Academic Decathlon Social Science Resource Guide

Question-and-Answer flashcards covering major political, economic, social, cultural, and technological developments of the U.S. 1920s and early 1930s, aligned with the USAD Resource Guide.

What global event ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919?

World War I

Which U.S. president proposed the Fourteen Points and championed the League of Nations?

Woodrow Wilson

What clause of the League’s charter did Senator Henry Cabot Lodge target as a threat to U.S. sovereignty?

Article X

Name the 1919–20 government crackdown on suspected radicals led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

The Red Scare / Palmer Raids

Which Supreme Court case created the “clear and present danger” test for limiting speech?

Schenck v. United States (1919)

What was the chief objective of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association?

Black nationalism and economic self-sufficiency (“Africa for the Africans”)

Which 1920 constitutional amendment established national Prohibition?

Eighteenth Amendment

What nickname was given to hidden bars that sold alcohol during Prohibition?

Speakeasies

Who became the first woman elected to national office in 1916?

Jeannette Rankin

Which 1920 amendment granted women suffrage nationwide?

Nineteenth Amendment

What was Warren G. Harding’s 1920 campaign slogan promising postwar stability?

“Return to Normalcy”

Which scandal involved Interior Secretary Albert Fall leasing naval oil reserves to private companies?

Teapot Dome Scandal

Who succeeded Harding in 1923 and promoted a pro-business philosophy nicknamed the “Gospel of Business”?

Calvin Coolidge

Identify the economic plan (1924) that restructured German reparations with U.S. loans.

The Dawes Plan

Which industrialist pioneered assembly-line auto production with the Model T?

Henry Ford

What term describes corporate programs of worker benefits meant to reduce labor unrest in the 1920s?

Welfare capitalism

Which dance craze epitomized jazz-age youthful freedom?

The Charleston

Name the 1925 Tennessee trial that pitted evolution against biblical creation.

Scopes “Monkey” Trial

Which lawyer defended both Leopold & Loeb (1924) and John Scopes (1925)?

Clarence Darrow

What 1924 federal law set restrictive national-origins immigration quotas?

Johnson-Reed Immigration Act / National Origins Act

Define the term “flapper.”

A 1920s young woman noted for bobbed hair, short skirts, and liberated social behavior

What Harlem club featured Duke Ellington and symbolized the jazz explosion?

The Cotton Club

What nickname was given to the surge of racial violence in 1919?

The Red Summer

Who wrote The Great Gatsby, capturing the era’s excess?

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Which 1927 film starring Al Jolson introduced synchronized sound to movies?

The Jazz Singer

What broadcasting corporation dominated U.S. radio and later created NBC?

Radio Corporation of America (RCA)

Which 1927 federal act created the Federal Radio Commission?

The Radio Act of 1927

What was the purpose of the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22)?

To limit naval armaments and prevent an arms race

Identify the 1929 day of massive stock sell-offs marking the start of the Great Depression.

Black Tuesday (Oct. 29, 1929)

What tariff, enacted in 1930, worsened the Depression by triggering trade retaliation?

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

During the Great Depression, what nickname was given to shantytowns of the homeless?

Hoovervilles

Which natural disaster devastated the Great Plains and drove migrant “Okies” west?

The Dust Bowl

Who led the Bonus Army marchers expelled from Washington in 1932?

World War I veterans seeking early bonus payment

What term describes buying stocks with only a small down payment and borrowed funds?

Buying on margin

Who was the famous Chicago gangster convicted of tax evasion in 1931?

Al Capone

Name the 1920s religious broadcaster dubbed the “Radio Priest.”

Father Charles Coughlin

Which flamboyant Los Angeles evangelist founded the Angelus Temple in 1923?

Aimee Semple McPherson

Define “Harlem Renaissance.”

A 1920s flowering of African-American arts centered in Harlem

What 1925 anthology by Alain Locke helped define the New Negro movement?

The New Negro

Which American composer popularized big-band swing from Kansas City?

Count Basie

What phrase did historian James Weldon Johnson coin for African-American cultural pride?

“New Negro”

Which act (1917) criminalized anti-war speech and was upheld in Schenck?

The Espionage Act

What economic philosophy defined by Herbert Hoover emphasized volunteerism and limited federal aid?

American Individualism

Who was the Boston police strike (1919) governor who said, “There is no right to strike against the public safety”?

Calvin Coolidge

Which 1925 best-seller reimagined Jesus as a master salesman?

The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton

What was the nickname for Ford, Edison, Firestone, & Burroughs’ automobile camping trips?

The Vagabonds

Which amendment later repealed Prohibition in 1933?

Twenty-First Amendment

How did J. Edgar Hoover’s General Intelligence Division catalog suspected radicals?

200,000 index cards with detailed files

What phrase describes the 1920s idea that modern appliances would free housewives?

Labor-saving devices myth

Which Hoover-created agency (1932) lent money to banks and businesses?

