Key terms

Scientific Management- A system of industrial management created and promoted in the early twentieth century by Frederick W. Taylor, emphasizing stopwatch efficiency to improve factory performance. The system gained immense popularity across the United States and Europe.

Fordism A system of assembly-line manufacturing and mass production named after Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the Model T car.

Bolshevik RevolutionThe second stage of the Russian Revolution in November 1917 when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party seized power and established a communist state. The first stage had occurred the previous February when more moderate revolutionaries overthrew the Russian czar.

United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)A black nationalist organization founded in 1914 by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey in order to promote resettlement of African Americans to their “African homeland” and to stimulate a vigorous separate black economy within the United States.

criminal syndicalism laws Passed by many states during the red scare, these nefarious laws outlawed the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change. Stump speakers for the International Workers of the World, or IWW, were special targets.

red scareA period of intense anticommunism. The “Palmer raids” of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer resulted in about six thousand deportations of people suspected of “subversive” activities.

American planA business-oriented approach to worker relations popular among firms in the 1920s to defeat unionization. Managers sought to strengthen their communication with workers and to offer benefits like pensions and insurance. They insisted on an “open shop” in contrast to the mandatory union membership through the “closed shop” that many labor activists had demanded in the strike wave after World War I.

Immigration Act of 1924Also known as the “National Origins Act,” this law established quotas for immigration to the United States. Immigration from southern and eastern Europe was sharply curtailed, while immigrants from Asia were shut out altogether.

Indian Citizenship Act of 1924Signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge, the act granted citizenship to all American Indians born in U.S. territory. The act, however, went short of extending the franchise to Indians, a milestone that would only be reached in 1962.

Bible BeltThe region of the American South, extending roughly from North Carolina west to Oklahoma and Texas, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

Scopes TrialA court case that took place during the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, over the issue of whether evolution could be taught in public schools. Pitting Christian fundamentalists against modernists, the trial eventually produced mixed results for fundamentalists, who won the case but were ridiculed by the national press.

FundamentalismA Protestant Christian movement emphasizing the literal truth of the Bible and opposing religious modernism, which sought to reconcile religion and science. It was especially strong in the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ, first organized in 1906.

modernism In response to the demanding conditions of modern life, this artistic and cultural movement revolted against comfortable Victorian standards and accepted chance, change, contingency, uncertainty, and fragmentation. Originating among avant-garde artists and intellectuals around the turn of the twentieth century, modernism blossomed into a full-fledged cultural movement in art, music, literature, and architecture.

“Lost Generation”A creative circle of expatriate American artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, who found shelter and inspiration in post–World War I Europe.

Harlem RenaissanceA creative outpouring among African American writers, jazz musicians, and social thinkers, centered around Harlem in the 1920s, that celebrated black culture and advocated for a “New Negro” in American social, political, and intellectual life.

Bureau of the BudgetAn agency created in 1921 to oversee the federal budget and keep federal government spending within specified guidelines, imposing a process for fiscal discipline. Superseded by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1970.

Adkins v. Children’s HospitalA landmark Supreme Court decision reversing the ruling in Muller v. Oregon, which had declared women to be deserving of special protection in the workplace.

Nine-Power Treaty Agreement coming out of the Washington “Disarmament” Conference of 1921–1922 that pledged Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, China, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium to abide by the Open Door policy in China. The Five-Power Naval Treaty on ship ratios and the Four-Power Treaty to preserve the status quo in the Pacific also came out of the conference.

Nine-Power TreatyAgreement coming out of the Washington “Disarmament” Conference of 1921–1922 that pledged Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, China, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium to abide by the Open Door policy in China. The Five-Power Naval Treaty on ship ratios and the Four-Power Treaty to preserve the status quo in the Pacific also came out of the conference.

Kellogg-Briand PactA sentimental triumph of the 1920s peace movement, this 1928 pact linked sixty-two nations in the supposed “outlawry of war.”

Fordney-McCumber Tariff LawA comprehensive bill passed to protect domestic production from foreign competitors. As a direct result, many European nations were spurred to increase their own trade barriers.

Teapot Dome scandalA tawdry affair involving the illegal lease of priceless naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. The scandal, which implicated President Harding’s secretary of the interior, was one of several that gave his administration a reputation for corruption.

McNary-Haugen BillA farm-relief bill that was championed throughout the 1920s and aimed to keep agricultural prices high by authorizing the government to buy up surpluses and sell them abroad. Congress twice passed the bill, but President Calvin Coolidge vetoed it in 1927 and 1928.

Agricultural Marketing ActThis act established the Federal Farm Board, a lending bureau for hard-pressed farmers. The act also aimed to help farmers help themselves through new producers’ cooperatives. As the depression worsened in 1930, the Board tried to bolster falling prices by buying up surpluses, but it was unable to cope with the flood of farm produce to market.

Hawley-Smoot TariffThe highest protective tariff in the peacetime history of the United States, passed as a result of good old-fashioned horse trading. To the outside world, it smacked of ugly economic warfare.

Black TuesdayThe dark, panicky day of October 29, 1929, when over 16,410,000 shares of stock were sold on Wall Street. It was a trigger that helped bring on the Great Depression.

HoovervillesGrim shantytowns where impoverished victims of the Great Depression slept under newspapers and in makeshift tents. Their visibility (and sarcastic name) tarnished the reputation of the Hoover administration.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)A government lending agency established under the Hoover administration in order to assist insurance companies, banks, agricultural organizations, railroads, and local governments. It was a precursor to later agencies that grew out of the New Deal and symbolized a recognition by the Republicans that some federal action was required to address the Great Depression.

Norris–La Guardia Anti-Injunction ActThis law banned “yellow-dog,” or antiunion, work contracts and forbade federal courts from issuing injunctions to quash strikes and boycotts. It was an early piece of labor-friendly federal legislation.

Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF)Informally known as the Bonus Army, this rag-tag group of twenty thousand veterans marched on Washington to demand immediate payment of bonuses earned during World War I. General Douglas MacArthur dispersed the veterans with tear gas and bayonets.