World War I and the 1920s

Vocabulary flashcards for World War I and the 1920s lecture notes.

Triple Entente

The 'Allied Powers' during WWI, consisting of Britain, France, and Russia.

Triple Alliance

The 'Central Powers' during WWI, consisting of German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires.

Nationalism

Devotion to nationhood, a key factor causing tension in Europe.

The Balkans

The southeastern region of Europe, ruled by the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires with many ethnic and religious groups.

Gavrilo Princip

Slavic nationalist who assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand, triggering WWI.

World War I (WWI)

Global conflict lasting from 1914-1918 among industrialized nations.

Western and Eastern Fronts

The two European battlegrounds of WWI.

War of Attrition

War of wearing down and outlasting the other side.

Trench Warfare

Deeply dug grounds used in the Western Front.

No Man's Land

Area between opposing trenches.

U-boats (Unterseeboot)

German submarines that sunk ships in the Atlantic Ocean.

Neutrality

Policy of non-involvement in European wars initially adopted by the U.S.

Lusitania

British passenger ship sunk by a German U-boat, killing 128 Americans.

Sussex Pledge

Germany's promise not to sink any more neutral or civilian vessels.

Zimmerman Telegram

Proposed a German alliance with Mexico, offering financial support and recovery of lost territories.

Mobilize

To prepare and organize the military and civilian population for war.

Military Draft

An involuntary military draft to induct civilians into the armed forces.

Armistice

Ceasefire in preparation for peace talks.

War Industries Board (WIB)

Federal agency that oversaw the production of American factories, determining production priorities, allocating raw materials, and fixing prices.

Fuel Administration (FA)

Federal agency that rationed coal and oil, imposed gasless days, and introduced daylight savings time.

Railroad Administration (RA)

Took over the operation of the nation’s railroads, limiting passenger travel in favor of troop and arms shipments.

Great Migration

Mass migration of southern blacks to the industrial cities of the North.

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

Government’s propaganda agency against Germans designed to gain public support for the war.

Espionage Act (1917)

Imposed sentences of up to twenty years in prison for persons found guilty of aiding the enemy.

Sedition Act (1918)

Prohibited free speech, making it a crime to say or publish words intended to bring into contempt or disrepute the government.

Red Scare

Post-war hysteria fearing communism would spread from Russia to the United States.

Palmer Raids

Raids on the homes and meeting places of suspected communists.

Fourteen Points

Wilson’s proposals promising his ideas would bring permanent peace to the world.

League of Nations

Created a system where member countries of the League pledged to submit international disputes to arbitration and place economic sanctions on any nations resorting to war.

Treaty of Versailles

Treaty officially ending World War I.

Fourteen Reservations

Legislation that the U.S. Congress must approve any American action taken abroad by the League of Nations.

Return to Normalcy

A return to the way of life before World War I, was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding's campaign promise in the election of 1920.

Roaring Twenties

Era after World War I where young adults flocked to American cities in search of economic opportunity and to escape from the boredom of rural life.

Jazz Age

Decade referred by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the sexual liberation of young people created a cultural revolution in morals and behavior.

New York City’s Harlem

The place to hear jazz played by the likes of “Duke” Ellington and Louis Armstrong.

Harlem Renaissance

Produced remarkable black cultural expressions in literature, theater, and visual arts.

Fans (Fanaticus)

City dwellers in the 1920s yearned for heroic figures to idolize, turning sports stars into modern-day Roman Gods.

Vamp

Was a beautiful, sensual, aggressive temptress who became a symbol of feminine independence and sexual power.

Flapper

Consciously presented herself as an urban rebel with short hair, a short skirt, and turned-down stockings that shockingly exposed rouged knees.

Speakeasies

Illegal gangster-owned place where the “urban flapper” frequently went to a party.

Eighteenth Amendment

America was supposed to become “dry” (no booze).

Law of Unintended Consequences

Statement that when an action was taken to cause social change, one or more unintended consequences resulted.

Cultural Values

Community standards instilled into its members that cause them to view the world in culturally defined ways.

Rural Counterattack

What came to be called at war with the new urban free-wheeling morality.

Volstead Act

National Prohibition Act that made it a criminal offense to manufacture, transport, or sell beverages containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol.

Prohibitionists

Believed the massive influx of immigrants from eastern, central, and southern Europe, many of whom were Jewish and Catholic, had fostered a culture of alcohol in America.

Nativism

Welcomed better able to assimilate into American society, skilled, honest, law-abiding, and industrious.

National Origins Act

Limited total immigration to just 150,000 a year and allocated most of the slots to immigrants from northern Europe.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Represented the single most important bond between Klansmen throughout the nation.

Protestant Fundamentalism

Millions of fundamentalists, scorned urban America for its belief in a Godless science that contradicted the teachings of Biblical scripture.

Creationism

The Bible’s story of Adam and Eve; God created the world in six days and made man in His image.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

Human beings evolved from apes and monkeys through a very long process of evolution.

Scopes Trial

Trial in the summer of 1925, where a biology teacher named John Scopes stood.

1920s Culture War Summary

Most recently in Kansas, controversy also persists over whether prayer, or even the mention of God, should be allowed in public schools.

Warren Harding

Promising a return to normalcy for Republicans meant passing a pro-business legislative agenda that lowered taxes and raised protective tariffs.

Calvin Coolidge

“Silent Cal” was a man of few words and reduced the size of government.

Al Smith

Prototype candidate of the city: a Catholic of mixed Irish-German immigrant stock, born in a lower-class neighborhood of Manhattan and a “wet” who wanted to end prohibition.

Herbert Hoover

In contrast to Smith, Hoover was an old stock “dry” Protestant (Quaker) born in a small town in rural Iowa.