Ch 22 Key Terms and Essential Questions

Lost Generation

A group of American writers that rebelled against America's lack of cosmopolitan culture in the early 20th century. Many moved to cultural centers such as London in Paris in search for literary freedom. Prominent writers included T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway among others.

Teapot Dome scandal

When President Warren G. Harding died suddenly of a heart attack in August 1923, evidence was just emerging that parts of his administration were riddled with corruption. The worst scandal concerned secret leasing of government oil reserves in _____, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to private companies. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was eventually convicted of taking $300,000 in bribes and became the first cabinet officer in US history to serve a prison sentence.

What factors lead to labor defeats during the 1920s?

While the war effort had temporarily increased the size and power of labor unions, as membership in the AFL grew by a third and the war economy brought higher pay and better working conditions, the end of the war brought them back to reality. After the war, employers cut wages and rooted out wages, prompting huge confrontations. In 1919, 20% of workers went on strike. Business leaders broke up the strikes with strikebreakers, and many business leaders in rising industries resisted unions, creating non-unionized jobs. Antilabor decisions by the Supreme Court also contributed to the unions' decline, as the Court ruled that a striking union could be penalized for illegal restraint of trade (Coronado Coal Company v. United Mine Workers), struck down federal legislation regulating child labor, and voided a minimum wage for women (Adkins v. Children's Hospital). Such decisions, along with aggressive antiunion campaigns, caused membership in labor unions to plummet.

flappers

Young women of the 1920s that behaved and dressed in a radical fashion. During the rise of Hollywood, thousands of young women followed the lead of actress Clara Bow, Hollywood's famous ____, who flaunted her boyish figure. Decked out in knee-length skirts, flappers shocked the older generation by smoking and wearing makeup. ____ became influential symbols of women's sexual and social emancipation.

welfare capitalism

As labor unions declined drastically in the 1920s, _____ experienced a boom. In place of unions, the 1920s marked the heyday of ____, a system of labor relations that stressed management's responsibility for employees' well-being. Automaker Henry Ford was a prime example of this, with his high pay of $5 per day and a profit-sharing plan. Companies would provide health insurance and pensions, built athletic facilities and offered paid vacations. The goal was to build a loyal workforce and curb labor unrest.

Scopes Trial

At the state and local levels, controversy erupted as fundamentalist Protestants sought to mandate school curricula based on the biblical account of creation. A 1925 Tennessee law outlawed the teaching of any theory that denies the Biblical account of creation. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law's constitutionality. They intervened in the trial of John T. ______, a high school biology teacher who taught the theory of evolution to his class and faced a jail sentence for doing so. The case attracted national attention because Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal lawyer, defended ____, while William Jennings Bryan spoke for the prosecution. Journalists dubbed the _____ "the monkey trial," referring both to Darwin's argument and the circus atmosphere at the trial. The verdict: guilty.

the Red Scare

Following WWI, the socialist views of some recent immigrants frightened native-born citizens; communism terrified them. when the Bolshevik leaders founded the Third International to foster revolutions abroad, some Americans began to fear that dangerous radicals were hiding everywhere, and wartime hatred of the Germans was replaced by hostility toward Bolsheviks. Ironically, very few Americans actually joined Communist parties. In April 1919, postal workers discovered and diffused 34 mail bombs addressed to government officials, and in June, a bomb detonated outside the Washington house of attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer escaped unharmed, but he used the incident to fan public fears, precipitating a hysterical _________. As President Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, Palmer had free reign, and created the FBI to facilitate his "Palmer raids."

Marcus Garvey

Harlem's creative energy generated broad political aspirations. The Harlem-based Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), led by charismatic Jamaican-born _____, arose in the 1920s to mobilize African American workers and champion black separatism. ___ urged followers to move to Africa, arguing that people of African descent would never be treated justly in white-run countries. The UNIA soon had 4 million followers, including many new northern immigrants. It published a newspaper, Negro World, and solicited funds for the Black Star steamship company, which would trade with the Indies and carry blacks to Africa. But the UNIA declined as quickly as it had risen. In 1925, ____ was imprisoned for mail fraud because of his solicitations for the Black Star Line. Without his leadership, the movement collapsed.

