ACADEC Social Science 2025-26

Academic Decathlon Social Science Resource Guide + Economics Resource Guide Section VI 2025-26

WWI

A global war that killed 37 million

Spanish Flu

A disease originating in the U.S. that killed 700,000 Americans

Manhattan, Kansas

The location of the training camp where one of the first outbreaks of Spanish Flu took place

Camp Funston

A military camp in Fort Riley, Kansas, that had an outbreak of Spanish Flu

Fort Riley, Kansas

The location of Camp Funston, where there was an outbreak of Spanish Flu

Woodrow Wilson

The U.S. president during the end of WWI who is responsible for his Fourteen Points

“Vive Wilson”

The sign on a banner that showed French people’s support of Wilson during his 1918 trip to Paris

Princeton University

The university where Wilson had been a professor

Neutrality

Wilson’s goal for the U.S. regarding WWI before the sinking of the Lusitania

“He Kept Us Out of War”

Wilson’s 1916 campaign slogan, reflecting his commitment to neutrality

Lusitania

A sunken British ship with more than a hundred American casualties that helped prompt the U.S. to join WWI

Meuse-Argonne

A WWI offensive where more than half of the U.S. doughboys lost their lives

General John Pershing

The Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe under Wilson, nicknamed “Black Jack”

“Black Jack”

General John Pershing’s nickname

Fourteen Points

Wilson’s peace plan for WWI that included self-determination, open diplomacy, and the establishment of a League of Nations

League of Nations

A group proposed in Wilson’s Fourteen Points that included many countries and colonies and resolved international conflict

Georges Clemenceau

The French prime minister who disagreed with Wilson’s Fourteen Points

David Lloyd George

The British prime minister who disagreed with Wilson’s Fourteen Points

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

The Italian prime minister at the end of WWI

Paris Peace Conference

The meeting where Wilson, George, Clemenceau, and others discussed the aftermath of WWI

Big Three

A nickname for the United States, France, and Britain during WWI

Treaty of Versailles

The treaty that ended WWI and made Germany pay $21 billion in reparations, demilitarize, give territory to France, forfeit its colonies, and accept responsibility of the war

Aphasia

A mental condition that affected Wilson after the Treaty of Versailles that causes disjointed speech

USS George Washington

The ship that Wilson returned on from the Paris Peace Conference

Henry Cabot Lodge

The Republican Senate Majority Leader of Massachusetts who was allied with Teddy Roosevelt and opposed Wilson’s League of Nations, creating the “Reservationist” coalition

Theodore Roosevelt

The past president that Lodge was allied with

Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The committee that Henry Cabot Lodge served as the Republican chair of

Reservationists

A coalition of Republican senators who would not vote in favor of the League of Nations without changes

Article X

An article of the League of Nations charter that affirmed territorial claims but was controversial with Republicans

Irreconciliables

A coalition of Republican senators who totally opposed the League of Nations, including William E. Borah

William E. Borah

A Republican senator part of the Irreconciliables who believed in isolationism

Columbus, Ohio

The first stop on Wilson’s 1919 speaking trip promoting the League of Nations

The Mayflower

The private railcar that carried Wilson during his 1919 speaking trip promoting the League of Nations

Pueblo, Colorado

The last location where Wilson gave a speech promoting the League of Nations, where it was very persuasive but exacerbated his sickness

Edith Wilson

The First Lady of Woodrow Wilson who helped manage the country during his sickness

25th Amendment

The 1967 amendment that describes the procedure to declare the president unable to discharge their duties

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The future president who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Wilson and inspired his postwar plans after WWII

Assistant Secretary of Navy

The position that FDR had on Wilson’s administration

Seattle, Washington

The location of the first major workers’ strike that started as shipyard workers but eventually affected the whole city

American Federation of Labor

A conservative union that included more than four million people at its peak and was led by Samuel Gompers

International Workers of the World

A radical union known as the “Wobblies”

Wobblies

The nickname for members of the International Workers of the World

Brookside Park Stadium

The meeting place for the Cleveland Steel workers while they were striking

Cleveland Steel

A steel company that suffered from a strike

Samuel Gompers

The leader of the AFL during WWI who negotiated an uneasy truce with big businesses

Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers

A union of 365,000 steelworkers who went on strike due to low wages and high hours

Boston, Massachusetts

The location where police officers went on strike to protest the lack of recognition of their union, but were stopped by Calvin Coolidge

Massachusetts Militia

The group that was assigned to cover the jobs of striking Boston police

United Mine Workers

A union of 400,000 coal miners who went on strike in 1919 and won better pay

Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Illinois

Five states that suffered from a strike of the United Mine Workers

A. Mitchell Palmer

The Attorney General who was responsible for the federal crackdown on unions and radicalism

