AP US History Ch.23 Unit 9

Warren G. Harding's Political Platform

(R) He sensed the desires of many Americans to put the war and the stresses of 1919 behind them; he promised normalcy. He argued for a return to a strong pro business stance and conservative values. His victory in the 1920 presidential election signaled an end to the Progressive Era and began a Republican dominance until 1932.

McNary-Haugen Bills

1927-1928. Proposed a system of federal price supports for a slew of agricultural products - wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and tobacco. President Coolidge opposed the bills as "special-interest" legislation.

The New Deal

1933-1937. Government sponsored programs implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to revitalize the economy and alleviate poverty and despair caused by the Depression.

Women's Joint Congressional Committee

A Washington-based coalition of ten major white women's organizations, including the newly formed League of Women Voters, lobbied actively for reform legislation. Its major accomplishment was the passage in 1921 of the Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act.

Bonus Army

A group of 15,000 unemployed veterans hitchhiked to Washington to demand immediate payment of their bonuses, a pension payment that was due to be paid in 1945. Federal troops burned the encampment to the ground and in a fight that followed injured hundreds of marchers.

Describe the new national culture that emerged in the United States during the 20s. Give examples.

A new emphasis on leisure, consumption, and entertainment characterized the new national culture. Automobiles, paved roads, the parcel post service, movies, radios, telephones, mass-circulation magazines, brand names, and chain stores linked Americans.

Marcus Garvey

African American leader during the 1920s who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and advocated mass migration of African Americans back to Africa. Was deported to Jamaica in 1927 after being convicted of mail fraud.

Women in Politics

After achieving the suffrage in 1920, women expanded their political activism. They were most influential as lobbyists.

Ku Klux Klan

After the premiere in 1915 of "Birth of a Nation," a popular film glorifying the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, a group of southerners gathered on Stone Mountain, outside of Atlanta to revive the racist organization. The KKK appealed to both urban and rural folk. The largest groups were in urban area. The Klan of the 1920s targeted blacks, Jews, and Catholics.

Agriculture and the Economy during the 1920s

Agriculture - which employed 1/4 of all workers - never fully recovered from the post war recession. During the war, American farmers had borrowed heavily to expand production, but as European farmers returned to their fields, the world market was glutted with goods. The coal and textile industry had similarly expanded output during the war and now faced overcapacity and falling prices.

How did the United States affect world trade and Europe's ability to repay war debts?

American banks lent money to Germany, enabling it to pay reparations to the Allied Powers. Britain and France then used these funds to pay off their wartime loans from the United States. American politicians made it very difficult to pay off the debts, as evident by the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.

Billy Sunday

American fundamentalist minister; he used colorful language and powerful sermons to drive home the message of salvation through Jesus and to oppose radical and progressive groups.

Economic Expansion Abroad

American manufacturers actively promoted foreign sales of consumer products. To supply these markets, firms built factories in foreign countries and bought up existing businesses.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Approved by Congress in January 1932. To stimulate economic activity, the RFC provided federal loans to railroads, financial institutions, banks, and insurance companies. This strategy of pump priming - infusing funds into the major corporate enterprises - was designed to increase production and create new jobs and invigorate consumer spending.

Wets

Argued that Prohibition undermined respect for the law and impinged on individuals' liberties

Identify key African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance. What were some of the literary themes of these writers?

Authors such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Jessie Fauset explored the black experience and represented the "Negro" in fiction. Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes turned to poetry to draw to attention black accomplishment. This creative embodied the ongoing African American struggle to identify as both black and American.

Henry Ford/Assembly Line

Before the introduction of the assembly line, Ford workers took twelve and a half hours to put together an auto; on an assembly line they took only 93 minutes. By 1927 Ford was producing a car every 24 seconds.

Fundamentalists (Revivalist Protestants)

Broad movement in Protestantism in the U.S. which tried to preserve what it considered the basic ideas of Christianity against criticism by liberal theologies. It stressed the literal truths of the Bible and creation.

Business Consolidation

By 1930 a handful of managers stood at the center of American economic life. During the 1920s businesses combined at a rapid rate, with the largest number of mergers occuring in rapidly growing industries. An oligoply if a few major producers dominated the market and controlled prices.

