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Social Darwinism
The theory that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence ruled by “survival of the fittest." -
Cornelius Vanderbilt
The railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical. This man was one of the few railroad owners to be just and not considered a "Robber Barron"
He was business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. He had accumulated the largest fortune in the U.S. at the time of his death, in 1877. -
Tenements
any rented or leased dwelling that housed more than three independent families. Tenements were first built to house the waves of immigrants that arrived in the United States. A typical tenement building was from five to six stories high. To maximize the number of renters, builders wasted little space. Early tenements might occupy as much as 90 percent of their lots, leaving little room behind the building for privies and water pumps and little ventilation, light, or privacy inside the tenement. -
Bessemer Process
The first method discovered for mass-producing steel allowed for massive industrial growth of the U.S. Henry Bessemer took the idea of converting molten pig iron into a heat furnace to create strong steel. It cut the prices in half drastically and it was so inexpensive that its use was widespread. This resulted in more railroads and people when they wanted to buy this steel for the many uses it had, such as the railroads, buildings, or appliances. -
Henry Cabot Lodge
He was a leader in the fight against participation in the League of Nations. Henry Cabot Lodge was a Republican who disagreed with the Versailles Treaty, and who was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He disagreed with the section that called for the League to protect a member who was being threatened. Lodge and Wilson were at odds over foreign policy. With the outbreak of war, he wanted Germany punished with a harsh settlement. and prevent American participation. -
Western Dime Novels
The first profitable mass literature in America was the dime novel. Western-themed dime novels, which spanned the era of the 1860s to 1900s. Many of the romanticism originated here: a cool detached hero, a frontiersman (later a cowboy), a fragile heroine in danger of the despicable outlaw, savage Indians, violence and gunplay, and the final outcome where good wins. Often real characters such as Buffalo Bill or the famous Kit Carson were fictionalized. -
Boss Tweed
William Magear “Boss” Tweed, leader of New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s, is delivered to authorities in New York City after his capture in Spain. Tweed became a powerful figure in Tammany Hall–New York City’s Democratic political machine–in the late 1850s. By the mid 1860s, He formed the “Tweed Ring,” which openly bought votes, encouraged judicial corruption, extracted millions from city contracts, and dominated New York City politics. -
Period: to
The Gilded Age
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Morrill Land Grant College Act
An act passed by Congress on 1862 that provided grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in agriculture and the mechanic arts. The funds from the sale of the land were used by some states to establish new schools or give to already existing schools of agriculture and mechanical arts. This was a major boost to higher education in America. 90 percent of the gross proceeds were used, -
Period: to
Transforming the West
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Transcontinental Railroad
The transcontinental railroad that connected the United Stated from east to west and was built in six years almost entirely by hand. It was the project of two competing companies; Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies. The transcontinental railroad was necessary to ensure that the states along the Western coast remained loyal to the Union by providing easy access to the region. -
Child Labor
Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay. Children sometimes worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one hour total break. it was not common for children who worked in factories to work 12-14 hours with the same minimal breaks.They were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. -
Blacklists
As the working class continued to use strikes and boycotts to fight for higher wages and improved working conditions, their bosses staged lock outs and brought in replacement workers known as scabs.They also created blacklists to prevent active union workers from becoming employed elsewhere.They were lists of union supporters drawn up by employers for the purpose of denying jobs to union workers. Even so, the working class continued to unite and press their cause. -
Period: to
Becoming an Industrial Power
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Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was founded in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. After Frances Willard took over leadership in 1879, it became one of the largest and most influential women’s groups of the 19th century by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform and suffrage. For the next two decades the temperance movement as the WCTU became one of the largest and most influential women’s groups of the 19th century. -
Farmer's Alliance
The Farmers Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers. Throughout the 1880s local political action groups known as Farmers’ Alliances sprang up among Middle Westerners and Southerners, who were discontented because of crop failures, falling prices, and poor marketing and credit facilities. Although it won some significant regional victories, the alliances generally proved politically ineffective on a national scale. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River. -
Five and Dime Stores
