1920s USA Economic Boom and Social Changes Vocabulary

A collection of key terms and concepts from the 1920s USA transcript, including economics, culture, Prohibition, immigration, and civil rights.

Economic Boom

A period of rapid economic growth and rising prosperity in the USA during the 1920s.

Mass Production

The manufacture of large quantities of goods using machinery and production lines.

Hire Purchase

A system allowing people to buy goods immediately and pay for them in instalments.

Mass Consumption

The widespread buying of consumer goods by ordinary Americans.

Electrification

The expansion of electricity supplies to homes and businesses.

Henry Ford

The founder of the Ford Motor Company and a pioneer of mass car production.

Model T

Ford's affordable car, first produced in 1908, which made car ownership possible for millions of ordinary Americans.

Moving Assembly Line

A production system introduced in 1913 in which a product moved past workers, each completing one specific task.

Overproduction in Farming

Producing more crops than could be sold profitably.

Talkies

Films with synchronised speech and sound.

The Jazz Singer

The first major successful talking film, released in 1927.

Nineteenth Amendment

The 1920 amendment that gave American women the right to vote.

Flapper

A young woman associated with shorter skirts, bobbed hair, make-up, dancing and greater independence.

Prohibition

The legal ban on the manufacture, sale and transport of alcoholic drinks.

Volstead Act

The 1920 law under which Prohibition began, along with the Eighteenth Amendment.

Twenty-First Amendment

The amendment that repealed Prohibition in 1933.

Speakeasy

An illegal bar or club selling alcohol secretly.

Bootlegging

The illegal production, transport or sale of alcohol.

Al Capone

A Chicago gangster who made a fortune from bootlegging and organised crime.

Nativism

Opposition to immigrants and the belief that native-born Americans were superior.

Emergency Quota Act

A 1921 law limiting immigration from each country to 3% of that country's population in the 1910 census.

National Origins Act

A 1924 law reducing quotas to 2% based on the 1890 census and excluding most Asian immigrants.

Americanisation Policy

Attempts to make immigrants adopt American language, customs and values.

Red Scare

Fear of communism and radical political ideas in the USA after the First World War.

Palmer Raids

Government raids in 1919–20 against suspected communists, anarchists and radicals, organised by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Italian immigrant anarchists arrested in 1920 and executed in 1927 following a trial influenced by anti-immigrant and anti-radical prejudice.

Segregation

The enforced separation of Black and white people in public facilities and society.

Jim Crow Laws

Southern laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination.

Disenfranchisement

Preventing African Americans from voting through poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation.

Ku Klux Klan

A racist organisation that used threats, violence and murder against African Americans and other groups.

Lynching

The illegal murder of someone by a group, often without a trial.

Great Migration

The movement of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities.

Harlem Renaissance

A flourishing of African American literature, art and music during the 1920s.

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which campaigned for African American civil rights.

UNIA

Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, a major organisation promoting Black pride, economic independence and the return to Africa.