USA 1919–1929: Society, Politics, and Economy

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the economic, political, and social history of the United States from 1918 through the 1920s, including governmental structure, post-war expansion, the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Red Scare, civil rights, and cultural-religious conflicts.

Melting Pot

A term describing the United States as a nation composed of people from many diverse cultural backgrounds, though this diversity also generated racial prejudice and social friction in the post-WWI era.

Federal System

The US constitutional arrangement in which governmental authority is shared between the central national government in Washington and the individual state governments.

Executive Branch

The branch of the US federal government headed by the President that puts policies into practice, conducts foreign relations, commands the armed forces, and appoints government officials.

Legislative Branch (Congress)

The law-making body of the US government, responsible for enacting federal laws, approving taxes, and confirming or rejecting presidential appointments.

Judicial Branch (Supreme Court)

The highest legal authority in the USA, tasked with interpreting the US Constitution and serving as the final court of appeal.

Woodrow Wilson

The US President who declared war on Germany in 1917, bringing America into the First World War.

WWI Economic Impact on US Industry

Factory production grew by $35\%$ across the country due to massive European wartime demand, stimulating coal, petrol, shipping, and consumer goods manufacturing.

WWI Impact on US Agriculture

A major production surge that led the USA to supply $30\%$ of the world's wheat and $55\%$ of its cotton, raising the average farmer's income by $30\%$.

Nineteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment ratified in 1920 that guaranteed American women the legal right to vote in all federal and state elections.

Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921

Federal legislation that provided financial support and healthcare services to pregnant women and infants through local community health centers.

Henry Ford

An American industrialist who introduced assembly-line mass production methods to automobile manufacturing, famously producing a Model T every 10 seconds at peak efficiency.

Model T

Ford's mass-produced automobile whose price decreased from $\$950$ to $\$290$ by 1925, driving mass demand and stimulating the steel, petrol, and rubber industries.

Hire Purchase

A consumer credit mechanism introduced widely in the 1920s that enabled customers to acquire goods immediately by paying regular instalments, gaining ownership once fully paid.

Consumerism

A 1920s economic and social trend fueled by aggressive advertising, department stores, and radios that made buying branded consumer goods an everyday leisure activity.

Buying on the Margin

The high-risk speculative practice of borrowing money to purchase stock market shares, intending to repay the borrowed capital after reselling the shares at a quick profit.

Red Scare

A nationwide period of intense public panic in the USA from 1919 to 1920 sparked by strikes, mail bombs, and the fear that radical left-wing extremists or communists would overthrow the government.

Palmer Raids

A series of federal raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the Department of Justice against suspected communist and anarchist radicals, leading to the deportation of over 556 citizens.

General Intelligence Division

A special federal section established during the Red Scare under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover to track political radicals, which later developed into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Emergency Quota Act of 1921

An immigration restriction statute passed in the wake of the Red Scare that capped total annual immigration into the United States at 357,000 people.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Two Italian immigrant anarchists arrested in May 1920, convicted in July 1921, and executed in 1927 for an armed payroll robbery, amid controversial trials marked by anti-immigrant prejudice.

Agricultural Credit Act of 1923

Legislation enacted to help struggling American farmers by providing accessible loans to purchase farm machinery and modernize agricultural operations.

Emergency Tariff Act of 1921

A protective tariff policy that placed duties on foreign agricultural products imported into the USA, but ultimately hurt US exports as foreign markets retaliated.

Jim Crow Laws

A system of southern state and municipal statutes that enforced racial segregation in public transit, schools, restrooms, and other everyday public facilities.

Lynching

Racially motivated murders carried out by mobs without legal trials, claiming the lives of 76 Black Americans in 1919 alone.

The Great Migration

The mass internal movement of approximately 1.5 million Black Americans from the rural South to northern industrial cities to escape southern racial violence and secure factory jobs.

Eighteenth Amendment

The 1919 constitutional amendment that outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors across the United States.

Volstead Act of 1920

Federal legislation passed to define intoxicating liquors and establish official enforcement procedures and penalties for the Eighteenth Amendment.

Wets and Drys

The terms used to describe the opposing sides of the alcohol debate: 'wets' favoured alcohol consumption and legal sales, whereas 'drys' supported national Prohibition.

Speakeasy

An illegal drinking establishment or underground bar operating during Prohibition; by 1929, New York City was home to more than 32,000 of them.

Al Capone

A powerful Chicago crime boss who earned roughly $\$105\text{ million}$ per year through bootlegging and organized crime before being convicted in 1931 for income tax fraud.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre

The 1929 murder of seven rival gang members in Chicago, orchestrated by Al Capone's syndicate in an effort to monopolize illicit bootlegging territory.

The Untouchables

A specialized squad of federal prohibition enforcement agents organized by Eliot Ness to raid Al Capone's illegal breweries and disrupt his Chicago crime syndicate.

Ku Klux Klan (1920s)

A revived white supremacist organization whose membership swelled to 5 million by 1923 using violence, economic boycotts, and political influence before declining to 200,000 members by 1929.

Bible Belt

A region encompassing southern and midwestern US states where large majorities held strict, traditional Christian fundamentalist beliefs.

Christian Fundamentalism

A traditionalist religious movement that asserted every word and narrative of the Bible is divinely inspired, historically accurate, and literally true.

Modernism (Religious)

A 1920s religious viewpoint advocating that biblical scripture should be reinterpreted in light of modern scientific breakthroughs and evolutionary theory.

Butler Act of 1925

A Tennessee state law that prohibited public school educators from teaching Darwin's theory of evolution, establishing statutory fines of up to $\$500$.

Scopes Monkey Trial

The widely publicized July 1925 legal confrontation in Dayton, Tennessee, wherein teacher John Scopes was tried for intentionally teaching evolution in defiance of the Butler Act.

Clarence Darrow

The defense attorney in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial who represented John Scopes and famously cross-examined William Jennings Bryan regarding literal biblical interpretations.

William Jennings Bryan

A fundamentalist political figure and attorney who assisted the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial, defending traditional biblical literalism on the witness stand.