Vocab 4: The Great Depression - WWII

Agricultural Adjustment Act

A New Deal federal agency created to help reduce farmers' crop production and restore the prices of their goods to a reasonable level

Appeasement

Yielding to an enemy's demands in order to maintain peace

Bank Runs

A financial crisis in which a large number of customers simultaneously attempt to withdraw their money from a bank out of fear that the bank will close

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929; the worst day of the plunging stock market crash that helped initiate the Great Depression

Bonus Army

A group of WWI veterans who traveled to Washington, DC, in 1932 to request early payment to help them through the Great Depression

Breadline

A line of needy people waiting for food, usually during an economic crisis

Buying on the Margin

Buying stock by paying a percentage of a stock's price and borrowing the rest of the money from a broker, allowing one to make greater profits if the stock does well

Civilian Conservation Corps

A work-relief program established in 1933, as part of the New Deal, to provide work for unemployed Americans during the Great Depression

D-Day

The day that the Allied invasion of German-occupied France began

Deficit Spending

A government's practice of spending more money that it receives in revenue, the difference being made up by borrowing

Double V Campaign

A campaign in which Black leaders called for all citizens to fight against racism by seeking a victory for democracy at home and abroad

Dust Bowl

The area of the Great Plains that suffered severely from wind erosion during the 1930s

First Hundred Days

The first three months of FDR's presidency, during which Congress passed a record number of bills in order to implement the New Deal and provide relief, recovery, and reform for the Great Depression

Four Freedoms

Essential privileges identified by FDR: speech and expression, worship, want, fear

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

Raised the taxes on imported goods in order to protect US businesses and farmers during the Depression; spread the Depression globally

Holocaust

The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazis

Hoovervilles

A shantytown of makeshift dwellings during the Great Depression

Internment Camps

A center for confining people who have been relocated for reasons of national security

Lend-Lease Act

Passed by Congress in 1941 adopting a plan to lend arms to Britain

Manhattan Project

The top-secret US government project that developed the atomic bomb

Neutrality Act

Legislation passed by Congress designed to keep the US out of European conflicts

New Deal

FDR's domestic program which aimed to bring about immediate economic relief from the Great Depression

New Deal Coalition

A political partnership formed among various social and political groups in support of the New Deal, the Democratic Party, and FDR

Okies

A nickname for a person who migrated from the Dust Bowl to California during the Great Depression

Overproduction

A situation in which more goods are being produced than people can afford to buy

Precision Bombing

Bombing strategy of specific targets

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A government agency created by Congress to provide loans to banks, railroads, and big businesses and later also farmers and public works projects

Saturation Bombing

The rapid release of a large number of bombs over a wide area

Social Security Act

A law passed to establish federal programs to offer old-age assistance and benefits, unemployment compensation, and aid to needy mothers, children, and the blind

Trickle-Down Theory

An economic policy in which the government attempts to indirectly aid the needy by promoting economic growth at the business level in the hope that it will influence prosperity at all levels

Tuskegee Airmen

A group of Army Air Corps pilots and support crews who formed the first Black combat unit in 1941

Underconsumption

A situation in which people are purchasing fewer goods than the economy is producing

United Nations

An international organization founded in 1945 to further the causes of peace, prosperity, and human rights

War Production Board

The federal agency set up to manage the conversion of industries to military production during WWII

Works Progress Administration

A New Deal established work-relief organization to provide work for unemployed Americans during the Great Depression