is a retail store that sells a wide range of inexpensive household goods.The concept of the variety store originated with the five and ten, five and dime, nickel or dime, and ten-cent store or dime store (10 cents), a store offering a wide assortment of inexpensive items for personal and household use. The originators of the concept were the Woolworth Bros. A store offering a wide assortment of inexpensive items, formerly costing five or ten cents, for personal and household use -
Exoduster
Thousands of African-Americans made their way to Kansas and other Western states after Reconstruction. The Homestead Act and other liberal land laws offered blacks, the opportunity to escape the racism and oppression of the post-war South and become owners of their own tracts of private farmland. The large-scale black migration from the South to Kansas came to be known as the "Great Exodus," and those participating in it were called "exodusters." -
Assassination of President Garfield
A drifter named Charles Guiteau shot newly inaugurated President James A. Garfield in the back at a downtown train station. Garfield would cling to life for 80 agonizing days, but a severe infection, most likely brought on by unsanitary medical practices, eventually led to his death. Guiteau's motive was revenge against Garfield for an imagined political debt. Garfield died eleven weeks later on September 19, 1881 aged 49. Guiteau died by hanging on June 30, 1882. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress, and provided a ten year temporary prohibition on Chinese labor immigration. It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. It also placed new requirements on Chinese who had already entered the country. If they left the United States, they had to obtain certifications to re-enter. This act was supported by many Americans and including nativists. -
Great Upheaval of 1886
In 1886 this was a wave of strikes about labor. It affected every part of the nation. It resulted in several police killing striking workers. These revolts lasted until the end of the Revolution. This is important because it brought about the workers union and several other revolts about the quality of work. This affected the quality of work later in American history.This was a wave of labor protests and strikes that affected all of the nation. -
Dawes Severalty Act
An act to provide for the allotment of Lands in severalty to Indians, it emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes. It authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians.The Dawes Act failed because the plots were too small for sustainable agriculture. The Native American Indians lacked tools, money, experience or expertise in farming. -
Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism.One of the causes that Cuban General Calixto García, head of the mambi forces in the Eastern department, ordered his troops to hold their respective areas and resigned, writing a letter of protest to General Shafter. -
Kodak Camera
George Eastman invented flexible roll film and in 1888 introduced the Kodak camera shown to use this film. Unlike earlier cameras that used a glass-plate negative for each exposure, the Kodak came preloaded with a 100-exposure roll of flexible film. After finishing the roll, the consumer mailed the camera back to the factory to have the prints made. In capturing everyday moments and memories this defined a new style of photography that was informal, personal, and fun. -
Carrie A. Nation
Member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. She is known for attacking alcohol serving establishments with a hatchet. Nation smashed up saloons all over the state of Kansas. She smashes up bars, causing several thousand dollars in damage and landing in jail. Hundreds of women and a smaller number of men rallied to her. Nation hoped her movement would spread across the country and sweep away all of the nation’s saloons but,it died almost as quickly. -
Hull House
Jane Addams and her friend Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House in 1889 on the South side of Chicago, Illinois. Situated at 800 S. Halstead Street in the run-down Nineteenth Ward of Chicago, most of the people living in the area at the time were recently arrived immigrants from Europe, including people from Germany, Italy, Sweden, England, Ireland, France, Russia, Norway, Greece, Bulgaria, Holland, Portugal, Scotland, Wales, Spain and Finland. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Congress passed this law to prohibit monopolies which had grown rapidly. It was named after the senator John Sherman and was passed by the U.S Congress in Washington, D.C. It was approved on July 2, 1890 by the U.S Congress and passed by John Sherman because it was to stop monopoly businesses. The bill got passed by the Senator of Ohio John Sherman who came up with the idea and sent it to U.S Congress and then decided to make it a law to stop monopoly businesses. -
Tsar Nicholas
The last tsar, or emperor, of Russia was Nicholas II. His reign came to an end in 1917 when revolutionaries took over the government. Soon afterward, Russia became the Soviet Union, a Communist country. As tsar, Nicholas did not understand that the common people wanted to have a say in the government. Nicholas was the last Russian emperor, who was assassinated by the Bolsheviks His poor handling of Bloody Sunday and Russia’s role in World War I led to his abdication and execution. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
The Wounded Knee Massacre was the mass killing of 150–300 Native Americans by U.S. soldiers in the area of Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota.They embraced the Ghost Dance, a religious revival promising the restoration of their old world, before the arrival of the white man. Nervous U.S. authorities, saw the Ghost Dance as a war dance and as a possible cover for an Indian uprising, decided to crack down on the movement. Panicking soldiers fired the guns, -
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The Progressive Era
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Period: to
Imperialism
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Sears and Roebuck
