1920s vocab

Warren G. Harding

29th president of the US; his policies favored business, but his administration was known for scandals.

Charles Evans Hughes

American politician who served as secretary of state and participated in the Washington Naval Conference.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff

A set of regulations, enacted by Congress in 1922, that raised taxes on imports to protect American businesses.

Ohio gang

A group of friends and political supporters appointed by President Warren G. Harding to his cabinet.

Teapot Dome scandal

Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall’s secret leasing of oil-rich public land to private companies.

Albert B. Fall

U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the Harding administration; found guilty of bribery in Teapot Dome scandal.

Calvin Coolidge

13th president of the US; known for his honesty and pro-business policies.

Urban Sprawl

The unplanned and uncontrolled spreading of cities into surrounding regions.

Consumerism

A preoccupation with the purchasing of material goods.

Installment plan

An arrangement in which a purchaser pays over an extended time without a large down payment.

Xenophobia

An unreasoned fear of things or people seen as foreign or strange.

Nativism

Favoring the interests of native-born people over foreign-born people.

Isolationism

Opposition to economic entanglements with other countries.

Communism

An economic and political system based on one-party government and state ownership of property.

Anarchist

A person who opposes all forms of government.

Nicola Sacco

Italian immigrant anarchist executed for robbery and murder; case received international attention.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Italian immigrant anarchist executed for robbery and murder; case alongside Nicola Sacco gained attention.

Quota system

A system that sets limits on how many immigrants from various countries a nation will admit each year.

John L. Lewis

American labor leader and president of the United Mine Workers.

Prohibition

Period from 1920-1933 during which the 18th amendment forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcohol was in force.

Speakeasy

Place where alcoholic drinks were sold and consumed illegally during Prohibition.

Bootlegger

Person who smuggled alcoholic beverages into the US during Prohibition.

Fundamentalism

A Protestant religious movement believing that all stories in the Bible are literally true.

Clarence Darrow

Famous American criminal lawyer who defended John Scopes’s right to teach evolution.

Scopes Trial

1925 court case where teacher John T. Scopes was tried for challenging a Tennessee law against teaching evolution.

Flapper

Free-thinking young women embracing new fashions and urban attitudes in the 1920s.

Double Standard

Principles granting greater sexual freedom to men than to women.

Charles A Lindbergh

American pilot; first person to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean nonstop in 1927.

George Gershwin

Composer known for Rhapsody in Blue, showing the impact of jazz music in the 1920s.

Irving Berlin

American songwriter popular in the 1920s for compositions like 'White Christmas'.

George O’Keeffe

American artist known for her paintings of New Mexico and close-up flower studies during the 1920s.

Modernism

20th century artistic movement rejecting traditional art as outdated in the industrialized world.

Sinclair Lewis

First American Nobel Prize winner in literature; his novel Babbitt satirized Americans in the 1920s.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

American writer known for The Great Gatsby and capturing the mood of the 1920s.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

American poet and playwright celebrating youth and independence.

Ernest Hemingway

American writer who introduced a simplified style; criticized glorification of war in his novels.

Zora Neale Hurston

African American writer who celebrated traditional values and folkways in her work.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

An organization founded in 1909 to promote full racial equality.

James Weldon Johnson

NAACP leader and poet key in the Harlem Renaissance.

Marcus Garvey

African American leader who promoted self-reliance and pride in heritage.

Harlem Renaissance

A flowering of African American artistic creativity during the 1920s in Harlem.

Claude McKay

African American writer who expressed life in black ghettos and urged resistance to discrimination.

Langston Hughes

African American poet whose works described the rich culture of African American life.

Paul Robeson

African American actor and singer promoting rights and left-wing causes.

Louis Armstrong

Leading African American jazz musician during the Harlem Renaissance.

Duke Ellington

African American composer and jazz musician; key figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Bessie Smith

African American blues singer who played an important role in the Harlem Renaissance.