1920s and Great Depression

Dust Bowl

Region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

charged a high tax for imports thereby leading to less trade between America and foreign countries along with some economic retaliation

Stock Market Speculation/ Buying on Margin

taking a risk in the stock market and presuming the price will continue to go up
during the 20s stockholders bought stock on credit(on margin)

Bank Failures

The stock market crash caused over 5,000 failures; many Americans made a "run on the banks" only to find their savings and deposits gone forever

Policy of Federal Reserve System

sets interest rates because it loans money, at a base rate, to commercial banks. In 1928 and 1929, the Fed raised interest rates to try to curb Wall Street speculation.

Social Impact of the Great Depression

- People lost their jobs and were forced to move
- Unemployment rate reached 25% in 1932
- Hoovervilles
- The inability of consumers to continue making installment payments also resulted in reduced production and subsequent layoffs

Deportation and Repatriation of people of Mexican Heritage

Mexicans were blamed for the economic crisis and the deportations were justified by misinformation that Mexicans strained the welfare and charity systems.

Major employers laid off Mexican and Mexican-American workers and public officials ultimately deported over 1 million Mexican Americans.

Country and western music

is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920's. Spoke of the hardships of the people during the Great Depression

Eleanor Roosevelt

New Deal supporter. Was a great supporter of civil rights and opposed the Jim Crow laws. She also worked for birth control and better conditions for working women

Huey Long

preached his "Share Our Wealth" programs. It was a 100% tax on all annual incomes over $1 million and appropriation of all fortunes in excess of $5 million. With this money Long proposed to give every American family a comfortable income, etc

Bread lines and soup kitchens

Due to business failures and unemployment the homeless needed a place where meals were offered to the poor for free or for very little money

Social Security Act of 1935

Provided old-age pension (retirement), and a program of unemployment insurance (temporary aid to help people who lose jobs to find a new job), and federal welfare program (aid for very poor).

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

the government agency that insures customer deposits if a bank fails

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

monitors the stock market and enforces laws regulating the sale of stocks and bonds

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

an agency, established as part of the New Deal, that put young unemployed men to work building roads, developing parks, planting trees, and helping in erosion-control and flood-control projects.

Court Packing Plan (1937)

Seen as a overreach of executive power after the Supreme Court declared New Deal programs unconstitutional in such cases as Schecter v .United States (1935) and Butler v. United States (1936), President Roosevelt unsuccessfully attempted to add new members to the Supreme Court.

Hoovervilles (Shantytowns)

Little "towns" (cheap housing) consisting of makeshift shacks made out of scrap material (Hoover blamed for Depression)

Bonus Army

WWI veterans who marched on Washington demanding their $1,000 bonus pay before the 1945 due date.

Flappers

Young women of the 1920s that behaved and dressed in a radical fashion challenging the traditional roles of women

Scopes Trial

1925 court case in which Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan debated the issue of teaching evolution in public schools. Symbolized the conflict between modernists v. traditionalist (fundamentalists)

Palmer Raids

A 1920 operation coordinated by Attorney General Mitchel Palmer in which federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and

Marcus Garvey

African American leader durin the 1920s who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and advocated mass migration of African Americans back to Africa. Was deported to Jamaica in 1927.