Isolationism

By refusing to join the League of Nations or the Court of International Justice, the United States declined to play an active role in international politics; in this regard, the nation's stance was clearly isolationist.

Describe American foreign policy, both political and economic, during the 1920s.

By refusing to join the League of Nations or the Court of International Justice, the United States declined to play an active role in international politics; in this regard, the nation's stance was clearly isolationist. But the efforts of American diplomats to shore up the international financial suggest the United States pursued a vigorous, internationalist economic policy.

Election of 1924

Calvin Coolidge, vice president to Warren G. Harding, affirmed his support for business and limited government and announced his candidacy for the presidency in 1924. The Democrats nominated John W. Davis, and the Progressives nominated Robert M. La Follette. Calvin Coolidge won the presidency.

American Plan

Corporations attacked unions as un-American because they forced workers to become members. These companies supported the "American Plan" of an open-nonunion shop. Some set up employee commitees to voice workers' complaints.

What changes in American society prompted the dissent expressed by nativist activists, the Ku Klux Klan, and religious fundamentalists? How did these groups voice their outrage?

Decline in religious values, the presence of immigrants in urban cities, and race relations created conflicted. These groups voiced their outrage through mass rallies and protests, the use of mass media to disseminate their viewpoint, the use of the legislative branch to pass laws, the use of the court system to invalidate existing laws, and the use of violence in the case of the nativists and KKK to stop immigrants, blacks, and Jews from increasing power.

Hawley-Smoot Act

Enacted in 1930, that established the highest protective tariff in U.S. history, worsening the Depression in America and abroad.

Aimee Semple McPherson

Evangelist who gained notoriety as she preached the fundamentalist message nationwide over the radio.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922

Followed the Republican policy to exclude foreign-made goods. Unable to sell their goods in the United States, European nations could not easily earn the dollars they needed to pay their debts.

Normalcy/Warren Harding

Harding ran on the notion that American people wanted a return to "normalcy." He argued for a return to a strong pro business stance and conservative cultural values. His victory signaled an end to the Progressive era.

How did President Hoover respond to the economic emergency?

He adopted a two-pronged strategy. Hoover asked business executives to maintain wages and production levels and to work with the government to rebuild America's confidence in the capitalist economic system. He recognized that voluntarism might not be enough, so he won cuts in federal taxes in an attempt to boost private spending and corporate investment, and he called on state and local governments to increase capital expenditures on public works.

What did President Hoover blame the severity of the American Depression on?

He blamed it on the international economic situation. During the 1920s the flow of international credit hinged on the willingness of American banks and corporations to make loans and investments in European countries, allowing them to pay reparations and war debts and to buy US goods. As the crisis deepened, US banks and companies reduced their foreign investments, disrupting the European financial system. When the Hawley-Smoot Act raised rates to all time highs, European governments retaliated by imposing their own trade restrictions. Many European countries abandoned the gold standard to protect their economies. Thus, American companies cut back production and purchases of raw material. The crash of 1929 undermined fragile economies around the globe and brought on a worldwide depression.

Why was Hoover hated during the Depression by the public?

Herbert Hoover was viewed as the "do-nothing" president. Hoover had responded to the national emergency with government action on an unprecedented scale. But the nation's needs were also unprecedented, and Hoover's programs failed to meet them.

Robert La Follette's Political Platfrom in the Election of 1924

His progressive-minded platform called for nationalization of railroads, public ownership of utilities, and the right of Congress to overrule Supreme Court decisions. His candidacy mobilized reformers and labor leaders as well as disgruntled farmers.

KKK and Politics

Hundreds of Klansmen won election to local offices and state legislatures. At the height of its power in 1925, the Klan had over 3 million members, including a strong contingent of women who pursued a political agenda.

Speakeasies

Illegal saloons and clubs that sold alcohol. There were more than 30,000 speakeasies in New York City alone.

The Economy during the 1920s

Immediately after World War 1, the nation experienced a series of economic shocks. In 1919, Americans spent their wartime savings, causing rampant inflation. In 1922 the economy began to grow smoothly again. An abundance of new consumer products, particularly the automobile, sparked economic growth.

