Unit 3.1-3.2: The New Era (1920s) and The Great Depression

Warren G. Harding

Republican president after World War I. Called for a "Return to Normalcy." His administration was corrupt. He died in office.

Henry Ford

United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production.

Scientific Management

Focus on efficiencies; study of work habits to minimize time and maximize profits.

Advertising Industry

This 1920s industry focused on needs, desires, anxieties, and fears of consumers.

Listerine

This company convinced consumers they had "halitosis," a successful advertising campaign that helped to revolutionize the advertising industry.

Installment Buying

A consumers buys products by promising to pay small, regular amounts over a period of time. Became more popular in the 1920s.

Agricultural Sector

This sector of the economy did not share in the general prosperity of the 1920s.

Laissez-faire

The three Republican presidents of the 1920s, influenced by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, all shared in their beliefs in this "hands-off" approach to the economy.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A government scandal during Harding's administration in which Secretary of Interior Albert Fall took bribes to offer oil leases to companies in Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

Calvin Coolidge

Became president when Harding. He was known for being laissez-faire and quiet; he reduced the government budget, lowered taxes, and supported businesses.

Dawes Plan

A plan to revive the German economy, the United States lends Germany money which then can pay reparations to England and France, who can then pay back their loans from the U.S. This circular flow of money was a success in the short term.

Modernism

A cultural movement embracing education, science, and social change.

Fundamentalism

A conservative cultural movement not open to social change; literal interpretation and strict adherence to the Bible.

Scopes Monkey Trial (1925)

Tennessee school teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution despite a state law banning it. The legal battle was fought by Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, two of the nation's most famous lawyers. The case highlighted the divide between modernism and fundamentalism.

First Red Scare

Widespread fear of Communism in the U.S. after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Palmer Raids

A 1920 operation coordinated by Attorney General Mitchel Palmer in which federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organization in 32 cities; highlight of the First Red Scare.

Emergency Quota Act of 1921

1921 legislation that limited immigration.

Ku Klux Klan

Revived in George in 1915; expanded across Midwest and South. Promoted "100% Americanism" and hatred of African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants.

Prohibition (18th amendment)

Period in American history in which alcohol was illegal.

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.

Bootleggers

Smugglers of illegal alcohol during the Prohibition era. Led to the rise of organized crime.

Mass Consumption, Mass Culture

Caused by an increase in purchasing power, this allowed for customers to spend more money on goods. Americans listened to the same songs, learned the same dances, and shared a popular culture in the 1920s.

The New Woman

Concept in which American women challenged the political, social, economic, and educational boundaries set before them.

Flappers

More "liberated" women than earlier generations; short skirt, short hair, smoked cigarettes, listened to jazz music, drank bootleg liquor.

Sigmund Freud

Father of psychoanalysis who argued that humans behave the way they do because of hidden desires, not rational thought.

Harlem Renaissance

A period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art, music, and literature flourished.

Marcus Garvey

Jamaican-born Black nationalist who urged a "Back to Africa" movement and the separation of the races.

Jazz

Popular 1920s American form of music that combines African American blues, ragtime, improvisation.

New Negro

A term coined by Alain Locke popularized during the Harlem Renaissance implying a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation.

Claude McKay

A poet who was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement and wrote the poem "If We Must Die" after the Chicago riot of 1919.

Red Summer

30+ cities experienced race riots in 1919, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of African Americans, including northern cities whose black population had swelled during the Great Migration.

Herbert Hoover

Last Republican president of the 1920s; the Great Depression would begin during his presidency, and he would resist calls from the federal government to help solve the Depression.

Causes of the Great Depression

1. Economic Policies

2. Agricultural Sector Suffering

3. Pay Did Not Increase with Productivity

4. Unequal Distribution of Wealth

5. Buying on Margin

Margin Accounts

Investors purchased stock by making a small down payment (as low as 10%), borrowing the rest from a broker. These investors were hit the hardest following the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Stock Market Crash

This occurred in October of 1929 as the Bull Market ended and billions of dollars worth of stock disappeared from the American economy.

Characteristics of the Great Depression

1. High Unemployment

2. Declining Prices

3. Bank Failures

4. Lower Production and Sales

Hoovervilles

Depression shantytowns, named after the president whom many blamed for their financial distress.

Hobo

A homeless, migrant worker, who often road the rails in search of work.

Dust Bowl

Drought and poor farming practices had turned much of the rich soil on the Great Plains turned to "dust." High winds blew the soil away; the land was useless.

Okies

Farmers who migrated out of the Dust Bowl region of the Plains, seeking a home elsewhere.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Agency established in 1932 to provide emergency relief to large businesses, insurance companies, and banks. Hoover believed that this money would "trickle down" to the unemployed; it didn't.

Ford Hunger March

A march/protest by auto-workers in 1932. Ford-controlled police in Dearborn, MI fired into a crowd of several thousand unemployed workers, killing four and wounding 50 more.

Farmers' Holiday Association

Organization of farmers blockaded roads and dumped perishable goods into ditches in an attempt to raise food prices.

Bonus Army

WWI Veterans seeking immediate payment of a promised $1,000 Bonus protested/camped in Washington, D.C. in 1932. The military, under orders of President Hoover forcibly evicted the veterans from the capital.

21st Amendment

Repeal of Prohibition.

FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)

Insured bank deposits up to $5,000.

AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)

Paid farmers not to plant to balance supply and demand.

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)

Built dams and power plants, produced cheap fertilizer, brought cheap electricity for the first time to thousands of people in southern states.

CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)

Provided jobs for more than 2 million young men. Planted forests, built trails, and dug ditches.

PWA (Public Works Administration)

Jobs to build bridges, dams, power plants, and government buildings.

SSA (Social Security Act)

Established a pension for retirees, as well as unemployment insurance.

WPA (Works Progress Administration)

Built/improved nation's highways, dredged rivers and harbors, and promoted soil and water conservation.

Wagner Act

Abolished unfair labor practices, recognized the right to organize labor unions, gave workers the right to collectively bargain.

Schechter Poultry v. United States

Ruled that the National Industrial Recovery Act was unconstitutional.

Court Packing

Where FDR tried to add more members to the Supreme Court to pass his programs; it failed.

Frances Perkins

U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the cabinet.

Black Cabinet

Group of African Americans FDR appointed to key government positions; served as unofficial advisors to the president.

Mary McLeod Bethune

United States educator who worked to improve race relations and educational opportunities for Black Americans and called the New Deal a "new day" for African Americans.

Indian Reorganization Act of 1934

Restored tribal ownership of lands, recognized tribal constitutions and government, and provided loans for economic development.

Welfare State

A government that takes responsibility for the welfare of its citizens through programs in public health and public housing and pensions and unemployment compensation etc. The New Deal helped to create this type of "state."