APUSH Unit 7 Vocab

Consumer Culture

A society driven by mass production, advertising, and consumer spending, where goods like automobiles and radios became central to daily life in the 1920s.

Charles Lindbergh

American aviator who made history in 1927 by completing the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis.

Henry Ford

Founder of Ford Motor Company, who revolutionized manufacturing with the assembly line, making automobiles more affordable and accessible to the American public.

Jazz Age

A term for the 1920s reflecting the rise of jazz music, changing social norms, and the emergence of a new youth culture embracing modern entertainment.

Louis Armstrong

A pioneering jazz musician and trumpeter known for his improvisational skills and distinctive voice, helping popularize jazz across racial and class lines.

Margaret Sanger

A nurse and activist who fought for women’s reproductive rights, founded Planned Parenthood, and worked to legalize birth control despite strong opposition.

Flappers

Young women in the 1920s who rejected traditional norms by wearing short dresses, cutting their hair, smoking, drinking, and embracing greater independence.

Great Migration

The mass movement of African Americans from the South to Northern and Midwestern cities, seeking better job opportunities and escaping racial violence.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

A civil rights organization founded in 1909 to combat racial discrimination through legal challenges and activism.

Harlem Renaissance

A 1920s cultural movement centered in Harlem, New York, where African American writers, musicians, and artists celebrated Black identity and heritage.

Langston Hughes

A leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance whose works, such as I, Too, explored themes of racial pride, struggle, and the Black experience in America.

Marcus Garvey

A Black nationalist leader who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, promoting racial pride, economic self-sufficiency, and a “Back to Africa” movement.

Lost Generation

A group of disillusioned post-World War I American writers, including Hemingway and Fitzgerald, who criticized the era’s materialism and moral decay.

Immigration Act of 1924

A law that restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe while completely banning Asian immigration, reflecting strong nativist sentiments.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Italian immigrant anarchists convicted of murder in a controversial trial, symbolizing anti-immigrant prejudice and the Red Scare of the 1920s.

Ku Klux Klan

A white supremacist group that resurged in the 1920s, expanding its hate campaigns against African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, and Jews.

Scopes Trial

A 1925 court case in Tennessee where teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, highlighting the conflict between science and religious fundamentalism.

Prohibition

The nationwide ban on alcohol production and sales, enforced by the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920, leading to speakeasies, bootlegging, and organized crime.

Eighteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol in the U.S., later repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment.

Andrew Mellon

Secretary of the Treasury in the 1920s who advocated for tax cuts, reduced government spending, and pro-business policies that benefited the wealthy.

Five-Power Treaty

A 1922 naval disarmament agreement among the U.S., Britain, Japan, France, and Italy to limit warship construction and prevent an arms race.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

A 1928 international treaty signed by major nations, including the U.S., that renounced war as a means of resolving disputes but lacked enforcement.

McNary-Haugen Bill

A proposed agricultural relief bill aimed at stabilizing farm prices by having the government purchase surplus crops, vetoed twice by President Coolidge.

Al Smith

The first Catholic presidential candidate in 1928, whose opposition to Prohibition and urban background contributed to his loss to Herbert Hoover.

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression as millions lost their savings and financial panic spread.

Great Depression

A severe economic crisis lasting from 1929 to the early 1940s, marked by high unemployment, bank failures, and widespread poverty.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

A government agency created in 1932 under Hoover to provide emergency loans to struggling banks, railroads, and businesses.

Bonus Expeditionary Force

A group of World War I veterans who marched on Washington in 1932 demanding early payment of their bonuses, forcibly removed by the military.

New Deal

A series of programs and reforms introduced by FDR to provide relief, recovery, and reform in response to the Great Depression.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

A New Deal agency that insured bank deposits to restore public confidence in the banking system after widespread bank failures.

Securities and Exchange Commission

A federal agency created in 1934 to regulate the stock market and prevent the fraudulent financial practices that led to the crash.

Federal Emergency Relief Act

A New Deal program that provided direct financial assistance to unemployed Americans and funded state and local relief efforts.

Civilian Conservation Corps

A New Deal work relief program that employed young men in conservation projects such as reforestation and national park improvements.

National Recovery Act

A 1933 law that sought to regulate industries, set fair wages, and establish workers’ rights but was later ruled unconstitutional.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

A New Deal policy that paid farmers to reduce crop production in order to stabilize agricultural prices and limit overproduction.

Dust Bowl

A severe drought and dust storm disaster in the 1930s that devastated the Great Plains, displacing farmers and worsening the Great Depression.

Tennessee Valley Authority

A New Deal program that built dams, provided electricity, and improved infrastructure in the impoverished Tennessee Valley region.

Wagner Act

A 1935 law that strengthened labor unions by guaranteeing workers’ rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining.

Social Security Act

A 1935 law that created a government pension system for retirees, unemployment insurance, and aid for the disabled and needy.

Court-Packing Scheme

FDR’s controversial 1937 proposal to expand the Supreme Court by adding justices favorable to his New Deal policies, which failed in Congress.

Neutrality Laws

A series of 1930s laws aimed at keeping the U.S. out of foreign conflicts by restricting arms sales and financial support to warring nations.

Lend-Lease Act

A 1941 law allowing the U.S. to provide military aid to Allied nations without direct payment, marking a shift away from strict neutrality.

Atlantic Charter

A 1941 joint declaration by FDR and Churchill outlining post-war goals, including self-determination, free trade, and collective security.

Pearl Harbor

A surprise attack by Japan on December 7, 1941, that led the U.S. to enter World War II, marking a turning point in global conflict.

War Production Board

A government agency that coordinated wartime production by allocating materials and prioritizing military supplies during World War II.

Tuskegee Airmen

A group of African American fighter pilots who served with distinction in World War II, breaking racial barriers in the U.S. military.

Bracero Program

A wartime agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that brought Mexican laborers to work in American agriculture due to wartime labor shortages.

Executive Order 9066

FDR’s order in 1942 that led to the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans in camps during World War II.

Operation Overlord/D-Day

The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944, a turning point in World War II that led to the liberation of Europe.

Yalta Conference

A 1945 meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin to plan the post-war division of Europe and discuss the creation of the United Nations.

Battle of Midway

A decisive 1942 naval battle in which the U.S. defeated Japan, shifting momentum in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Potsdam Declaration

The 1945 ultimatum issued by the Allies demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender, warning of "prompt and utter destruction" if they refused.

Hiroshima

The first Japanese city targeted by an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, leading to massive casualties and Japan’s eventual surrender in World War II.