ACADEC Social Science 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

Woodrow Wilson

The U.S. president during the end of WWI

Neutrality

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

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”

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

France’s prime minister who disagreed with Wilson’s Fourteen Points

David Lloyd George

British prime minister who disagreed with Wilson’s Fourteen Points

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

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

Reservationists

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

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

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”

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

United Mine Workers

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

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

Sedition Act

A 1918 congressional act 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

General Intelligence Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red Summer

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

Elaine Massacre

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

Eugene Williams

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

Home Defense League

A group who claimed not be upholding white womanhood by assaulting African Americans

Marcus Garvey

A Jamaican speaker, activist, and founder of the UNIA

Universal Negro Improvement Association

An activist group founded by Garvey that promoted Black Nationalism and racial pride

Booker T. Washington

An African American activist who inspired Garvey

Omaha, Nebraska

The location of a race riot that prompted Garvey to give a strong speech

Africa for the Africans

Garvey’s slogan that insisted on self-determination for African Americans

The Negro World

The UNIA newspaper that had 50,000 subscriptions

W. E. B. Du Bois

The leader of the NAACP and the rival of Garvey

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

An African-American activist group founded by W. E. B. Du Bois

Black Star Line

A shipping company that went bankrupt under mismanagement that was used against Garvey

Malcolm X

An African-American activist who revived Black Nationalism in the 1960s

Volstead Act

The act in the 18th amendment that banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of beverages with over 0.5% alcohol

18th Amendment

An amendment supported by temperance groups that started Prohibition

Women’s Christian Temperance Union

A group of middle-class women who sought to ban alcohol because of its moral implications

Andrew Volstead

A Minnesota Congressman who introduced the National Prohibition Act after the temporary prohibition during WWI

21st Amendment

The amendment that repealed Prohibition

Jeanette Rankin

A Montana women who served as the first female House Rep

Alice Paul

The leader of the National Women’s Party, she protested outside the White House and went on a hunger strike

National Women’s Party

A female activism group that used strong protest to denounce the White House, like British suffragettes

Carrie Chapman Catt

The leader of National American Woman Suffrage Association who thought of Paul’s protests as un-ladylike

National American Woman Suffrage Association

A moderate women’s activist group that stressed women’s contribution in the war effort as reason to give women rights

Equal Rights Amendment

An amendment supported by the NWP but opposed by the League of Women Voters because it could erase mother’s pensions and women working rights

League of Women Voters

A group that opposed the Equal Rights Amendment

Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act

A 1921 act that gave governmental funding to healthcare for mothers and children but was stopped in 1929

Warren Harding

A Republican president from Ohio who appealed to voters with his normalcy, held a naval conference, and was involved in many scandals

The Marion Daily Star

A newspaper owned by Harding that gave him the networking needed to become a politician

Return to Normalcy

Harding’s successful campaign slogan after the great plans of Wilson failed

James Cox

A democratic Ohioan senator who lost to Harding in the presidential election

Isolationism

Harding’s overall attitude toward relations with Europe

Great White Fleet

A fleet that went on a world tour to show of America’s power under Theodore Roosevelt

Washington Naval Conference

A nine-country conference led by Charles Evans Hughes that successfully reduced the number of ships being built

Charles Evans Hughes

A former Governor of New York, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and Republican presidential nominee who negotiated in the Washington Naval Conference

5:5:3 ratio

Describing the balance of naval power between the U.S., Britain, and Japan after the Washington Naval Conference

Open Door Policy

A policy in the Nine-Power Treaty of the Washington Naval Conference that dictated U.S. and China’s relationship

John D. Hicks

A historian who noted that the U.S. gave up its naval primacy for domestic causes during the Washington Naval Conference

Charles Ponzi

An Italian immigrant who used the arbitrage of International Reply Coupons to create a pyramid scheme

International Reply Coupons

Vouchers designed to allow people from different countries to redeem pre-paid money; exploited by Ponzi

Arbitrage

The practice of buying assets in one market to sell them in another

The Boston Post

The newspaper that helped expose Ponzi by noting the lack of IRCs