Advertising his watches by flyers and mail-order catalogs, Sears quickly turned a profit on his investment and within a year had founded his own company, initially selling only watches. He soon was joined in the venture by Alvah Roebuck, and in 1893 Sears, Roebuck, and Co. was born. Targeting rural customers with little access to goods produced primarily in the east, and offering stable, straightforward pricing, Sears, Roebuck quickly expanded its business. -
City Beautiful Movement
American urban-planning movement led by architects, landscape architects, and reformers that flourished between the 1890s and the 1920s. The idea of organized comprehensive urban planning arose in the United States from the City Beautiful movement, which claimed that design could not be separated from social issues and should encourage civic pride and engagement. The City Beautiful movement was meant to shape the American urban landscape in the manner of those in Europe -
Panic of 1893
The depression that occurred in the United States in 1893 was the worst in the nation’s history. As the economy became more integrated and centralized, fewer businesses and workers operated outside the influence of national markets and were therefore more vulnerable to the effects of a national downturn. The U.S. Treasury’s gold reserves fell below $100 million, setting off a financial panic as investors, scrambled to sell off assets and convert them to gold. -
Huey Long “The Kingfish”
Louisiana Governor that wanted to help underprivileged people by improving education, medical care, and public services. developer of the "Share-Our-Wealth" program. limited personal income to $1 million, and inheritance to $5 million. proposed a "Share Our Wealth" program that promised a minimum annual income of $5,000 for every American family which would be paid for by taxing the wealthy. Announced his candidacy for president in 1935, but was killed by an assassin Carl Weiss. -
Anti-Saloon League
An organization founded in 1893 that increased public awareness of the social effects of alcohol on society; supported politicians who favored prohibition and promoted statewide referendums in Western and Southern states to ban alcohol. Founded as the Ohio Anti Saloon League by representatives of temperance societies and, it came to wield great political influences. After the adoption of the eighteenth amendment in, the league sought strict enforcement of the Prohibition laws -
Vaudeville
A light entertainment popular from the mid-1890s until the early 1930s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts, featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, singers, and dancers.In the United States the development of variety entertainment was encouraged in frontier settlements as well as in the widely scattered urban centres. Held in beer halls, the coarse and sometimes obscene shows were aimed toward a primarily male audience. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy, who was 1/8 black took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.This established "separate but equal", also know as segregation, as constitutional. After this, Jim Crow Laws, laws that discriminated against African Americans, spread across the US and were heavily enforced in the South. -
Klondike Gold Rush
In August 1896, Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Washington Carmack found gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory. Beginning in 1897, many people came in hopes of finding gold, unaware that most of the good Klondike claims were already staked, boarded ships in Seattle and other Pacific port cities and headed north toward the vision of riches to be had for the taking. -
Battle of Manila Bay
Battle during the Spanish-American war in which commander George Dewey, with the help of A Filipino Army led by Emilio Aguinaldo, succeeded in taking over Manila.Was fought because
Americans living on the West Coast of the United States feared a Spanish attack at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Americans won with little casualties. Spanish forces surrendered. It is considered one of the most decisive naval battles in history and marked America's emergence as a world power. -
Treaty of Paris 1898
Established by upper-class Bostonians, New Yorkers, and other late in 1898 to fight against annexation. It attracted a widespread following in the Northeast and waged a vigorous campaign against ratification of the Paris treaty. William Jennings Bryan to move the issue out of senate and make annexation the subject. It was an agreement where Spain wouldn't rule over Cuba. United States receives Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Also the United States becomes a world power. -
Open Door Policy
A policy proposed by the US in 1899, under which all nations would have equal opportunities to trade in China. Statement of U.S. foreign policy toward China. Issued by U.S. secretary of state John Hay.T his policy did not include the consent of the Chinese ,and was another form of imperialism. events in China threatened the idea of the Open Door. An anti foreign movement known as the Boxer Rebellion, gathered strength, and began attacking foreign missionaries -
Boxer Rebellion
Also known as The Boxer Uprising, this was the popular peasant uprising in China that was supported nationally, that blamed foreign people and institutions for the loss of the traditional Chinese way of life. "Boxers" were traditionally skilled fighters that attacked Westerners, beginning with Christian missionaries. They wanted to get rid of all foreign influence and thought that the westerners took away their jobs. Believed that westerners angered the Chinese spirits. -
Muckrakers
Any group of American writers identified with pre-World War I reform and exposé literature. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing United States. The main goal of the Muckrakers was to raise awareness of social injustices, inequality, corruption and the abuse of political power in order to bring about reform. -
