APUSH 30: American Pageant 17th Edition Chapter 30: American Life in the Roaring Twenties

Model T

Automobile made by Ford from 1908-1927 that was reliable, cheap, and widespread

Scientific Management

Frederick Taylor’s system for industrial management that focused on decreasing wasted movement and the time it took to complete a task, heavily adopted in the western world

Fordism

Assembly line mass production, especially of cars, criticized for its monotony by workers

Wright Brothers

Duo who piloted the first powered flight in history in Kill Devil Hills (now Kitty Hawk), North Carolina, on December 17th, 1903

Charles Lindbergh

“Flyin’ Fool” who flew from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927, becoming the 1st human to fly across the Atlantic Ocean

KDKA

Pittsburgh radio station that broadcast the results of the 1920 election by radio, being the 1st to do so

National Broadcasting Company

1st national radio network, a merger of the Radio Corporation of America and other local stations, broadcasts 1927 Rose Bowl as the 1st national radio broadcast

Federal Radio Commission

Federal agency created in 1927 to give licenses to radio stations and assign them designated frequencies, renamed the Federal Communications Commission

Amos ‘n’ Andy

Popular comedic radio show

The Great Train Robbery

1903 movie produced by Thomas Edison’s movie studio, first depiction of a plot on film, filmed in New Jersey, shown in 5-cent nickelodeons

Birth of a Nation

1915 movie directed by D.W. Griffith which glorified the Ku Klux Klan during reconstruction and attacked blacks and carpetbaggers, outrages African Americans, sends southerners into a frenzy

The Jazz Singer

1927 movie starring Al Jolson in blackface, the first movie with sound

Bruce Barton

First major advertiser who wrote The Man Nobody Knows and said that Jesus Christ was the greatest advertiser of all time

Jack Dempsey

Heavyweight-champion boxer who defeated Georges Carpentier in Jersey City in 1921, won first fight with more than One Million Dollars in gate revenue

Babe Ruth

Yankees slugger who drew large crowds, was a popular celebrity, and was the first prolific home-run hitter of the Live Ball era

Margaret Sanger

Head of the birth-control movement who encouraged women to use contraceptives, supporter of the eugenics movement

Alice Paul

Woman who led the National Woman’s Party and in 1923 started campaigning for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution

Sigmund Freud

German doctor and philosopher who argued that sexual repression was the cause of illness and mental health issues, whose ideas sparked an increase in sexual expression among Americans

Christian Modernism

Religious philosophy which dominated the 1920s which believed in an easygoing, forgiving God and a cold, harsh universe

Flappers

Women who wore dresses with high hemlines, rolled stockings, makeup, and red lipstick, and danced to jazz music

Era of Wonderful Nonsense

Term describing the period of time that included mass commercialization, nationalizing pop culture, and sexualization of advertising and clothing

St. Louis Blues

W.C. Handy’s 1914 Jazz song that became an instant classic

Black Jazz Performers

W.C. Handy, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Joe “King” Oliver

Paul Whiteman

White performer who was the lead of an all-white jazz band that was concerned with selling records and concert tickets over the quality of the music

Harlem

Neighborhood in the Bronx which was home to 150k African-Americans that housed a thriving black culture including poets like Langston Hughes and political leaders like Marcus Garvey

United Negro Improvement Association

Black nationalist organization founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914 that advocated for the advancement of the world’s African-descendants, advocated for the Back To Africa movement

Black Star Line Steamship Company

UNIA-sponsored steamship company in an attempt to keep black money within the race

Nation of Islam

Islamic-inspired black nationalist movement which preached that the evil scientist Yakub invented white people to destroy the black community, inspired by UNIA

Bolshevik Revolution

2nd half of the Russian Revolution in which Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party established a communist state in Russia in November 1917

Billy Sunday

Evangelist who preached of the punishment of sin and said that he wants all communists and Bolsheviks to be jailed

Red Scare

Period of anticommunism in 1919-1920 which resulted in the prosecution and deportation of 6000 “communists” by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer

Buford

Ship used to deport 249 alien communists to Russia in 1919

Wall Street Explosion

Unexplained bomb explosion that killed 38 people in September 1920, blamed on Communists and re-sparked Red Scare hysteria

Criminal Syndicalism Laws

State laws passed in 1919 and 1920 that outlawed the advocacy of violence to secure social change, used to target Industrial Workers of the World leaders, hysteria causes 5 socialist New York legislators to not be sworn in

American Plan

Pro-business approach to labor relations that would give benefits to workers directly from the company, and would eliminate mandatory-union workplaces “closed shop”

Sacco-Vanzetti Trial

1921 trial of a factory worker and fish peddler who were accused of killing a paymaster and guard in Massachusetts, found guilty since they were draft dodging, anarchist, Italian Atheists, executed in 1927. The men were seen as left-wing martyrs and victims of a “judicial lynching”

