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tin pan alley
the name given to the 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 -
frances willard
The educator abandoned this promising career to the less promising life of a mover and shaker in the Temperance Movement, whose aim was to curb or eliminate alcohol consumption in the country. She worked without compensation for a number of years, using her lecture fees to make a living. She became the corresponding secretary of the Chicago Woman`s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874. -
social dwarwinism
refer to various ways of thinking and theories that emerged in the second half of the 19th century and tried to apply the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society. -
william jennings bryan
He starred at the 1896 Democratic convention with his Cross of Gold speech that favored free silver, but was defeated in his bid to become U.S. president by William McKinley. Bryan lost his subsequent bids for the presidency in 1900 and 1908, using the years between to run a newspaper and tour as a public speaker. -
henry ford
built his first gasoline-powered horseless carriage, the Quadricycle, in the shed behind his home. In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later the company rolled out the first Model T. In order to meet overwhelming demand for the revolutionary vehicle, Ford introduced revolutionary new mass-production methods, including large production plants, the use of standardized, interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars. -
federal reserve system
the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics (particularly the panic of 1907) led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System. -
great migration
The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War. -
marcus garvey
Marcus Garvey was an orator for the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey advanced a Pan-African philosophy which inspired a global mass movement, known as Garveyism. Garveyism would eventually inspire others, from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement -
langston hughes
Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, and playwright whose African-American themes made him a primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. -
prohibition
During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted activists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the alcoholic beverage trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition. One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. -
1st red scare
World War I, which led many to embrace strong nationalistic and anti-immigrant sympathies.
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which led many to fear that immigrants, particularly from Russia, southern Europe, and eastern Europe, intended to overthrow the United States government. The end of World War I, which caused production needs to decline and unemployment to rise. Many workers joined labor unions. -
jazz music
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States,in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as 'America's classical music'. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. -
tea pot dome scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s shocked Americans by revealing an unprecedented level of greed and corruption within the federal government. The scandal involved ornery oil tycoons, poker-playing politicians, illegal liquor sales, a murder-suicide, a womanizing president and a bagful of bribery cash delivered on the sly. -
warren g. hardings "return to normalcy"
Return to normalcy, a return to the way of life before World War I, was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding's campaign slogan for the election of 1920. Although detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism, coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there was contemporaneous discussion and evidence found that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. -
clarence darrow
an American lawyer, a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He defended high-profile clients in many famous trials of the early 20th century. -
scopes monkey trial
The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” With local businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. -
charles a. lindbergh
Before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Lindbergh campaigned against voluntary American involvement in World War II. Many Americans criticized him for his noninvolvement beliefs. After the war, he avoided publicity until the late 1960's, when he spoke out for the conservation of natural resources. Lindbergh served as an adviser in the aviation industry from the days of wood and wire airplanes to supersonic jets. -
stock market crash "black Tuesday"
investment companies and leading bankers attempted to stabilize the market by buying up great blocks of stock, producing a moderate rally on Friday. On Monday, however, the storm broke anew, and the market went into free fall. Black Monday was followed by Black Tuesday , in which stock prices collapsed completely and 16,410,030 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. -
harlem renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art. -
20th amendment
United States Constitution 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 -
the new deal
The New Deal was a series of federal programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted in the United States during the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. Some of these federal programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) -
relief, recover, reform
Relief was aimed at providing temporary help to suffering and unemployed Americans. Recovery was designed to help the economy bounce back from depression. Reforms targeted the causes of the depression and sought to prevent a crisis like it from happening again. -
the dust bowl
The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions. -
F.D.R.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or “fireside chats.” -
TVA
The TVA was to address the Valley's most important issues in energy, environmental stewardship and economic development. Learn about key moments in our history as we’ve tackled important issues in the Tennessee Valley such as power production, flood control and reforestation, and about how our mission of service lives on today. -
(SEC) securities and exchange commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government. The SEC holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws, proposing securities rules, and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other activities and organizations, including the electronic securities markets in the United States. -
eleaner roosevelt
An American politician, diplomat and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, having held the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, and served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. -
FDIC Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation providing deposit insurance to depositors in US banks. The FDIC was created by the 1933 Banking Act during the Great Depression (June 16 1933) to restore trust in the American banking system; more than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. -
21st amendment
The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 16, 1919. 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. -
dorothea lange
Dorothea Lange was a photographer whose portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression greatly influenced later documentary photography. -
Social security administration SSA
The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the U.S. 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; the claimant's benefits are based on the wage earner's contributions. -
the great depression
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers.
