The Jazz Age: Redefining the Nation, 1919-1929 – Review Flashcards

These question-and-answer flashcards cover the major people, events, laws, cultural trends, and political developments discussed in Chapter 24 (The Jazz Age) of HIST 1493. Use them to test your recall of 1920s prosperity, technological change, nativist backlash, cultural creativity, prohibition, and Republican politics.

What economic change gave many middle-class Americans the disposable income to spend on entertainment, leisure, and consumer goods in the 1920s?

Rising wages and overall prosperity that produced unprecedented disposable income.

What 1927 Warner Brothers film was the first successful “talkie,” signaling the end of the silent-movie era?

The Jazz Singer.

Which five companies formed Hollywood’s 1920s “big five” motion-picture studios?

Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century-Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

What manufacturing technique did Henry Ford perfect to slash the price of the Model T and make car ownership affordable?

The moving-belt assembly line (mass production).

Approximately how low did the price of a new Model T fall by 1924?

About $300 (down from $850 in 1908).

Roughly how many automobiles were on U.S. roads by 1929?

More than 23 million.

Who completed the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927?

Charles Lindbergh.

What was the name of Charles Lindbergh’s airplane?

The Spirit of St. Louis.

Which new household technology, first used extensively during World War I, became a major source of home entertainment and advertising in the 1920s?

Radio broadcasting.

What nationally syndicated radio show of the late 1920s spread racial stereotypes while illustrating radio’s power to homogenize American culture?

Amos ‘n’ Andy.

How did nationwide radio programming affect regional dialects, music, and consumer tastes?

It smoothed out regional differences by giving Americans from coast to coast the same sounds and advertisements.

Which baseball slugger nicknamed the “Sultan of Swat” became America’s first great sports hero of the radio age?

Babe Ruth.

Who was the Native American athlete who won Olympic medals, played Major-League Baseball, and helped found the NFL?

Jim Thorpe.

Which swimmer became the first woman to cross the English Channel (1926)?

Gertrude Ederle.

Which U.S. tennis star won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon eight times in the late 1920s?

Helen Wills.

Which football legend nicknamed “Red” averaged over 10 yards a carry for the University of Illinois in the 1920s?

Harold “Red” Grange.

What term describes the 1920s preference for native-born white Americans and suspicion of recent immigrants?

Nativism.

Which two Italian immigrant anarchists were controversially executed in 1927 after a robbery-murder trial widely seen as biased?

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

What 1924 law set immigration quotas at 2 percent of each nationality’s presence in the 1890 census, drastically limiting southern and eastern Europeans?

The National Origins Act of 1924.

Who revived the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915, leading to its 1920s resurgence?

William Simmons.

What 1925 Tennessee law banned teaching any theory that denied the Biblical creation of humans?

The Butler Act.

What famous 1925 courtroom drama pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan over teaching evolution?

The Scopes Monkey Trial.

What was the verdict and penalty in the Scopes Trial?

John Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.

What nickname was given to the fashion-forward, socially liberated young women of the 1920s?

Flappers.

Who founded Planned Parenthood and campaigned to spread information about birth control in the 1920s?

Margaret Sanger.

Which uniquely American music genre, rooted in African American traditions, became the soundtrack of the Jazz Age?

Jazz.

What 1920s cultural flowering of African American art, literature, and music was centered in New York City?

The Harlem Renaissance.

Which poet is often called the “poet laureate” of the Harlem Renaissance?

Langston Hughes.

Who led the United Negro Improvement Association and the “Back to Africa” movement?

Marcus Garvey.

Which constitutional amendment, ratified in 1919, prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors?

The Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).

What nickname was given to secret, illegal bars that flourished during Prohibition?

Speakeasies.

Which Chicago crime boss made an estimated $100 million a year from bootlegging and other illegal enterprises before being jailed for tax evasion?

Al “Scarface” Capone.

What label was given to disillusioned post-WWI writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway who criticized middle-class culture?

The Lost Generation.

What campaign slogan did Warren G. Harding use in 1920 to promise stability after World War I?

“A return to normalcy.”

What 1920s political scandal involved Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall’s secret leasing of naval oil reserves to private companies?

The Teapot Dome scandal.

Which president declared, “The business of America is business,” reflecting his laissez-faire, pro-corporate philosophy?

Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge.