APUSH Chapter 23

relativism

became a social, economic, and political point of view; shaped many of the intellectual, cultural, and social currents of the 20th century; people oversimplified Einstein's theory by claiming that there were no absolute standards, all was relative; emerged in discussions of topics such as sexuality, the arts, and politics

Langston Hughes

black poet; wrote about the Harlem Renaissance; loved Africa and its cultural heritage but recognized that he was shaped by American cities

Warren G. Harding

elected in 1920 by voters with desire to restore traditional and social stability; promised to return America to normalcy

The Great Gatsby

dealt with the misfortunes of the fortunate: self-indulgent and self-destructive people who drank and parties as a means of medicating themselves to the pointlessness of their shallow lives

Lost Generation

those who had lost faith in the values and institutions of Western Civilization and were frantically looking for new gods to worship; Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and other young modernists

Gertrude Stein

self-appointed champion of the American modernists living in Paris; "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"; one of the chief promoters of the triumphant subjectivity undergirding modernist expression; sought to capture words in equivalent abstract painting; hosted a cultural salon in Paris that became a gathering place for American and European modernists

T. S. Eliot

Anglo-American poet; wrote "The Waste Land" in which he claimed to speak for a postwar culture in crisis; criticized for "ruining" literature; surpassed Pound to become the leading American modernists; The Waste Land poem became a monument of modernism

Ezra Pound

militant propagandist for the modernist movement; believed that he and other cultural rebels were saving civilization from the dictatorship of tradition; cultural impresario of modernism; denounced war and commercialism, displayed an uncompromising urgency to transform the literary landscape; recruited, edited, published, and reviewed the best among the modernist writers

Armory Show

most scandalous event in history of American art; officially known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art; opened February 17, 1913 in the vast 69th Army Regiment Armory in NYC; featured 1200 works and created an immediate sensation; experimentalist avant-garde artists; also generated excitement; after, many people discovered a new faith in the disturbing powers of art

modernism

first appeared in the capitals of Europe in the 1890s, then spread to the US; widespread awareness that new ideas and ways of doing things were making a sharp break in tradition, and that new technologies, modes of transportation and communication, and scientific discoveries were transforming the nature of everyday life and the way people saw the world; 3 unsettling assumptions: 1) God did not exist 2) reality was not rational, orderly, or obvious 3) social progress would no longer be taken for granted

Albert Einstein

precipitated a fundamental change in understanding the operations of the universe; greatest innovations emerged from his ability to picture the strange effects of natural forces; theories about fluid interplay of space, time, matter, energy, and gravity that caused traditional notions of a stable universe to wobble; won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1921; German-born physicist

James Joyce

Irish modernist; published pathbreaking novel Ulysses in 1922; adopted new radical forms of artistic expression; criticized for "ruining literature"

black nationalism

celebration of black culture that found much different expression; promoted black separatism from mainstream American life; lead by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey

leader of black nationalism; claimed to speak for all 400 million blacks worldwide; brought the headquarters of the UNIA to Harlem; insisted that blacks had nothing in common with whites and called for racial segregation; urged African Americans to cultivate black solidarity and power; goal was to build an all-black empire in Africa; appealed to poor blacks in northern cities, but also had supporters across the rural South

Zora Neal Hurston

arrived in Harlem from Eatonville (Florida) in 1925; aspiring writers and inventive storyteller; first African American to enroll at Barnard College where she majored in cultural anthropology; mastered the art of survival by learning to code-switch; queen of the Harlem Renaissance; outspokenness invited controversy; went on to become an anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist

Alain Locke

first black Rhodes Scholar; guiding spirit of the new African American culture; tiny stature, but champion of the Harlem Renaissance; African Americans more confident, could shape their own future

Harlem Renaissance

inspired by the converging of African Americans in New York City in the 1920s; nation's first black literary and artistic movement; started in Harlem - contained more blacks per square mile than any urban neighborhood in the nation

Guinn v. United States

1915; early victory for NAACP; Supreme Court struck down Oklahoma's efforts to deprive African Americans of the right to vote

W. E. B. Du Bois

NAACP director of publicity and research and editor of its journal, The Crisis

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; founded in 1910 by African American activists and white progressives; focused its political strategy on legal action to bring the 14th and 15th Amendments back to life; launched a national campaign against lynching in 1919

Great Migration

most significant development in African American life during the early 20th century; mass movement accelerated in 1915-16, when rapidly expanding war industries needed new workers; continued through the 20s as almost 1 million African Americans moved north, many to large cities; produced dramatic social, economic, and political changes; lured by better living conditions and better-paying jobs

Mable Puffer and Arthur Hazzard

interracial couple from Ayer, Massachusetts; wealthy college grad and handyman; decided to get married in Concord, NH; five-day waiting period, Concord mayor agreed to perform the service, then later backed out; news of union outraged many residents of Ayer; Hazzard arrested on a charge of enticement, Puffer deemed insane