Red Scare

The government’s crackdown on real and imagined radicalism, led by A. Mitchell Palmer

Bolshevik Revolution

A Communist Revolution that took over the Russian government

Espionage Act

A 1917 law that threatened civil liberties and was amended in the Sedition Act

Sedition Act

A 1918 law amending the earlier Espionage Act that allowed the government to prevent protest critical of the government

Ole Hanson

A popular Seattle mayor who was sent a homemade bomb that failed to detonate

Thomas Hardwick

A Georgia senator who was sent a bomb that injured his maid and wife

May Day

A celebration by Boston and Cleveland that included left-wing parades but also had rioting

General Intelligence Division

An agency within the Bureau of Investigation created by Palmer that prevented radicalism

Bureau of Investigation

A department in the Justice Department that contained the General Intelligence Divison

J. Edgar Hoover

The first leader of the agency that would become the FBI

Union of Russian Workers

A union that was attacked by riot police from the Justice Department

Palmer Raids

A series of raids led by Palmer that “cleaned” the country of radicalism

Emma Goldman

A famous anarchist who was deported to Soviet Russia due to a Palmer Raid

Charles Schenck

A Socialist Party leader from Philadelphia who was convicted for violating the Sedition Act by denouncing the draft

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The Supreme Court justice who delivered the majority decision in Schenck v. United States against Schenck and worked in Debs v. United States, believing in the free trade of ideas but believing in restricting threats

Schenck v. United States

The Supreme Court case that decided that statements targeting conscription undermined the national defense under the Sedition Act and set precedent for future similar cases

Eugene Debs

A Socialist presidential candidate who was arrested for delivering an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio and ran for president from prison

Canton, Ohio

The location of Eugene Debs’s anti-war speech

Debs v. United States

The Supreme Court case that decided that statements that hinder the draft were criminal

Abrams v. United States

The Supreme Court case where Holmes went against his precedent but was overrun in court by Justice Clarke and the majority opinion

Jacob Abrams

A Russian and Yiddish immigrant who called for a national general strike to stop American intervention against the Bolshevik regime

Justice Clarke

The Supreme Court justice who authored the majority opinion in Abrams v. United States

Yiddish

The language on Abrams’s pamphlet that was targeted by the Supreme Court

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Two anarchist Italian immigrants who were charged with the murder of a security guard in Boston and were treated unfairly in court according to liberals

Anarchism

The political ideology of Emma Goldman, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Dedham, Massachusetts

The location of the court where Sacco and Vanzetti were tried

Jim Crow laws

A set of laws in the South that oppressed African Americans by supporting segregation and violence

Great Migration

The relocation of six million African Americans from the South the industrial settings

Sharecropper

An African American who depended on White landowners after slavery

Scott and Violet Arthur

The parents of a family of the Great Migration who took an iconic photo

Polk Street Depot

An arrival point in Chicago that Scott and Violet Arthur arrived at

Paris, Texas

The location where Scott and Violet Arthur lived before moving to Chicago

Milwaukee, Akron, Buffalo, Newark, and Gary

Five smaller cities that saw large increases in the African American population due to the Great Migration

Black Mecca

A nickname for Harlem with African Americans

Harlem

The unofficial capital of Black American artistic and intellectual society

Chicago Defender

The largest African American newspaper, with 500,000 subscriptions

Illinois Central Railroad

A railroad line that ended in Chicago, bringing African Americans in the Great Migration

Memphis, Tennessee

A city along the Mississippi River that had a large jazz scene

Kansas City, Missouri

The Midwest city of the jazz revolution

Josephine Baker

An African American stage performer who danced in Paris, known for her iconic banana skirt

Banana skirt

A piece of clothing Josephine Baker wore that was appealing to French audiences

King & Carter Jazzing Orchetra

A jazz band based in Houston, Texas

London, Paris, Berlin, and Shanghai

Four international cities with bustling jazz scenes

Red Summer

A phrase coined by James Weldon Johnson to describe a surge of racial violence in 1919

Philadelphia, Houston, Washington, D.C., Knoxville, and Omaha

Five cities that experienced major race riots between 1915 and 1919

Elaine Massacre

An attack on over two hundred Black cotton farmers in Phillips County, Arkansas who were protesting sharecropping

Phillips County, Arkansas

The majority-Black county that contained the Elaine Massacre

Camp Pike

The army camp that sent federal troops to carry out the Elaine Massacre

Eugene Williams

A black teenager who was drowned after swimming in a lake section reserved for white bathers in Chicago