Picture Brides
Refers to a practice in the early twentieth century by immigrant workers who married women on the recommendation of a matchmaker who exchanged photographs between the to be bride and groom. Arranged marriages were not unusual in Japan and . Men and women had different motivations for marrying or becoming a picture bride and despite these differences, these picture brides, or shashin hanayome, were critical to the establishment of the Japanese community in both Hawaii and America. -
Platt Amendment
Legislation that severely restricted Cuba's sovereignty and gave the US the right to intervene if Cuba got into trouble. This amendment gave the US the right to take over the Island of Cuba if that country entered into a treaty or debt that might place its freedom in danger. This amendment also gave the U.S. the right to put a naval base in Cuba to protect it and the US holdings in the Caribbean. This amendment was resented very much by the Cubans. It changes certain policies. -
Northern Securities Trust
The Northern Securities Company was a short-lived American railroad trust formed in 1901 by E. H. Harriman, James J. Hill, J.P. Morgan and their associates. It was capitalized at $400 million, and Hill served as president. The company was sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, one of the first anti-trust cases filed against corporate interests instead of labor. The government won its case, and the company was dissolved, so that the three railroads again operated independently -
Russo-Japanese War
Military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in the Far East, becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. The Russo Japanese War developed out of the rivalry between Russia and Japan for dominance.They unleashed torpedoes against Russian ships in a surprise attack that began the Russo Japanese War. The conflict grew over competition between Russia and Japan for territory in both Korea and northern China. -
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
This prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured that livestock were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. The law reformed the meatpacking industry, mandating that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspect all cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and horses both before and after they were slaughtered and processed for human consumption.This law also applied to imported products -
Muller v. Oregon
Oregon enacted a law that limited women to ten hours of work in factories and laundries. Muller challenges it after he orders a female employee to work longer hours. Court ruled that Oregon's law was constitutional. Win for Progressive Reformers but not equal-rights feminists. Their lawyers argued men/women were entitled to equal protection under law; Oregon law was class legislation; it violated freedom of contract; the law deprived women of liberty by not letting them work longer. -
Teddy Roosevelt as a naturalist
He recognized that without action, the natural resources and landscapes of the country would disappear as quickly as the buffalo, leaving future generations without natural splendors. Roosevelt provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres of land. He sat aside 150 national forests, the first 51 federal bird reservations, five national parks, the first 18 national monuments, the first four national game preserves and the first 24 reclamation, or federal irrigation, projects. -
Dollar Diplomacy
President Willian Howard Taft, replaced Roosevelt in 1908. To continue Roosevelt's foreign success, he created the Dollar Diplomacy.President Taft sought to use the Dollar Diplomacy as the policy that used America's financial powers rather than military intervention, to extend their influence abroad. The policy would force Latin American nations to become dependent on the dollar Dollar Diplomacy wished to remove any European intervention in Latin American countries. -
Angel Island
The immigration station on the west coast where Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese gained admission to the U.S. at San Francisco Bay. Between 1910 and 1940, 50k Chinese immigrants entered through Angel Island. Questioning and conditions at Angel Island were much harsher than Ellis Island in New York. 175,000 Chinese and about 60,000 Japanese immigrants were detained under oppressive conditions, generally from two weeks to six months, before being allowed to enter the United States. -
Mexican Revolution
A political revolution that removed dictator Porfirio Diaz, and hoped to institute democratic reforms. While a constitution was written in 1917, it was many more years until true change occurred. a long and bloody struggle among several factions in constantly shifting alliances which resulted ultimately in the end of the 30 year dictatorship in Mexico and the establishment of a constitutional republic. It eventually changed the country's economic and social system in important ways. -
Election of 1912
American presidential election held on November 5, 1912, in which Democrat Woodrow Wilson defeated Bull Moose party candidate and former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt and Republican William Howard Taft. Some Republicans, unhappy with William Howard Taft, split with the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party in 1912. Former president Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt ran as the Progressive Party candidate, but was unsuccessful in obtaining a presidential win. -
Ludlow Massacre
An attack on striking coal miners and their families by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company guards at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914, resulting in the deaths of 25 people, including 11 children.About 10,000 miners had been on strike protesting low pay and abysmal working conditions in the coalfields of Colorado. The National Guard encircled the Ludlow camp and deployed a machine gun on a bluff overlooking the strikers. -
