AP U.S History (ch.32)
Al Capone
"Scarface." Gangster king of Chicago during the 1920s. Heavily involved with bootlegging. Eventually, he was convicted on charges of income tax evasion.
H.L. Mencken
"The Bad Boy of Baltimore." Writer from the 1920s with an acidic pen. He criticized all sorts of things that he saw in society including various aspects of middle class life, democracy, marriage, patriotism, and so forth in his monthly publication, American Mercury.
Babe Ruth
"The Great Bambino." "The Sultan of Swat." Greatest baseball player of the 1920s.
on margin
A method of buying stock in which the buyer only pays part of the cost and borrows the rest. If the price of stock rises and then the stock is sold, the profit from the sale of stock can be used to pay off the loan and still make money. If the price of the stock falls, well ... that's a different story! Buying on margin helped cause the Great Depression.
Bootleggers
A name for people who illegally imported alcohol during Prohibition. Alcohol smuggler.
Invisible Empire
A nickname for the Ku Klux Klan. It grew rapidly during the 1920s all over the country because of anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Black, anti-immigrant feelings in the U.S. Seen as being a pro-Anglo-Saxon, pro-nativist, pro-Protestant organization. Declined after some Klan leaders were shown to be guilty of embezzlement and another of raping a White woman.
Langston Hughes
African-American poet and writer of the Harlem Renaissance (1920s). He wrote poems, stories, and essays that examined themes associated with African-American life in the early 1900s as well as life in general.
Frank Lloyd Wright
America's most famous architect. Pioneered the concept that a building should blend-in and harmonize with its environment rather than following classical forms.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Author from the 1920s who criticized the shallow materialism of many people in the 1920s. His most famous novel is entitled The Great Gatsby.
Nickelodeons
Five-cent cinema shows of the 1920s
"Red" Grange
Harold "Red" Grange. "The Galloping Ghost." Greatest football player of the 1920s. Played for the University of Illinois and later for the Chicago Bears. In 2008, ESPN named him the greatest college football player of all time.
Speakeasies
Illegal bars that operated during Prohibition. Often they required guests to give a password for admission.
18th Amendment
In effect from 1919-1933. Established prohibition. Banned importation, manufacture, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. Cut U.S. alcohol consumption by 1/3, but created controversy throughout the 1920s because of problems associated with enforcement. The Volstead Act was the law that was passed to provide for enforcement of the 18th Amendment. The 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment.
Immigration Act of 1924
Law that cut immigration quotas from 3% to 2% of the total number of immigrants in 1890. The purpose was to freeze America's existing racial composition (which was largely Northern European). Discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia in particular.
Margaret Sanger
Leader of the movement to legalize birth control in the U.S. in the 1920s. A nurse who worked in the poor sections of NYC and saw the effects of unwanted pregnancies. She founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and founded the American Birth Control League that later became Planned Parenthood.
Charles A. Lindbergh
Made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. "The Lone Eagle." Time Magazine's first Man of the Year.
Jazz
Music style featuring syncopated rhythms that became popular in the 1920s. A combination of African rhythms and blues. Started-out in the African-American community in New Orleans. Louis Armstrong ("Satchmo"), Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith.
Sacco & Vanzetti
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti - Two Italian immigrants that were accused of armed robbery and murder at a factory in Massachusetts. They were found guilty and executed in 1927 even though many people suggested that they did not get a fair trial because of bias against immigrants, anarchists, etc.... Symbolized the intolerance of the 1920s.
Henry Ford
Pioneered the use of the assembly line in automobile manufacturing. Mass-produced the Model T Ford.
Flappers
Rebellious young ladies of the 1920s who wore short skirts and bobbed hair along with long, beaded necklaces.
Kitty Hawk
Site in North Carolina of the first controlled and sustained airplane flight in 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright, two bicycle mechanics from Ohio designed the plane.
John T. Scopes
Tennessee high school biology teacher who was indicted in 1925 for teaching about evolution contrary to TN state law. He was found guilty, but was only fined $100. The Fundamentalists won the trial, but lost in the court of public opinion. Highlighted the conflict between religious fundamentalists and more liberal thinkers. The trial is the topic of the play/movie "Inherit the Wind." Scopes's defense attorney was Clarence Darrow and the prosecutor was William Jennings Bryan.
A. Mitchell Palmer
U.S. Attorney General nicknamed the "Fighting Quaker" who sought to rid America of un-American, socialist, and communist influences. Promoted a "red scare" in the U.S. in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Deported suspected communists on the "Red Ark" to the U.S.S.R. Re-nicknamed the "Quaking Fighter" after his house was fire bombed.
