Unit 4: The Roaring Twenties and The Great Depression (1914-1944)

Vocabulary flashcards covering the economic, political, and social dynamics of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal programs.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

An organization formed by social activists to defend and protect constitutional rights, particularly freedom of speech.

Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

An organization founded to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, whose creation was catalyzed by the Leo Frank case and the resurgence of the KKK.

Back-to-Africa Movement

A movement led by Marcus Garvey that attracted up to $2\text{ million}$ followers and raised money to launch several Black-owned businesses.

Palmer Raids

A series of controversial raids during the Red Scare in which federal agents entered private buildings without search warrants and seized records without permission.

Quota System

A statutory system enacted by Congress to restrict immigration by placing strict limits on the number of immigrants admitted from each foreign country.

Red Scare

A nationwide period of intense fear and hysteria following World War I directed against communists, socialists, and political radicals.

Sacco and Vanzetti Trial

The widely publicized trial and conviction of two Italian immigrant anarchists during a post-World War I era of intense nativist prejudice.

Demobilization

The postwar transition from wartime readiness to a peacetime economy, which left returning soldiers struggling to find jobs and caused severe economic upheaval.

Black Tuesday

October $29$, $1929$, the date of the historic Wall Street stock market crash when share prices completely plunged, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.

Buying on Margin

The risky practice of purchasing stocks with borrowed money, such as an investor putting down $\$1{,}000$ and borrowing $\$9{,}000$ to purchase $\$10{,}000$ worth of shares.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act

A $1930$ federal law enacted to protect American businesses from foreign competition by raising tariffs, which ultimately triggered retaliatory tariffs and deepened global depression.

Overproduction

An economic condition in which industrial factories and agricultural farms produce far more goods than consumers have the purchasing power to buy.

Underconsumption

The counterpart of overproduction in which consumers do not purchase as many manufactured or agricultural products as the economy is producing.

Stock Market Crash

The sudden, dramatic collapse in stock values in the fall of $1929$, serving as a principal catalyst of the Great Depression and triggering widespread banking panics.

Bonus Army

A gathering of thousands of unemployed World War I veterans and their families who marched to Washington, D.C., demanding immediate cash redemption of their service certificates.

First Hundred Days

The initial three-month special session of Congress in $1933$ during which President Franklin D. Roosevelt and lawmakers bypassed traditional lengthy debate to enact major New Deal recovery programs.

Hooverville

Squalid shantytowns built by homeless Americans on public lands during the Great Depression, constructed out of discarded wood, cardboard, and tarpaper.

New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambitious domestic policy agenda designed to provide direct relief for the needy, promote economic recovery, and reform financial institutions.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A federal agency created under President Herbert Hoover that provided emergency government loans to distressed banks, railroads, and major financial institutions.

Radical

A political ideology whose adherents advocate for sweeping, fundamental institutional changes to society, such as nationalizing industry or redistributing wealth to eliminate poverty.

Conservative

A political ideology whose adherents seek to preserve traditional customs, limit federal intervention in the economy, and rely on private charity and local community self-help.

Liberal

A political ideology committed to expanding civil liberties and using federal government regulation and social programs to address economic distress.

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

A famous early $1930\text{s}$ song characterized by a slow, somber tempo that reflected the despair, betrayal, and economic distress felt by ordinary working Americans.

Black Blizzard

A severe dust storm in the Great Plains characterized by dark, towering clouds of desiccated topsoil driven by high winds.

Breadline

A line of destitute, unemployed people waiting to receive free food or rations from charitable relief agencies or municipal soup kitchens.

Dust Bowl

A region encompassing roughly $100\text{ million}$ acres across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas devastated by sustained drought, severe winds, and topsoil loss in the $1930\text{s}$.

Great Flood of 1936

A catastrophic regional deluge that inundated Massachusetts and surrounding areas, destroying more than $82{,}000$ buildings and compelling Congress to pass national flood-control legislation.

Okies

A derogatory nickname given to impoverished Dust Bowl migrants—many originating from Oklahoma—who fled westward along Route 66 to seek farm work in California.

Soup Kitchen

A charitable or public facility that serves free or low-cost hot soup and basic meals to the impoverished and jobless during hard economic times.

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck's acclaimed $1939$ novel depicting the plight, migration, and enduring dignity of an Oklahoma family dispossessed during the Dust Bowl.

Desertification

The ecological process through which fertile agricultural land becomes arid and barren desert as a consequence of persistent drought and poor farming practices.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

A New Deal federal agency created to raise depressed agricultural prices by paying farmers subsidies to reduce their crop and livestock production.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

A New Deal work-relief program that employed millions of young unmarried men in environmental conservation projects, including reforestation, park maintenance, and flood control.

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

A major federation of industrial unions established in the $1930\text{s}$ that organized mass-production factory workers regardless of their specific craft or skill level.

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

A central piece of early New Deal legislation designed to revive industrial productivity and fair competition through codes of fair competition and federal recognition of collective bargaining.

New Deal Coalition

A powerful political alliance of industrial workers, minority groups, Southern Democrats, urban machines, and farmers that kept the Democratic Party dominant for decades.

Social Security Act

A landmark $1935$ law creating a permanent national social safety net, providing old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and assistance to dependent mothers and disabled citizens.

Wagner Act

A milestone $1935$ labor law, often hailed as the "bill of rights for organized labor," that guaranteed private sector employees the legal right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

A massive New Deal work-relief agency that employed more than $3\text{ million}$ jobless Americans during its first year in construction, public works, arts, and educational projects.

Second New Deal

The legislative phase of Roosevelt's program beginning in $1935$ that focused on lasting social safety nets, labor rights, public works, and progressive tax reform.