APSUH Exam Flash-cards

Stock Market Crash (Oct. 1929)

• Cause: Rampant speculation & “buying on margin”

• Effect: Panic selling → bank failures → skyrocketing unemployment

The Dust Bowl

• Cause: Severe drought + poor soil conservation in the Plains

• Effect: “Okie” migration to CA; spurred federal soil‐management programs (Soil Conservation Service)

Bonus Army (1932)

• Cause: WWI vets demanded early payment of promised bonuses

• Effect: Hoover’s ordering of army to disperse protesters damaged his public image

4. Hoover vs. Roosevelt Economic Policy

Policy	Hoover	FDR
Philosophy	“Rugged individualism,” limited relief	Government must actively provide relief
Key Action	Reconstruction Finance Corp.	New Deal’s 3 R’s (Relief, Recovery, Reform)

The New Deal (1933–1939)

• Causes: Deepening Depression; demand for federal action

• Key Effects:

  • Expanded federal power & welfare state

  • Set precedents for social safety nets

Alphabet Agencies

CCC/TVA/WPA/AAA/NRA…

• Cause: Need to employ millions, rebuild infrastructure

• Effects:

  • CCC: reforestation & youth jobs

  • TVA: rural electrification & flood control

  • WPA: roads, schools, artistic projects

Social Security Act (1935)

• Cause: Elderly poverty + unstable incomes

• Effect: Started federal old-age pensions, unemployment insurance

Court-Packing Plan (1937)

• Cause: Supreme Court striking down New Deal laws

• Effect: Public backlash; preserved Court’s independence but slowed further reforms

Fireside Chats

• Cause: Restore public confidence

• Effect: Forged direct bond between FDR and Americans → bolstered support for New Deal

Isolationism & Neutrality Acts

• Cause: WWI disillusionment

• Effect: 1930s laws banning arms sales/loans to warring nations delayed U.S. entry

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

• Cause: Aid Britain & USSR without direct war declaration

• Effect: Shift from neutrality → de facto involvement; set stage for full mobilization

Four Freedoms Speech (1941)

• Cause: Justify support for Allies; promote idealism

• Effect: Shaped postwar goals (UN Charter); boosted morale & war bond sales

Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941)

• Cause: Japanese reaction to U.S. embargo on oil/supplies

• Effect: U.S. war declaration → unified public support for WWII

Women on the Home Front

• Cause: Male enlistment created labor shortages

• Effect: “Rosie the Riveter” → permanent shift in public attitudes toward working women

African Americans in WWII

• Cause: Segregated armed forces & wartime labor needs

• Effect: “Double V” campaign; laid groundwork for Civil Rights Movement

Japanese American Internment

• Cause: Wartime fear & racism after Pearl Harbor

• Effect: 120,000 forced into camps; later official apology & reparations (Civil Liberties Act, 1988)

Bracero Program (1942–1964)

• Cause: Acute farm-labor shortage

• Effect: Millions of Mexican laborers brought in → long‐term demographic shifts & labor debates

Manhattan Project & Atomic Bomb

• Cause: Race to build bomb before Nazi Germany/Japan

• Effects:

  • Aug ’45: Hiroshima & Nagasaki → Japanese surrender

  • Dawn of nuclear era; beginning of Cold War arms race