us history chapter 6 section 4

1920

A postwar recession, or economic slowdown, created a competitive job market. By 1920, there were fewer women in the workforce than there had been in 1910.

price decreasing

After the war, prices fell sharply, making it difficult for farmers to pay their mortgages or supplies for the next season. Industrial workers also felt the pain of inflation when their wages did not buy as much as they had during the war.

old order

An old order five hundred years in the making had collapsed in just a few years. It was as if the world's compass was out of whack and no one knew where to turn for directions. The US was unsure of the requirements of its new status.

A quiet American Giant

By 1920, US was the richest, most industrialized country in the world. Now, British and French demands for American goods created an immense trade imbalance. Europeans had to borrow money from American bankers and obtain lines of credit with American business firms to pay for goods.

hot summer of 1919

During the hot summer of 1919, race riots erupted in cities throughout the country. The worst, in Chicago, was triggered by the drowning of a young black man by whites, and went on for 13 days.

inflation

During the war, inflation, or rising prices, had been held in check. After the conflict, Americans rushed to buy consumer goods rather than war bonds. The scarcity of these goods, coupled with wide-spread demand, caused inflation.

American Civil Liberties Union

Formed in New York City in 1920 to protect the liberties that Americans held so dear that the government was attacking. The ACLU tried to do this by becoming involved in important court cases. To this end, the ACLU became involved in one of America's most controversial court cases: the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Attorney General A.Mitchell Palmer

General who had a bomb mailed. Palmer mounted a broad offensive against radicals in the US in 1919 and 1920

James M. Cox

He suggested that electing Democratic presidential candidate James M. Cox of Ohio would show support for the League.

4 million workers

In 1919, more than 4 million workers went om strike demanding rewards for their wartime patriotism. The workers won some of the strikes, but they lost far more.

1921 Tulsa Oklahoma

In 1921, violence erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when armed African American men tried to protect a young black man from lynching. By the time the Tulsa race riots were over, at least 10 whites and 26 African Americans were dead. In one African American neighborhood, white rioters burned 35 city blocks to the ground.

northern industrial cities

In northern industrial cities, African American workers vied with returning soldiers for jobs and housing.

Palmer Raids

In the early 1920 police arrested thousands of people, some who were radicals and some who where simply immigrants from the Southern or Eastern Europe.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Italian immigrants who were known anarchists. They were charged with shooting and killing two men during a holdup at a shoe factory in a town near Boston.

Anarchists

Members of a radical political movement exploded bombs in cities across America.

August 23, 1927

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death in the electric chair.

Warren G. Harding

The election of Republican candidate Warren G. Harding of Ohio would serve as a final rejection of the League. Harding had a different view of the presidential race. He campaigned for a rejection of Wilsonian idealism and called for a return in normalcy by which he meant the normality of what he believed had been simpler time before Wilson took office in 1913.

influenza

The end of 1918 and 1919 were not the best times. In September 1918, an unusually deadly form of the influenza, or flu, virus appeared. Research in recent years shows that the 1918 influenza virus was originally a bird flu that mutated to spread to humans. The great influenza pandemic, coming on the heels of the Great War, gave a sense of doom and dread to people around the globe.

Red Scare

The reaction against labor was partly spurred by a wave of fear of radicals and communists. The rise of the Soviet Union as a communist nation fed these fears. This revolutionary activity abroad, coupled with strikes across the US, prompted the first American Red Scare, a wave of widespread fear of suspected communists and radicals thought to be plotting revolution within the US.

creditor nation

This situation fundamentally changed America's economic standing in the world. The US was now the largest creditor nation in the world, meaning that other countries owed the US more money than the US owed them.

women and African american advancement

Women and Africa Americans made significant advances during the war. However, the end of the war also spelled the end of wartime economic opportunities for bot groups.

Election of 1920

Woodrow Wilson hoped that the presidential election of 1920 would prove that Americans supported both the League of Nations and his vision of the role the US should play in the world.

London-NYC

World War 1 shifted the economic center of the world from London to NYC. The US embraced its new role as a quiet giant.