Schlieffen Plan
Attack plan by Germans, proposed by Schliffen, lightning quick attack against France. Proposed to go through Belgium then attack France, Belgium resisted, other countries took up their aid, long fight, used trench warfare. Germany would attack France first by traveling through Belgium, and take Paris in about 3 weeks. France would surrender once Paris was taken, and then Germany would attack Russia. It was created to To avoid the war on two fronts. Germany would avoid being crushed by striking. -
Period: to
World War I
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Great Migration
The Great Migration was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960. By World War II the migrants continued to move North but many of them headed west to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. The economic motivations for migration were a combination of the desire to escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and the promise of greater prosperity in the north. -
RMS Lusitania
The Lusitania was a British passenger ship that was sunk by a German U-Boat, 128 Americans died. The unrestricted submarine warfare caused the U.S. to enter World War I against the Germans. The Germans declared the seas around Britain a war zone and said they would attack any Allied ship that entered the region. The killing of so many innocent people caused outrage in many countries. Support for the Allies against Germany grew, the United States later joined the Allies in the war against Germany -
Sussex Pledge
The Sussex Pledge was made in response to US demands to alter the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and stop the indiscriminate sinking of non-military ships during WW1. The Sussex Pledge was a promise given by the German Government, to the United States,to not sink any more passenger ships and that Merchant ships would not be sunk until the presence of weapons had been established and provisions made for the safety of passengers and crew. Germany went back on the Sussex Pledge. -
Margaret Sander
Margaret Sanger was an early feminist and women's rights activist who coined the term "birth control" and worked towards its legalization. She started a publication promoting a woman's right to birth control.Through her work, Sanger treated a number of women who had undergone back alley abortions or tried to self terminate their pregnancies. Sanger objected to the unnecessary suffering endured by these women, and she fought to make birth control information and contraceptives available. -
Espionage Act
Federal law passed shortly after entrance into WWI, made it a crime for a person to mail or print information that inspired dissent against the American war effort or promoted its enemies. Under the Espionage Act, people could be punished for obstructing military recruitment, or for causing disloyalty or insubordination within the armed forces, or for conspiring to obstruct recruitment or cause insubordination. Also allowed the poster master general to exclude seditious material from the axial. -
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
American force of 14,500 that landed in France in June 1917 under the command of General John Pershing. Both women and blacks served during the war. The United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I they fought in France alongside British and French allied forces in the last year of the war against Imperial German forces. They helped the French Army on the Western Front. during the Aisne Offensive. -
First Red Scare
The first red scare was caused by Russian revolution which inspired post war anti capitalist protests in the USA. Anarchists started to distribute pamphlets calling for revolution. This was caused by a series of strikes, the formation of the communist labor party, the triumph of the Bolsheviks revolution, and propaganda of fighting for democracy during world war one. The first red scare was used by business people to destroy unions. Organized labor was damaged. -
Spanish Flu
The first wave mostly affected military, while a much more potent 2nd wave came in the spring and killed many civilians.Global outbreak of a deadly type of flu. The movement of soldiers during WWI helped to spread the virus. 20-40% of people in the world are estimated to have become ill with the virus that attacked the young and healthy as well the weak. People sometimes felt fine in the morning and were dead by night. An estimated 675,000 people died in the U.S. and 50 million worldwide. -
Treaty of Versailles
In June 1919, the peacemakers summoned representatives of the new German Republic to the palace of Versailles outside Paris. The Germans were ordered to sign the treaty drawn up by Allies. The Treaty of Versailles was signed between the Allied Powers and Germany on June 28, 1919. This officially ended World War I. It forced Germany assume full responsibility for causing the war. Germany was forced to disarm, give up land to France, and to pay reparations. -
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic was Germany’s government from 1919 to 1933, the period after World War I until the rise of Nazi Germany which wasbetween the end of the Imperial period and the beginning of Nazi Germany. The name originated from the town of Weimar in central Germany where the constitutional assembly met. Many of the challenges of this era allowed for Hitler's rise to power, but it is said that the Weimar Republic was doomed from the start. As a result of the chaos, Adolph Hitler rose. -
The Lost Generation
The Lost Generation was a group of writers in 1920s who shared the belief that they were lost in a greedy, materialistic world that lacked moral values and often choose to flee to Europe. WWI caused writers and artists of the 1920's to be pessimistic about the future. One of the writers of the Lost Generation included F. Scott Fitzgerald He wrote the famous novel "The Great Gatsby" which explored the glamour and cruelty of an achievement oriented society, the corruption of the American Dream. -