Universal Negro Improvement Association

Harlem's creative energy generated broad political aspirations. The Harlem-based _____, led by charismatic Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, arose in the 1920s to mobilize African American workers and champion black separatism. Garvey urged followers to move to Africa, arguing that people of African descent would never be treated justly in white-run countries. The _____ soon had 4 million followers, including many new northern immigrants. It published a newspaper, Negro World, and solicited funds for the Black Star steamship company, which would trade with the Indies and carry blacks to Africa. But the ________ declined as quickly as it had risen. In 1925, Garvey was imprisoned for mail fraud because of his solicitations for the Black Star Line. Without his leadership, the movement collapsed.

Palmer raids

In June 1919, a bomb detonated outside the Washington house of attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer escaped unharmed, but he used the incident to fan public fears, precipitating a hysterical Red Scare. As President Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, Palmer had free reign. He set up an anti-radicalism division in the Justice Department and appointed his assistance J Edgar Hoover to direct it. This became the FBI. In November 1919, FBI agents stormed the headquarters of radical organizations and captured thousands of foreigners who hadn't committed a crime but held anarchist or revolutionary beliefs. Lacking the protection of US citizenship, many were deported without indictment or trial in the notorious _________.

What was the Republican vision of "normalcy" and how did the Harding and Coolidge administrations seek to realize it?

In the election of 1920, Ohio senator Warren G. Harding won in a landslide on a platform of "not nostrums but normalcy," marking an era of Republican dominance that lasted until 1932. This Republican vision of normalcy was very pro-business. Herbert Hoover and the Commerce Department advocated an associated state, or voluntary business cooperation with government. The Teapot Dome scandal, however exposed more sinister links between government and corporate interest. Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president upon Harding's death, and he maintained Republican dominance. Coolidge called for limited government and tax cuts for business. In the election of 1924, Coolidge easily defeated John W. Davis, a Democrat Wall Street lawyer and fended off a challenge from Senator Robert La Follette, who tried to resuscitate the Progressive Party. Republicans dropped progressive initiatives of the prewar years. The FTC failed to enforce antitrust act. The Supreme Court, now headed by former Republican President William Howard Taft, refused to break up the mammoth US Steel Corporation.

Why did race riots, strife, and violence break out in the years following World War One?

In the immediate aftermath of the war, thousands of strikes revealed continuing labor tensions. Violent riots exposed white resistance to the rising expectations of African Americans, while an obsessive hunt for "foreign" radicals showed that ethnic pluralism would not win easy acceptance. African Americans emerged from WWI determined to achieve citizenship rights. Many of them had served in the war, and hundreds of thousands had migrated from the South to the North in the Great Migration, where they secured wartime jobs and found they could vote and integrate into their community. These developments sparked white violence, as, in the South, the number of lynchings rose from 48 in 1917 to 78 in 1919, including several murders of returning black soldiers. In northern and midwestern cities, the arrival of southern African American migrants deepened existing racial tensions, as the new migrants competed with whites for housing and jobs. White union workers resented blacks who served as strikebreakers. Racism turned such conflicts into violent confrontations, as race riots broke out in more than 25 cities.

National Origins Act

Responding to nativist pressure against European immigration in the 1920s, Congress passed emergency immigration restrictions in 1921 and a permanent measure three years later. The _____ used backdated census data to establish a baseline: in the future, annual immigration from each country could not exceed 2 percent of that nationality's percentage of the US population as it had stood in 1890. Since only small numbers of Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, and other Southern and Eastern European immigrants had arrived before 1890, the law drastically limited immigration from those places.

Prohibition

Rural and native-born Protestants started the 1920s with the achievement of a longtime goal: national ______ of liquor. Wartime anti-German prejudice was a major contributing factor as many breweries were owned by German Americans, so many citizens decided it was unpatriotic to drink beer. Congress also limited brewers' and distillers' use of barley and other scarce grains, causing consumption to decline. The decades-long prohibition campaign culminated with Congress's passage of the 18th Amendment in 1917. Ratified over the next two years by nearly every state and taking effect in January 1920, the amendment prohibited "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." Defenders hailed it as a victory for health, morals, and Christian values. The law, however, was widely ignored as speakeasies flourished. Many streamed south of the border, as Mexico regulated liquor but kept it legal. The difficulties of enforcing prohibition contributed to its repeal in 1933.

