Unit 5 EOC 2

Assembly line manufacturing

A method of production in which workers and machines are arranged so that each person performs a specific task repeatedly, speeding up production and lowering costs. Popularized by Henry Ford in the automobile industry.

Ku Klux Klan

A white supremacist organization that terrorized African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and others, especially strong in the 1920s during its revival.

Scopes “Monkey Trial”

A 1925 court case in Tennessee where teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution, highlighting the conflict between modern science and traditional religious beliefs.

Social norms

The unwritten rules and accepted behaviors within a society or group.

Consumerism

A focus on buying and owning goods, often tied to mass production and advertising in the 1920s.

“Lost Generation”

A group of American writers in the 1920s who were disillusioned with traditional values and shocked by the horrors of World War I (e.g., Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald).

Speakeasies

Secret, illegal bars that operated during Prohibition when the sale of alcohol was banned.

Dawes Plan

A 1924 plan to help Germany pay reparations after World War I by restructuring its debt and providing U.S. loans.

Modernism

A cultural and artistic movement in the early 20th century that emphasized new ideas, innovation, and breaking away from tradition.

Standard of living

The level of wealth, comfort, and material goods available to a person or society.

Eugenics

A movement that sought to improve the human population by controlling reproduction, often used to justify discriminatory policies.

Organized crime

Criminal groups that operate as structured organizations, often profiting from illegal activities like bootlegging during Prohibition.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A 1920s political scandal in which U.S. officials accepted bribes to lease federal oil reserves in Wyoming (Teapot Dome).

Flapper

A young woman in the 1920s who defied traditional norms by wearing shorter skirts, bobbing her hair, and embracing independence and new social freedoms.

Palmer Raids

Government raids in 1919–1920 ordered by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to arrest and deport suspected radicals and anarchists during the Red Scare.

Tin Pan Alley

A district in New York City where many popular songs of the early 20th century were written and published; also refers to the style of popular music from the time.

Great Migration

The movement of millions of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities between 1916 and 1970, seeking jobs and escaping racial oppression.

Prohibition

The nationwide ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the U.S. (1920–1933).

Production efficiency

Producing goods in the least costly and most effective way, often through new technology or streamlined methods like the assembly line.

Traditionalism

A belief in maintaining long-established cultural, religious, or social practices, often in opposition to modernism.

Harlem Renaissance

A cultural movement in the 1920s centered in Harlem, New York, celebrating African American art, music, and literature.

Red Scare

Periods of intense fear of communism and radical leftist ideologies in the U.S., especially after World War I (1919–1920).

“Return to Normalcy”

A campaign promise by President Warren G. Harding in 1920 to return the U.S. to pre–World War I conditions, focusing on stability and traditional values.

Immigration Quotas

Laws that set limits on the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S., often favoring northern and western Europeans (e.g., Immigration Act of 1924).