The Harlem Renaissance
An intellectual, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement. The Movement also included the new African American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by the African-American Great Migration of which Harlem was the largest. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African-American arts. It was centered in the Harlem neighborhood. -
Eugenics
The eugenics movement, promoted eugenics through selective breeding for positive traits. Undesirable traits were concentrated in poor, uneducated, and minority populations. In an attempt to prevent these groups from propagating, eugenicists helped drive legislation for their forced sterilization . The first state to enact a sterilization law was Indiana quickly followed by California and 28 other states.These laws resulted in the forced sterilization of over 64,000 people in the United States. -
National Socialist-German Workers’ Party (NAZI)
Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the party came to power in Germany in and was governed by totalitarian methods. It was the effects of the Great Depression in Germany that brought the Nazi Party to its first real nationwide importance. The rapid rise in unemployment in provided millions of jobless and dissatisfied voters whom the Nazi Party exploited to its advantage. As a result, the party quickly increased its membership and voting strength. -
Period: to
1920s
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Teapot Dome Scandal
Teapot dome scandal, involved Albert Fall who accepted valuable gifts & large sums of money from private oil companies. in exchange Fall allowed the oil companies to control government oil reserves. He was the 1st cabinet member ever to be convicted of his crimes while in office. He leased Elk Hill and Teapot Dome two public petroleum reserves This was due to bribes given in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash, bonds, and even a herd of cattle. -
Enigma Machine
The Enigma Machine was Germany's famous message-coding machine Enigma looks roughly like a typewriter but is infinitely more complex.The Enigma machine is a piece of spook hardware invented by a German and used by Britain's code breakers as a way of deciphering German signals traffic during World War Two. It has been claimed that as a result of the information gained through this device, hostilities between Germany and the Allied forces were increased. -
American Indian Citizenship Act
Gave U.S. citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States. The Act's purpose was to reduce the demand for indigenous identity among Native Americans. Yet even after the Indian Citizenship Act, some Native Americans weren't allowed to vote because the right to vote was governed by state law. Hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government gave out tribal lands to individuals in 160-acre parcels. -
Immigration Act of 1924
Under the new law, immigration remained open to those with a college education and/or special skills, but entry was denied to Mexicans, and out of proportion to Eastern and Southern Europeans and Japanese. At the same time, the legislation allowed for more immigration from Northern European nations such as Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries. The new law reflected the desire of Americans to isolate themselves from the world after fighting World War I in Europe, -
Charles Lindbergh
An American aviator, engineer , and Pulitzer Prize winner. He was famous for flying solo across the Atlantic and becoming the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean in his monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh became an instant worldwide celebrity. Lindbergh’s 20 month old son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnapped from his second floor nursery at the Lindbergh’s home near Hopewell, New Jersey. Many called it “the crime of the century.” -
Valentine’s Day Massacre
Capone's men executed 7 members of the O'Banion gang., ended Chicago's Beer War. The killing allowed Capone to show his control over the city so violence was not as necessary. Four men dressed as police officers entered gangster Bugs Moran's headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, line seven of Moran's henchmen against a wall, and shoot them to death. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, was the result of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran. -
Black Tuesday
Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. As a result of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world went into the Great Depression, the deepest and longest lasting economic downturn. By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value. -
Period: to
The Great Depression
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Hoovervilles
As the Depression worsened in the 1930s, causing severe hardships for millions of Americans, many looked to the federal government for help. When the government failed to provide relief, President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the economic and social conditions, and the shantytowns that cropped up across the nation,mostly on the outskirts of major cities, became known as Hoovervilles. They were built by poverty stricken people who had lost their homes during the Depression -
Election of 1932
Historic battle between those who believed that the federal government could not and should not try to fix people's problems and those who felt that large scale problems required the government's help. FDR won by a huge margin in part from the huge support from urban workers, coal miners, and immigrants of Catholic and Jewish descent. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican president Herbert Hoover. The election took place during the Great Depression. Hoover was an unpopular candidate -
Fireside Chats