Ku Klux Klan

Ultraconservative, anti-pacifist, anti-evolutionist, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-birth control, anti-bootlegging, anti-gambling, isolationist, pro Anglo-Saxon Protestant organization that was violently opposed to diversity and social change, boasted 4 million paying members in the 1920s, organized parades and cross-burning rallies

New Immigration

Wave of immigration to the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe in the 1920s

Immigration Act

1924 law restricting European immigration to 2% of the population of Americans with that country’s nationality in the 1890 census, supposedly an attempt to preserve America’s largely northern European heritage and exclude “the wrong type of white” from the gene pool and completely bans Asian Immigration

Indian Citizenship Act

1924 law giving American citizenship to all Native Americans born on American soil, doesn’t guarantee voting rights to these people

Horace Kallen

Philosopher who argued that the American melting pot doesn’t and shouldn’t boil away Old-World culture and language

Randolph Bourne

Intellectual who encouraged multiculturalism, and for cross-mingling and intercultural marriages to create an American “trans-nationality”

18th Amendment

1919 constitutional amendment that prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages

Volstead Act

1919 Law that prohibited the production sale, and transportation of “intoxicating beverages”, gave the government power to enforce the 18th Amendment, established search and seizure rights for alcohol

Prohibition

Period of American History in which alcohol was illegal, with legislators wanting to keep blacks and poors sober and '“well-behaved”, supported by East-Coast elites, opposed by immigrants, increases bank savings of Americans

Speakeasies

Hidden illegal saloons that boomed during Prohibition, got their liquor homemade or from the West Indies and Canada

Bootleggers

Producers and distributors of illegal alcohol, often involved with violent gangs and racketeering

Chicago Typewriter

A machine gun used in illegal activities, usually referring to the Thompson Submachine Gun

Al Capone

Chicago mob boss who ran a million-dollar liquor operation and was very violent, known as Public Enemy Number One, sent to prison for Income tax Evasion

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

Murder of 7 unarmed members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang by associates of Al Capone on February 14th, 1929 in Chicago

Protection Money

A fee paid by business owners to crime syndicates to be left alone in gang wars, nonpayment resulted in property damage and beating for the owners and employees

Racketeer

People who obtain money through bootlegging, fraud, illegal gambling, or threats, invaded the ranks of labor union leadership in the 1920s

Lindbergh Law

1932 law giving the death penalty to perpetrators of certain interstate kidnapping offenses, a response to the ransom kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s infant son from his New Jersey Home

John Dewey

Columbia University professor who proposed “learning by doing” and that the goal of a teacher was “education for life”

Rockefeller Foundation

Nonprofit organization that launched a public health campaign in the South starting in 1909 that practically eliminated the hookworm parasite

Bible Belt

Region of the American South stretching from North Carolina to Texas which has strong beliefs in Christian Fundamentalism, Protestantism, and Biblical Literalism

Scopes Trial

1925 trial in which the State of Tennessee convicted a high school biology of teaching human evolution, William Jennings Bryan joined prosecution, fundamentalists win the case but lose in the court of public opinion and are ridiculed

Fundamentalism

Protestant Christian movement which believed in absolute Biblical Literalism and rejected modernism and its attempts to reconcile the Bible with modern science

Modernism

Literary, cultural, and artistic movement of the 1920s that rejected Victorian standards and accepted fragmentation, change, and uncertainty

Lost Generation

Expatriate American writers and creatives such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein who found shelter in post-World War I Europe as a creative hub

Harlem Renaissance

1920s outpouring of black culture stemming from Harlem and advocated for a “New Negro”

New Negro

The idea of a black people in America that was socially and politically equal to white men

Bureau of the Budget

Federal agency created in 1921 to assist the President in preparing receipts and expenditures to present to Congress for the annual budget

Andrew Mellon

Secretary of the Treasury under Calvin Coolidge who slashed income taxes on millionaires by 3x, decreased national debt by $10 billion, accused of perpetuating risky bull market

Bull Market

Period of high speculation and risky stock market growth, resulted in bank failures

Warren G. Harding

Well-liked President from Ohio who served from 1921-1923 who was ill-equipped and unable to identify a liar and often associated with them, appointed 4 Supreme Court Justices, died in August 1923 of Pneumonia

Charles Evans Hughes

Secretary of State under Warren G. Harding who was clear-thinking and analytical

Adkins v. Children’s Hospital

1923 Supreme Court case which overturned Muller v. Oregon and ruled that since women now had equal voting rights as men, they should be treated the same in the workplace

Esch-Cummins Transportation Act

1920 law which encouraged the private consolidation of railroads and pledged that the Interstate Commerce Commission would ensure their profitability

Railway Labor Board

Successor to wartime labor agencies that ordered railroad wages to decrease 12 percent in 1922

