Unit 7 - The Roaring Twenties (Ch. 26-29)
Louis Armstrong
African American jazz musician during the Jazz Age; famous for his extended trumpet solos and gravelly voice
Langston Hughes
African American poet, playwright, and fiction writer that captured the anguish of African Americans' longing for equality; said that his lifelong calling was "to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America"
Herbert Hoover
Before running for president, Hoover directed the Food Administration during World War I and set up programs to feed the hungry in Europe after the war ended; Harding's Secretary of Commerce; won the 1928 election; encouraged "associationalism" which involved bringing industry leaders together to improve economic efficiency
Jack Dempsey
U.S. heavyweight champion who fought in a 1921 boxing match that attracted 60,000 spectators where ticket sales his $1.8 million, more than any previous boxing matching; Dempsey fought to regain his title in 1927 and 100,000 people bough tickets work $2,658,660
Calvin Coolidge
Vice-President under Warren Harding that took office when Harding died of a heart attack in 1923; nicknamed "Silent Cal;" won re-election in 1924; worked to cut taxes and eliminate unnecessary spending; pushed for reductions in corporate taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes
Washington Naval Conference
a 1921 international conference, including representatives of Britain, France, Italy, and Japan and hosted by the United States in Washington, D.C., to discuss naval disarmament and resulting in agreements to discuss power conflicts in the Pacific, to reduce or limit the size of each nation's navy, to regulate submarine use, and to ban poison gas use; supporters of the naval disarmament agreement hoped it would discourage future wars; naysayers, however, feared that military ambitions would not be so easily contained; the Washington Naval Conference did limit the construction of large warships but it did not affect smaller ships and submarines, soon Japan, Great Britain, and the United States were adding cruisers and other small ships to their fleets
Marcus Garvey
a Jamaican born leader who believed blacked would never be treated fairly in a white-dominated country; led the Back-to-Africa Movement; raised a critical issue: Should African Americans create a separate society or work for an integrated one
J. Edgar Hoover
a Justice Department lawyer at the time, he was Mitchell Palmer's assistant during the Palmer Raids; eventual head of the F.B.I.
Civil Liberties
a basic right guaranteed to individual citizens by law
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
a commonly used daily measure of stock prices; the DJIA doubled between May 1928 and September 1929
Holding Company
a corporation that owns or controls other companies by buying up their stock
Scopes "Monkey" Trial
a criminal trial, held in Dayton Ohio, in 1925, that tested the constitutionality of a Tennessee law that banned the teaching of Darwin's theory evolution in schools; science teacher John Scopes was found guilty an fined for his conduct, leaving the Tennessee law in tact
Consumer Culture
a culture that views the consumption of large quantities of goods as beneficial to the economy and a source of personal happiness
Charleston
a dance that originated as an African American folk dance in the South and became popular throughout the United States and Europe during the Roaring Twenties
Aimee McPherson
a famous fundamentalist preacher who founded the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel; radio broadcasts increased her audience and made her a nationally known religious figure
Billy Sunday
a former major league baseball player who emerged as the most prominent fundamentalist preacher in the nation; preached to more than 100 million people in his lifetime; his largest following was in rural areas, including the South
Isolationism
a government policy of not taking part in economic and political alliances or relations with other countries; policy supported by many Americans after World War I; however Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were not isolationists became they recognized that foreign trade connected American farmers and business people to the rest of the world
Lost Generation
a group of young Americans - including E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos and Sherwood Anderson - who established themselves as prominent postwar writers during the 1920s
Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
a hotly protested criminal trial, held from 1920 to 1927, in which Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted of robbing and murdering two men and sentenced to death; many people believed the trial was unfair and that the defendant were prosecuted because they were anarchists, not because they were guilty.
Volstead Act
a law passed by Congress in 1919 to enforce the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages
Back-to-Africa Movement
a movement, led by Marcus Garvey during the 1910s and 1920s, that promoted the return of blacks living all over the world to Africa; the movement attracted up to 2 million followers; movement faded when Garvey was imprisoned for mail fraud connected with the sale of stock in one of his businesses; raised a critical issue: Should African Americans create a separate society or work for an integrated one
Roaring Twenties
a nickname given to the 1920s because of the decade's prosperity, technological advances, and cultural boom
Recession
a period in which there is a decline in economic activity and prosperity
Modernists
a person who embraces new ideas, styles, and social trends
Traditionalists
a person who has respect for long-held cultural and religious values
Radicalism
a point of view favoring extreme change, especially in social or economic structure
Teapot Dome Scandal
a political scandal in which U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leased national oil reserves in Elk Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming to two organizations that had bribed him; the scandal left the public wondering whether any other national properties had been offered up for sale
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
a proposed by unratified Constitutional amendment first introduced in 1923 by Alice Paul for the purpose of guaranteeing equal rights for all Americans regardless of gender
Speakeasy
a secret club that sold alcohol during the era of Prohibition
Spectator Sports
a sports that attracts a large number of fans; professional baseball and football teams were popular spectator sports as well as boxing and wrestling matches
General Strike
a strike, or work stoppage intended to achieve a particular objective, conducted by the majority of workers in all of a region's industries; the most dramatic strike took place in Seattle, Washington when 35,000 shipyard workers were refused a wage increase, the Seattle Central Labor Council called on all city workers to walk off the jobs and approximately 100,000 people joined
Gross Domestic Product (GNP)
a total value of the goods and services produced in a country in a year; between 1921 and 1929 the GNP of the United States rose by 40%