After his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives national radio address or “fireside chat,” broadcast directly from the White House. Roosevelt would begin with saying. “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.” He went on to explain his recent decision to close the nation’s banks in order to stop a surge in mass withdrawals by panicked investors worried about possible bank failures. The banks would be reopening the next day he said. -
The New Deal
When President Franklin Roosevelt took office he acted fast to try and fix the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering .A series of reforms enacted between with the goal of ending the Great Depression. They were programs to combat economic depression enacted a number of social insurance measures and used government spending to help the economy. There was also increased power of the state and the state's intervention in U.S. social and economic life. -
Glass-Steagall Act
This separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The bill was designed to provide for the safer and more effective use of the assets of banks, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the undue diversion of funds into speculative operations, and for other purposes.” Henry Steagall Glass, a former Treasury secretary, was the primary force behind the act. They agreed after an amendment was added to permit bank deposit insurance. -
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
one of several measures passed by Congress and supported by Franklin D. Roosevelt in an effort to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. It suspended antitrust laws and supported an alliance of industries.Companies were required to write industry wide codes of fair competition that effectively fixed wages and prices, established production quotas, and placed restrictions on the entry of other companies into the alliances. Employees were given the right to organize unions. -
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
New Deal program that provided reparations in the stock market, protected people from fraud in investments in stocks. The Securities and Exchange Commission was established to regulate the commerce in stocks, bonds, and other securities. After the October stock market crash,reform was needed. Controls on the issuing and trading of securities was nonexistent, allowing for any number of frauds and other schemes. Controlling stock interests in a very few hands led to the abuses of power. -
Munich Conference
Hitler met with representatives of the heads of state from France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. An agreement was reached that Hitler could annex the Sudetenland provided if he promised not to invade anywhere else. The British Prime minister attempted to change his mind. Hitler was determined to seize the Sudetenland, which was in Czechoslovakia and had a substantial German population and important industrial resources. He would do so by force and the Czechs did not have power to resist him. -
German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union met and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact which guaranteed that the two countries would not attack each other.By signing this pact, Germany had protected itself from having to fight a two front war in World War II.In return, the Soviet Union was to be awarded land, including parts of Poland and the Baltic States.The pact was broken when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union less than two years later. -
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World War II
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Maginot Line
This French line of defense was constructed along the country’s border with Germany during the 1930s and named after Minister of War Ande Maginot. It primarily extended from La Ferte to the Rhine River, though sections also stretched along the Rhine and the Italian frontier. The line was unable to prevent an invasion by German troops who entered France though Belgium. IT included 22 large underground fortresses and 36 smaller fortresses, as well as blockhouses, bunkers and rail lines. -
Battle of Moscow
German forces launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union. The Germans had hoped to begin the operation in May, but were delayed by the need to campaign in the Balkans and Greece. Opening the Eastern Front, they quickly took over the Soviet forces and made large gains. Goingeast, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's Army Group Center won the Battle of Białystok Minsk in June, shattering the Soviet Western Front and killing or capturing over 340,000 Soviet troops. -
Tuskegee Airmen
Black servicemen of the U.S. Army Air Forces who trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during World War II. They created the first African American flying unit in the U.S. military. They were to be trained using single engine planes at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field at Tuskegee, Alabama. The NAACP, the black press, and others had been pushing hard for the government to allow African Americans to become military pilots. They were one of the most decorated airmen of World War II -
Tehran Conference
A meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran during World War II. The chief discussion focused on the opening of a “second front” in western Europe. Stalin agreed to an eastern offensive to join together with the forthcoming Western Front, and he pressed the western leaders to proceed with formal preparations for their long promised invasion of German occupied France. -
Battle of Monte Cassino
The Battle of Monte Cassino was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the Winter Line in Italy held by Axis forces during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The intention was a breakthrough to Rome. It was one of the longest and bloodiest engagements of the Italian campaign during World War II. The Allies struggled to capture the western anchor of the Gustav Line and the Roman Catholic abbey of Monte Cassino. Two more offensives, again failed to produce the desired result