The Scopes Trial

In 1925 the Tennesse state legislature made it unlawful to teach any theory that denied the story of the Divine creation of man as taught in the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the constitutionality of the law. In interwined in the trial of John T. Scopes who had taught the principles of evolution in his high school class and faced a prison sentence. The press dubbed the Scopes trial the "monkey trial." The jury found him guilty but it was overturned by the Tennesse Supreme Court.

Harlem Renaissance

In the 1920s Harlem stood as "the symbol of liberty and the Promised Land to Negroes everywhere." Talented African Americans flocked to Harlem where they broke with older genteel traditions of black literature to reclaim a cultural identity with their African roots.

Revenue Act of 1932

Increase taxes to balance the budget and lower interest rates, which choked both consumption and investment.

How did intellectuals, writers, and artists react to the postwar era? Identify these writers and their works.

Influential writers and intellectuals rendered bitter dissents toward World War 1. "The Three Soldiers" and "1919" by John Dos railed at the obscenity of the war. Ernest Hemingway's "In Our Time," "The Sun Also Rises," and "Farewell to Arms" powerfully described the dehumanizing consequences of the war. TS Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" portrays a fragmented civilization in ruins.

Writings and Post-War

Influential writers and intellectuals rendered bitter dissents. Writers offered stinging critiques of what they saw as the complacent, moralistic, and anti-intellectual tone of American life.

Dawes Plan (1924)

It reduced the reparations that Germany owed to the Allies and provided substantial American bank loans to assist the Germans to keep up the payments. The success of the Dawes Plan depended on the continuous flow of American capital to Germany and the ability of the Allies to pay their debts to the United States.

Quota of 1929

It set a cap of 150,000 immigrants per year from Europe and continued to ban most migrants from Asia. The new laws continued to permit unrestricted immigration from countries in the Western hemisphere.

Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act

It was the first federally funded health-care legislation; the act aimed to lower high rates of infant mortality by funding medical clinics, pre-natal educational programs, and visiting nurse projects. The act was highly controversial, as Conservatives charged it as a Communist plot to socialize American medicine.

Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

Led by Marcus Garvey and based in Harlem. Urged African Americans to return to Africa, arguing that peoples of African descent would never be treated justly in countries dominated by whites.

Teapot Dome Scandal

Many of Harding's political associates turned out to be dishonest and corrupt. When he suddenly died of a heart attack in 1923, evidence of widespread fraud and corruption in his administration emerged. The Teapot Dome Scandal was concerned with the secret leasing to private companies of government oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and in Elk Hills, California.

What was the cultural conflict between city and country?

Mass media generally reflected values of the cities, and many Americans worried that the cities and the immigrants living there would soon dominate the nation and its culture. Rural America represented the traditional spirit of the nation: hardworking, self-reliant, and independent. Urban America represented changes that threatened the values above.

Nativism of the 1920s

Nativists charged that there were too many European migrants and too many who were anarchists, socialists, and radical labor organizers.

The Noble Experiment

Prohibition involved the power of the state to enforce social values. Those who continued to drink after the passage of the amendment gave the decade its reputation as the Roaring Twenties. Urban ethnic groups - German, Irish, Italians - had long opposed restrictions on drinking and refused to comply. Some brewed their own beer. Organized crime took over the bootleg trade and grew wealthy from its profits. The 21st Amendment countered the 18th Amendment and ended the nation-wide prohibition.

Hawley-Smooth Act of 1930

Raised tariffs on imports to an all-time high and made it nearly impossible for the Allied Powers to pay off their remaining $4.3 billion in war loans.

Hoover's Voluntarism

Reflecting his idea of voluntarism on the business community, he asked business executives to maintain wages and production levels and to work with the government to rebuild America's confidence. He also refused to consider direct federal relief for unemployed Americans and urged reliance on private charity, but unemployment during the depression was too massive for private charities.

What is meant by "New Era?"