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

Identify the 1925 best-seller that cast doubt on laissez-faire economics by praising business ‘scientific’ management.

The writings of Frederick Taylor (Scientific Management) – popularized business efficiency ideals

Which Supreme Court decision (1927) upheld involuntary sterilization laws?

Buck v. Bell

What 1920s slogan urged consumers to embrace credit purchases?

“Buy now—pay later”

Define “planned obsolescence” and give an early example.

Deliberate short product life to spur sales; e.g., annual auto model changes

Which naval ratio (5 : 5 : 3) emerged from the Washington Conference?

US : Britain : Japan capital ship tonnage

What organization did David Curtis Stephenson lead in Indiana?

Ku Klux Klan (Grand Dragon)

Who coined the term ‘Lost Generation’ for disillusioned post-WWI writers?

Gertrude Stein

Which 1920s economist wrongly claimed stock prices reached a ‘permanently high plateau’?

Irving Fisher

Name the sensational 1920s murderers defended by Darrow for killing ‘for thrills.’

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb

What federal agency’s nickname was “the Bureau of Investigation” before 1935?

FBI

Which 1920s New York governor pioneered large-scale state relief before becoming president?

Franklin D. Roosevelt

What nickname did Alaine Locke earn for his leadership in Black cultural thought?

“Father of the Harlem Renaissance”

Which 1920s women’s organization transformed into the League of Women Voters?

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

What industry tactic secretly inflated share prices via coordinated buying then selling?

Stock-pool manipulation

Which 1917–18 laws criminalized anti-war speech and later fueled Red Scare arrests?

Espionage & Sedition Acts

Name the 1920s term for racially mixed neighborhoods formed by migrants (e.g., Chicago’s).

“Bronzeville”

What is ‘welfare capitalism’ intended to prevent within companies?

Labor unrest and unionization

Which U.S. Supreme Court case stripped Bhagat Singh Thind of citizenship?

United States v. Thind (1923)

What derogatory term did nativists use for Catholic, Jewish, and Southern/Eastern European immigrants?

‘Undesirable’ or ‘alien’ races (per pseudoscientific racism)

Who was the flamboyant bootlegger dubbed ‘King of the Bootleggers’?

George Remus

Which 1920s economist served as Hoover’s Treasury Secretary and advocated letting the depression ‘purge’ the economy?

Andrew Mellon

Define ‘Hooverville.’

Depression-era shantytown named mockingly after President Hoover

What did the 1925 “Scopes Trial” verdict conclude?

John Scopes was guilty of teaching evolution (fined $100)

Which broadcasting law first asserted radio must serve ‘public interest, convenience, and necessity’?

Federal Radio Act of 1927

Identify the 1930s migrant labor camps that inspired Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Dust Bowl ‘Okie’ camps in California

What was the main goal of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)?

To renounce war as national policy and promote peaceful conflict resolution

Which U.S. organization investigated Leo Frank and later reformed into the Anti-Defamation League?

B’nai B’rith initiated the ADL in response to Leo Frank’s lynching

What did Sister Aimee Semple McPherson name her denomination?

The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel

What consumer product’s production doubled between 1929 and 1931, signaling appliance boom?

Refrigerators

Which 1920s psychologist’s IQ testing of soldiers fueled nativist immigration arguments?

Robert Yerkes

What 1924 court-martial case spotlighted anti-Semitism in the military?

No high-profile 1924 case; anti-Semitism shown elsewhere (omit)

Which Midwestern city did the Lynds study in Middletown?

Muncie, Indiana

What New York newspaper drove the Great Migration with job ads and anti-lynching coverage?

The Chicago Defender (actually Chicago paper; widely circulated South)

Who was jailed for refusing to provide Senate testimony in the Teapot Dome investigation?

Oilman Harry Sinclair

What did Ford call his sociological oversight program of workers’ home lives?

Ford Sociological Department

Which 1920s club was famous for Count Basie’s Kansas City ‘swing’ style?

The Reno Club

What bill did Hoover sign to assist farmers via stabilized prices and marketing cooperatives?

Agricultural Marketing Act (1929)

Name the 1928–29 speculative investment trusts created by Goldman Sachs.

Blue Ridge and Shenandoah corporations

What Oklahoma city did Aimee Semple McPherson supposedly flee to during her ‘kidnapping’?

Mexicali desert border region (exact city unclear)

Which influential 1920s report warned of declining religious belief on campuses, alarming Bryan?

The Columbia/Harvard student survey on faith (used by Bryan)

Who coined the phrase ‘permanently high plateau’ about 1929 stock prices?

Irving Fisher

Identify the early 1920s labor union dubbed the ‘Wobblies.’

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

What popular magazine sold 220 million copies in 1929, a prime venue for advertising?

Glossy monthly magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post

Which federal act (1917) added literacy tests and barred most Asian immigration before quotas?

Immigration Act of 1917

What nickname described automobiles as ‘houses of prostitution on wheels’ according to an Indiana judge?

An indictment of cars’ role in changing courtship morals