1920s and Great Depression Review

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key historical terms, legal acts, cultural movements, and economic concepts from the 1920's and the Great Depression.

Prohibition

The nationwide constitutional ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages during the 1920's, which was undermined by speakeasies, bootleggers, and organized crime.

Speakeasies

Hidden, illegal saloons and underground nightclubs where alcoholic drinks were sold and consumed during Prohibition.

Bootleggers

Smugglers who illegally manufactured, transported, or sold alcoholic liquor during the era of Prohibition.

Flapper

A fashionable, liberated young woman of the 1920's characterized by new styles of dress, shorter hair, and unconventional social attitudes.

Butler Act

A Tennessee state law that prohibited public school educators from teaching Darwinian evolution instead of the biblical account of divine creation.

Scopes Monkey Trial

A landmark 1925 court trial testing the Butler Act that highlighted the cultural conflict between modern scientific ideas and religious fundamentalism.

Nativism

A political belief and prejudice favoring native-born citizens over foreign immigrants, spurred by the aftermath of Progressivism and WWI.

Red Scare

A period of widespread public hysteria in the United States fueled by fears of communists, anarchists, and radical socialist subversion.

Saco and Vanzetti

Two Italian immigrant anarchists whose robbery and murder trial became a symbol of anti-immigrant nativism and hysteria in 1920's America.

Great Migration

The large-scale movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to Northern industrial cities in search of jobs and better living conditions.

Harlem Renaissance

A flourishing African American cultural, literary, and artistic movement centered in Harlem, New York during the 1920's.

Quota System

An immigration policy established in the 1920's that strictly limited the maximum number of people allowed to enter the United States from each foreign country.

Ohio Gang

President Warren G. Harding's poker-playing cronies and political associates appointed to federal office, whose corrupt conduct led to major government scandals.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A major political corruption scandal during the Harding administration involving the secret, illegal leasing of federal oil reserves to private oil companies.

Bull Market

A financial market characterized by continuously rising stock prices, high investor optimism, and widespread speculative buying before the crash.

Speculation

The risky practice of purchasing stocks or assets with the expectation of making quick profits from short-term price fluctuations while ignoring potential market dangers.

Buying on the Margin

The practice of buying stocks by paying a small percentage of the purchase price upfront and borrowing the remainder, leaving investors vulnerable to sudden market drops.

Bank Run

A financial panic in which a large number of depositors simultaneously rush to withdraw their cash from a bank, frequently causing the bank to fail.

Shantytowns

Makeshift settlements of rough shacks and shelters constructed on city outskirts by homeless and destitute individuals during the Great Depression.

Hawley Smoot Tariff

A 1930 high-tariff law intended to shield American farmers and businesses from foreign competition, which worsened the economic crisis by drastically reducing global trade.

Bonus Army

A group of World War I veterans and their families who marched to Washington, D.C., demanding immediate cash redemption of their military service bonus certificates.

Dust Bowl

A severe ecological disaster during the 1930's in the Great Plains marked by devastating dust storms, topsoil erosion, and mass migration of residents to the West.

Fireside Chats

Informal radio addresses given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt directly to the American public to explain New Deal policies and restore public trust.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

A New Deal financial program established to restore trust in the banking system by regulating bank operations and insuring customer deposits against bank failure.

Civilian Conservation Corps

A New Deal work relief initiative that put young, unemployed men to work on environmental and nature conservation projects such as reforestation and park development.