Republican dominance in the federal government from 1920 to 1932 was known as the New Era, characterized by business-government cooperation. It was a time period in which business boomed, while farmers and unions struggled. Republicans moved away from laissez-faire and accepted limited government regulation as an aid to stabilizing government.

Washington Naval Arms Conference of 1921

Revealed American strategy in the Pacific. The goal was to deter both excessive expenditure on arms and the buildup of Japanese naval power.

The "Associated State"

Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was the most active member of the Harding administration. Under Hoover's direction, the Commerce Department fostered the creation of two thousand trade associations representing companies in almost every major industry. Government officials worked with the associations, providing them with statistical research and assisting them to devise industry-wide standards. Hoover hoped to create an "associated state" between the government and businesses that would promote the public interest.

20th Amendment

Set subsequent inaugurations for January 20th.

Hoovervilles

Shanty towns where people lived in packing crates, due to the depression.

Stock Market

Stock prices surged 40% in 1928 and 1929, as investors got caught up in speculative frenzy. On Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, and again on Black Tuesday, October 29, the bubble burst. More than 28 million shares changed hands in panic trading. Overnight, stock values fell from a peak of $87 billion to $55 billion. The unequal distribution of wealth became the structural weakness. Hundreds of banks failed and depositors lost all their money.

Nativist

Such sentiments recalled the raction to migrants from Ireland and Germany in the 1840s. During the 1920s more than 23 million immigrants came to the United States from southern and eastern Europe. Nativist animosity fueled a new drive against immigration.

Drys

Supported the Prohibition.

Election of 1928

The Democrats nominated Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. The Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover, the Secretary of Commerce.

Volstead Act

The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States.

Election of 1932

The Republicans renominated Herbert Hoover. The Democrats turned to Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York who had persuaded his state legislature to run up a budget deficit to finance innovative relief and unemployment programs. Roosevelt won the election.

Colorado Coal Company v. United Mine Workers

The Supreme Court ruled that a striking union could be penalized for illegal restraint of trade.

National Origins Act of 1924

The act cut immigration quotas to 2 percent of each nationality, as reflected in the 1890 census.

Causes of the Great Depression

The economic downturn began in 1927. For five years Americans had spent more than their wages and salaries had risen. As consumers ran out of cash and credit, spending declined and housing construction slowed. In 1928 manufacturers began to cut back and lay off workers. By the summer of 1929, the economy was clearly in recession.

Internationalist

The efforts of American diplomats to shore up the international financial suggest the United States pursued a vigorous, internationalist economic policy.

What impact did the automobile have on society? Other businesses?

The expansion of the auto industry stimulated the steel, petroleum, chemical, rubber, and glass industries. It indirectly also provided jobs for over 3.7 million workers. Highway construction became a billion-dollar-a-year enterprise. Car ownership broke down the isolation of rural life and spurred the growth of suburbs.

Atkins v. Children's Hospital

The ruling voided a minimum wage for women's workers in the District of Columbia.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

The signatories agreed to condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of foreign policy.

Modernists and Liberal Protestants

They found ways to reconcile their religious beliefs with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and other scientific principles.

Farm Holiday Association

Thousands of farmers barricaded local roads and protested low prices by dumping milk, vegetables, and other food stuffs on the roadways.

Define welfare capitalism. What led to the emergence of this belief in the United States?

Welfare capitalism was a system of labor relations that stressed management's responsibility for employee's well being. Many corporations offered workers health insurance, old-age pension plans, and the opportunity to buy stock in the company at below-market prices. Their goal was to create a loyal and long-serving workforce. The emergence was caused by the goal of deterring production-line workers from joining labor unions.

What were the causes of the Great Depression?

• The economic downturn began slowly and almost imperceptibly in 1927. For five years Americans had spent at a faster pace than their wages and salaries had risen. As consumers ran out of cash and credit, spending declined and housing construction slowed. Soon inventories piled up; in 1928, manufacturers began to cut back production and lay off workers, reducing incomes and reinforcing the slowdown. By the summer of 1929, the economy was clearly in recession. Collapse of the railroad and coal industry further created weaknesses in the economy. A final structural weakness was the unequal distribution of wealth. Once the depression began, a majority of the population lacked sufficient buying power to revive the economy.