Vasser College

all-women's school outside New York City; students took domestic courses such as "Husband and Wife" "Motherhood" and "The Family as an Economic Unit"

flappers

impetuous young women eager to defy prevailing social conventions; name derived from the flapping sound made by the unfastened rubber galoshes they wore over their shoes in wet weather; usually thin, long-legged, and precocious; daring pleasure-seekers who loved short dresses and plunging necklines; joined young men in smoking cigarettes, drinking, gambling, and dancing to jazz music; attracted enormous attention; hell-bent on defying traditional standards for women

Margret Sanger

nurse and midwife in the working-class tenements of Manhattan; saw many young mothers struggling to provide their families; witnessed the consequences of unwanted pregnancies, miscarriages, and amateur abortions - birth control as solution; decided that birth control was more important to poor women than the right to vote - resolved to spend the rest of her life helping women gain control of their bodies; very controversial, lost of resisting

Sigmund Freud

Austrian founder of modern psychoanalysis; explored the human psyche, determined to legitimize psychoanalysis as a professional field anchored in clinical research; reckless and unethical scientist; lied, manipulated or invented data, made unsubstantiated assertions, and stole ideas from others; created a new vocabulary for mapping the inner lives of people; dismissed traditional religion; published The Interpretation of Dreams - importance of sexual energy

Jazz Age

labeled by F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to the popularity of jazz music, a dynamic blend of several musical traditions; first emerged as ragtime; Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith combined ragtime with blues to created jazz; appealed to people of all ethnicities and ages because it celebrated pleasure and immediacy; defiant sexual revolution among young people

Louis Armstrong

inspired trumpeter with a unique froggy voice; Pied Piper of jazz; inventive freewheeling performer who reshaped the American music scene; experienced mean and ugly side of America as a child - found music, moved to Chicago, delighted audiences with passionate trumpet performances and open-hearted personality; radiated a joy that reflected his faith in the power of music and laughter to promote racial harmony

F. Scott Fitzgerald

became the self-infatuated voice of his generation after his best-selling novel The Side of Paradise portrayed rowdy student life at Princeton; fastened upon the Jazz Age as the evocative label for the rebelliousness and spontaneity displayed by American youth during the 20s

Jack Dempsey

legendary boxer; won the world heavyweight title in 1919 from Jess Willard (who was a massive man) - knocked him down 7 times in the first round; dominant force in boxing; "Manassa Mauler"; especially popular with working-class men - born and lived as a hobo for many years; hero to millions; defeated in 1927 by Gene Tunney

Red Grange

University of Illinois; first athlete to appear on the cover of Time magazine; "Galloping Ghost" scored a touchdown for the first 4 times he carried the ball in a 1924 game vs. Michigan; signed a contract with the Chicago Bears in 1926 - single-handedly made professional football competitive with baseball as a spectator sport

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

New York Yankee legends; attracted intense interest and huge crowds; one of the most famous athletes of all time; new Yankee Stadium, won 3 championships in 5 years; "Sultan of the Swat" set a record by hitting more than 60 home runs in one season

Model T

"Tin Lizzie"; appeared in 1902 at the price of $850 - efficient production techniques got it down to $250 by 1924; "built to last forever", changed little from year to year, came only in black

Henry Ford

changed the car industry in 1903 by pledging to build a "car for the multitude"; manufactured Model T cheaply and efficiently - made cars affordable; selling millions of identical cars at a small margin allowed him to keep prices low and wages high - perfect formula for a mass consumption economy

Charles A. Lindbergh

gave the aviation industry a huge psychological boost in May 1927; extraordinary confidence and courage; won a $25,000 prize by making the first solo transatlantic flight from New York City to Paris over 33.5 hours and inclement weather; oversaw fanatical effort to make his plane light enough to carry enough fuel; "Lone Eagle"; redefined the potential of flying machines

radio

aired its first commercial in 1922; huge tool for advertising companies - most ads aimed a women, encourage consumer culture; 2.3 of homes had at least 1 radio; changed the patterns of everyday life; transformed jazz music into a national craze

Charlie Chaplin

London-born slapstick comedian; perfected his art, transformed it into a form of social criticism; movie actor

New Era

1920s; dramatic changes; economic growth soared after postwar recession; jobs were plentiful, nation's wealth almost doubled, income increases, highest standard or living in the world

mass culture

created by mass advertising and marketing campaigns; more and more people saw the same advertisements and bought the same products at the same stores; same magazines, radio programs, same cars, sports stars and celebrities, same movies

consumer culture

after the war; encouraged carefree spending; people used to going without, buying carefully, using economically due to the war - extravagant spending at the close of the war; new ways to finance purchases - consumer debt tripled; advertising exploded

Florida land rush

20 million land parcels for sale; people invested in real estate sight unseen and ended up with swampland - fraudulent sales made people hesitant to join the stampede; bubble burst in 1926 - too much growth too fast; became a wasteland

Eighteenth Amendment

Prohibition; outlawed alcoholic beverages in the 1920s; set off an epidemic of lawbreaking throughout the 20s - many people defied the ban, smudged, produced, and consumed bootleg liquor