-
Frances Willard
was a temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the 18th and 19th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1879 and remained the president until her death in 1898 -
Social Darwinism
The belief that society is subject to same Darwinism that is used for the animal kingdom. In 1883 William Sumner published a book called What "Social Classes Owe to Each Other" in which he expressed his opinion that those who feel obligated to help those under-equipped to compete for resources, will lead to a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually dragging the country down. -
Henry Ford
was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. The Model T was introduced on October 1, 1908 and was sold for $825. Ford did not invent the automobile but manufactured the first one that was affordable to the middle class. Ford was also very anti-semitic and sponsored a newspaper that published strong anti-semitic ideology. -
The Great Migration
The Great Migration was the migration of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural south to more urban areas in the north and midwest. This occurred from 1910 to 1970. They moved because of better economic opportunities and segregation was not as harsh as the south. -
Federal Reserve System
is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act in response to a series of financial panics that showed the need for central control of the monetary system. -
Marcus Garvey
was a Jamaican political leader who was the main advocator of the Pan-Africanism movement. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League and the Black Star Line. He believed that African Americans should move back to Africa and he used ships from the black Star Line to take people who were willing to move back to Africa. The Black Star Line operated from 1919-1922 -
Jazz
Originated in New Orleans, Louisiana with roots in ragtime and blues. Considered the only truly American Music. Was frequently played in speakeasies. Many feared that it was corrupting the youth. -
Tin Pan Alley
is an area in Manhattan where a collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Its prime was between the 1910's and 1920's and featured pop-songs and dance numbers created in newly popular jazz and blues styles. -
1st Red Scare (1920's)
The Red Scare was fear communism spreading to the U.S. On April 1919, authorities discovered a plot for mailing 36 bombs to important members of the U.S. One of the members was Michell Palmer who was the U.S. Attorney General. On January 2, 1920 Palmer ordered raids on people and groups with communistic ideas. He had them deported and incarcerated. -
Prohibition
was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. -
Warren G. Harding's "Return to Normalcy"
Presidential candidate Warren G. Harding of Ohio delivered the following address to the Home Market Club of Boston on May 14, 1920. In it, Harding promised to return the country to the way of life before World War I and to focus on domestic issues. Harding received the highest percentage of the popular vote in a presidential election up to that time. -
Langston Hughes
was an African American poet, social activist, and novelist. Known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", which became Hughes's signature poem, was published in 1921 the official magazine of the NAACP. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
During the administration of President Warren G. Harding, Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall took a bribe and leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. -
Harlem Renaissance
was a cultural, social, and artistic explosion for African-Americans in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African-American culture. Langston Hughes is considered to be the leader of the Harlem renaissance. -
William Jennings Bryan
was an American politician from Nebraska, standing three times as the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States (1896, 1900, and 1908). He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1915). After 1920 he supported Prohibition and attacked Darwinism and evolution, most famously at the Scopes Trial in 1925. -
Scopes Monkey Trial
was an American legal case in 1925 in which a teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal to teach human evolution in any public school. William Jennings Bryan argued for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow spoke for Scopes. The trial took 8 days until eventually Scopes was found guilty and ordered to pay a $100 fine. -
Clarence Darrow
was an American lawyer, leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks (1924). Some of his other notable cases included defending Ossian Sweet, and John T. Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial (1925) in which he opposed William Jennings Bryan. -
Charles A. Lindbergh
was an American aviator, author, inventor and military officer who flew from New York to Paris, France on his own without stopping. Lindbergh was awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit. On March 1932, his infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was named the "Crime of the Century". On May 12 the child's remains were found in woods not far from the Lindbergh home. Richard Hauptmann was found guilty and sentenced to death -
The Great Depression
was a severe economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The depression started, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%. Unemployment in the rose to 25%. Construction was virtually halted and farming communities suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. -
Stock Market Crash "Black Tuesday"
Black Tuesday was the worst stock market crash in American history. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. The main causes of this were rapid growth in bank credit and loans in the U.S. This was the beginning of the Great Depression -
20th Amendment
moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. The Twentieth Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933. -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. In his first 100 days, he proposed the New Deal and ordered the temporary closure on all banks to halt the run on deposits. He formed a Brain Trust of economic advisers who designed agencies such as the AAA to support farm prices by reducing agricultural production through subsidies, the CCC, to employ young men to work refurbishing public lands and national parks, and the NRA, which regulated wages and prices. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
Wife of Franklin Roosevelt. First Lady of the U.S. from March 1933 ro April 1945. She persuaded Roosevelt to stay in politics after he was diagnosed with polio in 1921. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace and the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans. She pressed the U. S. to join the United Nations and became its first delegate. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights. -
Tennessee Valley Authority
is a federally owned corporation in the United States that was signed into action by Franklin Roosevelt on May 18, 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. -
The New Deal
was a series of programs that were put into action by Franklin Roosevelt. The programs were in response to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs", Relief, Recovery, and Reform: relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. Organizations and acts that were created due to the New Deal include Emergency Banking Act, 1933 Banking Act, The Securities Act of 1933. -
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
The FDIC was formed on June 16, 1933 under the Banking Act of 1933 which was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. It was created due to failure of banks that occurred during the great depression. The initial plan set by Congress in 1934 was to insure deposits up to $2,500 but was changed to $5,000. The Banking Act of 1935 made the FDIC a permanent agency of the government. If your bank fails the FDIC will cover the money you had. -
21st Amendment
repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment and to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions. -
The Dust Bowl
was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the U.S. It was caused due to drought, high winds that blew loose top soil and over-cultivation of the Great Plains. One of the most severe dust storms occurred on April 14, 1935 in northern Texas and was named Black Sunday. -
Social Security Administration
an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits. To qualify for most of these benefits, most workers pay Social Security taxes on their earnings. It was created as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal with the signing of the Social Security Act of 1935 on August 14, 1935. -
Dorothea Lange
was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the FSA. Lange's photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography. Lange took the photo Migrant Mother in California in 1936. Lange captured the mother and her children's feeling of lost hope for the future. Lange was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941 for her photography work.
