Key Figures and Movements of 1920s America: Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, and Social Change

A. Philip Randolph

African American labor leader who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and pressured FDR to ban discrimination in defense industries during WWII.

Alain Locke

Philosopher and writer known as the 'father of the Harlem Renaissance,' who encouraged Black artists to embrace African American culture and identity.

Al Smith

Democratic presidential candidate in 1928; first Catholic major-party nominee, whose loss reflected religious prejudice and rural-urban divisions.

American Plan

Business strategy opposing labor unions by promoting 'open shops' and portraying unions as un-American during the 1920s.

Automobile

Mass-produced consumer good that transformed American life by promoting suburban growth, road construction, and related industries.

Duke Ellington

Influential jazz composer and bandleader whose music helped bring jazz into mainstream American culture during the Harlem Renaissance.

H. L. Mencken

Writer and social critic who mocked American middle-class values, religious fundamentalism, and conformity in the 1920s.

Harlem Renaissance

Cultural movement in the 1920s celebrating African American literature, music, art, and intellectual life, centered in Harlem, New York.

Herbert Hoover

Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s and president beginning in 1929; favored limited government intervention and was blamed for the Great Depression's severity.

Issei

First-generation Japanese immigrants to the United States, many of whom were barred from citizenship by law.

Jelly Roll Morton

Jazz pianist and composer who helped popularize early jazz, claiming to have invented the genre.

Ku Klux Klan

White supremacist organization that revived in the 1920s, promoting racism, nativism, and anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiments.

Langston Hughes

Poet and leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance whose works expressed Black pride and the realities of African American life.

Lost Generation

Group of American writers disillusioned by World War I who criticized materialism and traditional values in modern society.

Margaret Sanger

Reformer who advocated for birth control and founded organizations that led to Planned Parenthood.

National Origins Act of 1924

Law that established immigration quotas favoring northern and western Europeans, severely restricting immigrants from southern/eastern Europe and Asia.

Nisei

Second-generation Japanese Americans, born in the United States and citizens by birth.

Parity

Economic concept calling for farm prices to be raised to equal pre-World War I purchasing power, advocated by farmers in the 1920s.

Scopes 'Monkey Trial'

1925 court case in Tennessee over teaching evolution, symbolizing the conflict between modern science and religious fundamentalism.

Sinclair Lewis

Novelist who criticized American conformity and consumerism; first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Teapot Dome

Major political scandal during the Harding administration involving bribery and corruption in oil lease deals.

The Jazz Singer

First major motion picture with synchronized sound, marking the beginning of the 'talkies' and transforming the film industry.

Welfare Capitalism

System in which companies provided benefits like pensions and housing to workers to discourage unionization and increase loyalty.