Kellogg-Briand Pact
an agreement made among most nations of the world in 1928 to try to settle international disputes by peaceful means rather than war; began with an agreement between the United States and France to outlaw war between their countries; eventually 62 nations signed the pact, which rejected war as an "instrument of national policy"
Installment Buying
an arrangement in which a buyer makes a down payment on a product to be purchased and the seller loans the remainder of the purchase price to the buyer, the purchaser must pay back the loan over time, in monthly installment, or the seller can reclaim the product
Communism
an economic or political system in which the state or the community owns all property and the means of production, and all citizens share the wealth
Harlem Renaissance
an era of heightened creativity among African American writers, artists, and musicians who gathered in Harlem in the 1920s; included people such as Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston
Anti-Defamation League
an organization founded in 1913 to halt the defamation, or attack on a person's or group's reputation or character, of the Jewish people and to ensure the fair treatment of Americans; the organizations's immediate goal was "to stop the defamation [false accusation] of the Jewish people." It's longer-term mission was "to secure justice and unfair treatment to all citizens alike"
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
an organization founded in 1920 to defend Americans' rights and freedoms given in the Constitution; the ACLU specialized in the defense of unpopular individuals and groups, including Sacco and Vanzetti; also fought to protect immigrants who had been rounded up in the Palmer Raids for their radical beliefs from being deported; offered to defend any teacher who challenged the Butler Act, which banned teaching evolution in the state of Tennessee
Margaret Sanger
coined the term "birth control" to replace the older term "voluntary motherhood;" arrested in 1916 for teaching women how to limit family size; a nurse caring for poor women in New York City who saw a link between family size and human misery; opened the country's first family planning clinic; founded what became the nation's leading family planning organization, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Palmer Raids
conducted by Justice Department attorney J. Edgar Hoover at the instruction of the U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, a series of unauthorized raids on homes, businesses, and meeting places of suspected subversives that resulted in the arrest of 6,000 radicals, often without any evidence against them; foreign born suspects were deported, many without a court hearing; Palmer's tactics trampled civil liberties
Dawes Plan
developed by banker Charles Dawes, a plan for Germany to pay reparations after World War I by receiving loans from the United States; American banks would loan money to Germany, Germany would use that money to pay reparations to Great Britain and France. Great Britain and France would then repay what they owed American lenders; the circular flow of money worked for a while but it also increased the amount of money Germany owed the United States, an issue that would cause problems later
Theory of Evolution
developed by naturalist Charles Darwin in the mid-1800s, a scientific theory that all plants and animals, including humans, evolved from simpler forms of life over thousands or millions of years
Flappers
during the Roaring Twenties, a young woman who broke with traditional expectations for how women should dress and behave
Quota System
established by the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, a system limiting immigration to the United States by permitting no more immigrants from a country than 3% of the number of that country's residents living in the United States in 1910; the Immigration Act of 1924 reduced the quota system to 2% of the number of a country's residence living in the United States in 1890
Red Scare
lasting from 1919 to 1920, a campaign launched by U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and implemented by Justice Department attorney J. Edgar Hoover to arrest communists and other radicals who promoted the overthrow of the U.S. government; red is slang for communist
F. Scott Fitzgerald
leading writer of the Jazz Age; wrote the novel "The Great Gatsby" which critiques the moral emptiness of upper-class American society
Al Capone
mob boss from Chicago who was one of the most famous bootleggers of the era; by the mid 1920s, Capone exhibited his wealth from bootlegging by driving around in a $30,000 Cadillac while flashing and 11.5 carat diamond ring; to keep his profiting flowing without government interference, he bribed politicians, judges, and police officer; went to jail in 1931 for tax evasion
Charles Lindbergh
pilot who made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic from New York City to Paris; the plane few flew was called the Spirit of St. Louis; one of the biggest celebrities of the decade
Anti-Semitism
policies, views, or actions that discriminate against Jewish people
Warren Harding
promoted a "return to normalcy" that won him the 1920 election; famous for leading his presidential campaign from his porch; normalcy meant a return to life as it was in prewar America; declared "We want less government in business and more business in government;" Harding's inauguration began the Republican Era, which lasted through the 1920s
Alice Paul
representative from the National Women's Party who persuaded two congressmen to introduce the equal rights amendment (ERA) to Congress
Charlie Chaplin
silent film actor known for his iconic character the Tramp
Creationism
the belief that God created the universe
Fundamentalism
the belief that scripture should be read as the literal word of God and followed without questions
Popular Culture
the culture or ordinary people, including music, visual art, literature, and entertainment, that is shaped by industries that spread information or ideas, especially by the mass media
Jazz Age
the era during the 1920s in which jazz became increasingly popular in the United States; a distinctly American musical form that grew from African rhythms, European harmonies, African American folk music, and 19th century American band music and instruments; jazz was born in New Orleans
Eugenics
the idea that the human species should be improved by permitting only people with characteristics judged desirable to reproduce
Babe Ruth
the most famous sports celebrity of the era; in the 1927 season Ruth hit 60 home runs, a record that would remain unbroken for 34 years; Ruth attracted so many fans that Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923, was nicknamed "the House that Ruth Built"
Bootlegging
the production, transport, and sale of illegal alcohol
Henry Ford
transformed the car from a luxury item to a consumer good with introduction of the assembly line in 1914; produced 20 million cars by 1930
Ernest Hemingway
writer from the Lost Generation; was a Red Cross volunteer during World War I; expatriate who lived in Paris after World War I