Chapter 23

Duke Ellingtion

American composer, pianist and bandleader of jazz orchestras. He led his orchestra from 1923 until his death, his career spanning over 50 years.

Aimee Semple McPherson

Canadian-American Los Angeles-based evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church.

Scientific management

Management of a business, industry, or economy, according to principles of efficiency derived from experiments in methods of work and production, especially from time-and-motion studies.

Auto-touring

"An open car seating four or more with direct entrance to tonneau." The term has also been defined as an open car seating five or more. Touring cars may have two or four doors.

Flappers

(in the 1920s) a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior.

Fundamentalism

A form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.

Untouchables

A member of the lowest-caste Hindu group or a person outside the caste system. Contact with untouchables is traditionally held to defile members of higher castes.

Planned obsolescence

A policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

Assembly line

A series of workers and machines in a factory by which a succession of identical items is progressively assembled.

Jazz

A type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. Brass and woodwind instruments and piano are particularly associated with jazz, although guitar and occasionally violin are also used; styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz.

Volstead Act

Act by Congress that enforced prohibition from 1919 to 1933.

Eliot Ness

American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.

Billy Sunday

American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Amelia Earhart

American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record.

Bessie Smith

American blues singer. Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues

Alfred P. Sloan

American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation.

Cecil B. Demille

American filmmaker. Between 1913 and 1956, he made seventy features, both silent and sound films.

Al Capone

American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit.

Henry Ford

American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.

Clarence Darrow

American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks.

Fredrick W. Taylor

American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants.

Harlem Renaissance

An African-American cultural movement of the 1920s and 1930s, centered in Harlem, that celebrated black traditions, the black voice, and black ways of life.

Twenty-first Amendment

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1933, providing for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, which had outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Installment plan

An arrangement for payment by installments.

Scopes trial

High school teacher in Tennessee, for teaching the theory of evolution in violation of state law.

Blues

Melancholic music of black American folk origin, typically in a twelve-bar sequence. It developed in the rural southern US toward the end of the 19th century, finding a wider audience in the 1940s as blacks migrated to the cities. This urban blues gave rise to rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Diego Rivera

Prominent Mexican painter and the husband of Frida Kahlo.

Jim Thorpe

Sac and Fox athlete of Native American and European ancestry. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals.

Louis Armstrong

Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music.

Harlem

Since the 1920s, Harlem has been known as a major African-American residential, cultural and business center.

Lost Generation

The generation reaching maturity during and just after World War I, a high proportion of whose men were killed during those years.

Charles Lindbergh

Was an American aviator, author, inventor, military officer, explorer, and social activist.

Babe Ruth

Was an American baseball player who spent 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, from 1914 through 1935.

Model T

Was an automobile built by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 until 1927. Conceived by Henry Ford as practical, affordable transportation for the common man, it quickly became prized for its low cost, durability, versatility, and ease of maintenance.