APUSH Chapter 30: American Life in the "Roaring Twenties"

1920-1929

Bolshevik Revolution

1917 uprising in Russia led by Vladimir Lenin which established a communist government and withdrew Russia from World War I.

The Red Scare

Fear that communists were working to destroy the American way of life

Criminal syndicalism laws

Made it illegal to advocate the use of violence to obtain social change.

American plan

Term that some U.S. employers in the 1920s used to describe their policy of refusing to negotiate with unions. Demonstrated laissez-faire economics.

'100% American'

A movement that celebrated all things American while it attacked ideas and people if you'd as foreign or anti-American

Immigration Act of 1924

Replaced the Quota Act of 1921, cutting quotas for foreigners from 3% to 2%.  Japanese were banned from coming to America.  Canadians and Latin Americans were exempt from the act, because their close proximity made it easy to attract them when they were needed and it was easy to send them home when they were not needed. The quota system significantly reduced immigration.

Cultural pluralism

A condition in which many cultures coexist within a society and maintain their cultural differences.

Eighteenth Amendment

Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages

Volstead Act

Bill passed by Congress to enforce the language of the 18th Amendment. This bill made the manufacture and distribution of alcohol illegal within the borders of the United States.

Speakeasy

A place where alcoholic drinks were sold and consumed illegally during prohibition

Rumrunner

Someone who illegally smuggles liquor across a border

Gangsterism

Prohibition spawned these crimes; organized crime of bootlegging alcohol and bribing public officials to keep quiet; also got involved in prostitution and gambling

Racketeering

Dishonest and fraudulent business dealings

Lindbergh Law

Made interstate abduction in certain circumstances a death-penalty offense.

John Dewey

He was a philosopher who believed in "learning by doing" which formed the foundation of progressive education. He believed that the teachers' goal should be "education for life and that the workbench is just as important as the blackboard."

'Bible Belt'

The region of the American South, extending roughly from North Carolina west to Oklahoma and Texas, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

Scopes 'Monkey Trial'

1925, the trial that pitted the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution against teaching Bible creationism

Fundamentalism

Conservative beliefs in the Bible and that it should be literally believed and applied

'Horseless chariot'

Was previously only available to the rich, now became the carriage of the common citizen. By 1930 Americans owned almost 30 million of them.

Henry Ford

United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production (1863-1947).

Ransom E. Olds

Car-maker, idea of interchangeable parts

Emergency Quota Act

Placed a quota on the number of European immigrants who could come to America each year; it was set at 3% of the people of their nationality who had been living in the United States in 1910.

Frederick W. Taylor

An engineer, an inventor, and a tennis player. He sought to eliminate wasted motion. Famous for scientific-management especially time-management studies.

Detroit

"The motorcar capital of the world" (at the time)

Scientific Management

The application of scientific principles to increase efficiency in the workplace

Fordism

System of standardized mass production attributed to Henry Ford.

Wright Brothers

First to achieve a sustained, controlled flight in a powered airplane

Spirit of St. Louis

A custom airplane used by Charles Lindbergh to make the first solo, non-stop trans-Atlantic flight

'Nickelodeon'

An early motion-picture theater where a film or a variety show could be seen, usually for the admission price of a nickel.

Margaret Sanger

United States nurse who campaigned for birth control and planned parenthood

UNIA

Universal Negro Improvement Association; founded by Marcus Garvey to end racism through separation of races

'Lost Generation'

Group of writers in 1920s who shared the belief that they were lost in a greedy, materialistic world that lacked moral values and often choose to flee to Europe

Modernism

Artistic and literary movement sparked by a break with past conventions

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wrote The Great Gatsby

Harlem Renaissance

A literary and artistic movement celebrating African-American culture.

'New Negro'

An effort to promote racial equality by celebrating the cultural contributions of African Americans

Langston Hughes

This man was well known for making the Harlem Renaissance famous because of his poems.

A. Mitchell Palmer

Attorney general who authorized anti-radical raids and deportations

Nicola Sacco

United States anarchist (born in Italy) who with Bartolomeo Vanzetti was convicted of murder and in spite of world-wide protest was executed (1891-1927)

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Italian immigrant, confessed anarchist; convicted and executed for anarchy

Horace Kallan

A German-born American philosopher who supported pluralism and zionism

Randolph Bourne

Cosmopolitan intellectual who advocated cultural pluralism and said America should be "not a nationality but a trans-nationality"

Al Capone

United States gangster who terrorized Chicago during Prohibition until arrested for tax evasion

John T. Scopes

Tennessee biology teacher, indicted for teaching evolution - "Monkey Trial" case

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Sigmund Freud

Austrian physician whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

H. L. Mencken

Baltimore writer who criticized the supposedly narrow and hypocritical values of American society

Ernest Hemingway

Lost Generation writer, spent much of his life in France, Spain, and Cuba during WWI, notable works include A Farewell to Arms

T. S. Eliot

Wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men;" British WWI poet, playwright, and literary critic

William Faulkner

American author and Nobel Prize winner whose writing often explores complex social, psychological, and racial issues, and he's considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

Charles A. Lindbergh

United States aviator who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1902-1974)