What factors contributed to the economic boom of the 1920s and the crash that followed it?

Spurred by rapid expansion during the war, American business thrived in the 1920s. Corporations expanded more and more into overseas markets, while at home a national consumer culture emphasized leisure and fun. But some sectors of the economy, notably agriculture, never recovered from a sharp recession in the wake of WWI. Meanwhile, close observers worried over the rapid economic growth and easy credit that fueled the Roaring Twenties. Their fears proved well founded: the "Roar" ended in the Great Depression. Immediately after WWI, the US experienced a series of economic shocks: rampant inflation, then a two-year recession that raised unemployment, and finally the economy began to grow smoothly. Large-scale corporations continued to replace small business in many sectors of the economy. Large companies consolidated power. Aided by Washington's dollar diplomats, US companies also exercised growing global power. The middle-class flourished, indulging in leisure and fun. Many poor and affluent families stretched their incomes through new forms of borrowing such as auto loans and installment plans. Such borrowing turned out to be a factor in the bust of 1929. The auto industry exploded in the US, and its expansion rippled through the economy, stimulating many industries, creating millions of jobs, and encouraging urban sprawl. However, cars were expensive and bought on credit, creating risks for the economy as borrowers who could not pay off car loans lost their entire investment in the vehicles; if they defaulted, banks were left holding unpaid loans. By 1927, strains on the economy began to show. Consumer lending had become the tenth largest business in the country. Increasing numbers of Americans bought into the stock market, often with unrealistic expectations. Corporate profits were so high that some companies plowed excess earnings into the stock market. When the stock market fell, in a series of plunges between October 25 and November 13, 1929, few onlookers understood the magnitude of the crisis. Short sharp downturns had been a familiar part of the economy, and they tended to follow periods of rapid growth and speculation. The market rose again in late 1929 and 1930, and while a lot of money had been lost, Americans hoped the aftermath of the crash. In fact, the nation had entered the Great Depression. Over the next four years, industrial production fell 37 percent, construction plunged 78 percent, and by 1932, unemployment had reached 24 percent. A precipitous drop in consumer spending deepened the crisis. Americans drew back consumer spending, creating a vicious cycle of falling demand and forfeited loans. In late 1930, several major banks went under.

Ku Klux Klan

The 1920s brought a nationwide resurgence of the _____, the white supremacist group formed in the post-Civil War South. Soon after the premiere of Birth of a Nation (1915), a popular film glorifying the Reconstruction-era ____, a group of southerners gathered on Georgia's Stone Mountain to revive the group. With its blunt motto, "Native, white, Protestant supremacy," the ___ recruited supporters across the country. They targeted immigrants, Catholics, and Jews as well as African Americans, with physical intimidation, arson, and economic boycotts. At the height of its power, the ____ wielded serious political power and had more than 3 million members. The ___ declined nationally after 1925 but remained strong in the South.

Harlem Renaissance

The Great Migration tripled NY's black population in the decade after 1910. Talented African Americans flocked to ____, where they created bold new art forms and asserted ties to Africa. Writers and artists such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Jacob Lawrence, and Zora Neale Hurston the ____ championed race pride. A period of energy, optimism, race pride and artistic development for African Americans.

dollar diplomacy

The US remained deeply involved in foreign affairs in the 1920s, largely to advance US business interests. They encouraged private banks to make foreign loans to stimulate growth and increase demand for US products in developing markets. Bankers, though, wanted government guarantees of repayment in countries they perceived as weak or unstable. Officials provided such assurance through military intervention, as they occupied foreign nations such as Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti in order to force debts to be repaid. At home, critics denounced loan guarantees and military interventions as ______. The term was coined in 1924 by Samuel Guy Inman, who declared that the US cannot keep destroying the sovereignty of other peoples. African American leaders also denounced the Haitian occupation. By the late 1920s, ____ was on the defensive, in keeping with a broader disgust over international affairs. At the same time, political leaders became frustrated with their poor results, as ____ usually managed to get loans repaid, securing bankers' profits. But the loans often ended up in the pockets of local elites.