, and Central Intelligence Agency activities to halt communism.

George Kennan

State Department official who was architect of the containment concept; in his article 'The Source of Soviet Conduct' he said the USSR was historically and ideologically driven to expand and that the United States must practice 'vigilant containment' to stop this expansion.

John Foster Dulles

Eisenhower's secretary of state, 1953-1959; moralistic in his belief that Communism was evil and must be confronted with 'brinkmanship' (the readiness and willingness to go to war) and 'massive retaliation' (the threat of using nuclear weapons).

Joseph Stalin

ruthless leader of Soviet Union from 1925 to 1953; he industrialized the nation and led it in World War n and the early stages of the Cold War.

Mao Zedong

Communist Chinese leader who won control of China in 1949; a wary ally of the Soviet Union, Mao was an implacable foe of the United States until the 1970s.

Marshall Plan (1947-1954)

Secretary of State George Marshall's economic aid program to rebuild war-torn Western Europe; it amounted to an enlarged version of the Truman Doctrine, with billions of dollars going to revive European economies and contain Communism.

Massive retaliation

idea that United States should depend on nuclear weapons to stop Communist aggression; prompted by the frustration of the Korean War stalemate and the desire to save money on military budgets, the concept reduced reliance on conventional forces.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (1949)

military alliance of the United States, ten Western European countries, and Canada; it was considered a deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe, with an attack on one NATO nation to be considered as an attack on all members.

Peaceful coexistence (1955-1960)

period in Soviet-American relations marked by less tension and by personal diplomacy between Khrushchev and Eisenhower; the two leaders recognized that, in a nuclear age, competition between their nations must be peaceful. This thaw in the Cold War was ended by the U-2 spy plane incident over the Soviet Union in 1960.

Truman Doctrine (1947)

the announced policy of President Truman to provide aid to free nations who faced internal or external threats of a Communist takeover; announced in conjunction with a $400 million economic aid package to Greece and Turkey, it was successful in helping those countries put down Communist guerrilla movements and is considered to be the first U.S action of the Cold War.

Yalta Conference (February 1945)

meeting of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Winston Churchill to discuss postwar plans and Soviet entry into the war against Japan near the end of World War IT; disagreements over the future of Poland surfaced.

Alger Hiss

State Department official accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union; Richard Nixon became famous for his pursuit of Hiss, which resulted in a perjury conviction and prison for Hiss. Although long seen as a victim of Nixon's ruthless ambition and the Red Scare, recent scholarship suggests that Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent.

House Un-American Activities Committee

congressional committee formed in the 1930s to investigate perceived threats to democracy; in the 1940s, the committee laid foundation for the Red Scare as it investigated allegations of Communist subversion in Hollywood and pursued Alger Hiss.

Joseph McCarthy

junior senator from Wisconsin who charged hundreds of Americans with working for or aiding the Soviet Union during the Cold War; he had no evidence but terrorized people from 1950 to 1954, ruining their lives and careers with his reckless charges until Senate censured him in December 1954.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

an engineer and his wife who were accused, tried, and executed in the early 1950s for running an espionage ring in New York City that gave atomic secrets to the Soviet Union; long considered unjustly accused victims of the Red Scare, recent evidence suggests that Julius was indeed a Soviet agent.

National Defense Education Act (1958)

law that authorized the use of federal funds to improve the nation's elementary and high schools; inspired by Cold War fears that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union in the arms and space race, it was directed at improving science, math, and foreign-language education.

Sputnik

Soviet satellite launched in September 1957; the launch set off a panic that the Communists were winning the space race and were superior in math and science education. It gave impetus for the Nation Defense Education Act of 1958 to improve schools.