Veterans Bureau

Federal agency created in 1921 that was authorized to run hospitals and provide vocational rehabilitation for disabled veterans

American Legion

organization of veterans created by Theodore Roosevelt’s son in 1919 as a way to cope with the war and to let off steam via horseplay, aggressively lobbied for veterans’ benefits

Adjusted Compensation Act

1924 law giving every former soldier and paid-for insurance policy due in twenty years to compensate for lost wages during wartime, vetoed by Coolidge, veto overridden by Congress, adds $3.5 billion to WWI costs

Unofficial Observers

Statesmen sent by the anti-League Harding to keep a watchful eye on the League of Nations

Washington Disarmament Conference

Conference of all the world’s naval powers (except Russia) in 1921-1922 that created the Five-year naval treaty, gave heavy concessions to the Japanese, created the four-power treaty, and the Nine-Power treaty

Four-Power Treaty

1922 Treaty binding Britain, France, Japan, and the United States to keep the status quo in the Pacific, Congress doesn’t agree to use force to enforce it

Five-Power Naval Treaty

1922 treaty preventing the United States and Britain from fortifying their Asian territorial possessions, enacts ship ratios between nations, enacts restrictions on the construction of battleships

Nine-Power Treaty

1922 Treaty which pledged that Britain, France, the United States, China, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, and Japan would abide by the Open Door Policy in China

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Agreement between the United States and France to engage in the “outlawry of war”, ratified by 62 Countries

Frank Kellogg

Secretary of State under Calvin Coolidge who drafted the Kellogg-Briand Pact

Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law

1922 law raising customs duties to 38.5 percent in an attempt to protect domestic industry, causes war-rattled European nations to increase their tariffs, creates economic instability in Europe

Colonel Charles Forbes

Army deserter who resigned as head of the Veterans Bureau in 1923 when he was caught embezzling 200 million dollars worth of funds from hospital construction projects, sentenced to 2 years in federal prison

Teapot Dome Scandal

1921 scandal in which the Navy transferred ownership of large oil reserves to the Department of the Interior, Interior Secretary leases the land to oilmen after receiving six-figure bribes, uncovered in 1923, prosecuted in 1929

Albert B. Fall

Secretary of the Interior under Harding who convinced the Secretary of the Navy to transfer the Teapot Dome Oil Fields to his department, later leased the lands to Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny after receiving large bribes, found guilty in 1929

Harry Daugherty

Attorney General under Harding and Coolidge who was investigated by the Senate in 1924 for illegally selling pardons and liquor permits

Calvin Coolidge

Republican President of the United states who was conservative, honest, frugal, quiet, and pro-business, served form 1923-1929

Wheat Belt

Area of the upper midwest which had high agricultural production, especially of wheat, and heavily benefitted from the introduction of the tractor

McNary-Haugen Bill

Bill passed by Congress and vetoed by Coolidge twice in 1927-1928 that would authorize the government to buy surplus crops and sell them abroad to keep farm prices high

1924 Election

Conservative Calvin Coolidge defeats Conservative Democrat John Davis and progressive Robert La Follette 382-136-13

German Inflation Crisis

Unfathomable inflation in Germany after World War I caused by aggressive collection of reparations by Allies

Dawes Plan

Policy introduced in 1924 to schedule German reparation payments in order to stabilize the German economy

1928 Election

Republican Herbert Hoover defeats the pro-alcohol, Catholic Democrat Al Smith, 444-87. First election with heavy radio campaigning, Al Smith’s sidewalk campaign failed

British Broadcasting Corporation

British government-owned radio that inspired Herbert Hoover to call for publicly owned radio

Agricultural Marketing Act

1929 law establishing the Federal Farm Board, an agency that lent money to farmers, established cooperatives to help farmers help themselves, buys up crop surpluses to keep prices high

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

1930 law establishing an average customs duty of 60 percent, isolates nation economically, helps starts and strengthen the Great Depression, seen as economic warfare on Europe

Black Tuesday

Stock market crash on October 29, 1929 that saw over 16 million stock shares sold, some investors jumped off of their top floor buildings, partially resulted in the American Great Depression starting, stocks lose $40 billion in value in 2 months

Mississippi Valley Drought

1930 Drought in the Mississippi River Valley that caused crop failures and farm foreclosures, left many without their agricultural jobs

Hoovervilles

Shantytowns where those who lost everything in the Depression often lived, fires were set in steel drums for warmth and for cooking, people slept in tents with newspaper blankets

Rugged Individualism

Herbert Hoover’s philosophy of a self-made man who doesn’t rely on government handouts, causes him to be slow to take government action against the Depression, eventually helped corporations and hoped for trickle-down economics

Hoover Dam

Dam of the Colorado River which created Lake Mead for irrigation, flood control, and electricity, an engineering marvel and shining example of Hoover’s public works program