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Sinclair Lewis (Literature)
Sinclair Lewis, American novelist and social critic who punctured American complacency with his broadly drawn, widely popular satirical novels. -
F Scott Fitzgerald (Lit)
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American fiction writer, whose works helped to illustrate the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age. While he achieved popular success, fame, and fortune in his lifetime, he did not receive much critical acclaim until after his death. -
1904 US Election (Political)
The United States presidential election of 1904 was the 30th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1904. Incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. -
Henry Ford’s Model T Ford (Culture)
Once a luxury item, cars became within reach for many more consumers as automobile manufacturers began to mass produce automobiles. The most significant innovation of this era was Henry Ford’s Model T Ford, which made car ownership available to the average American. -
Fundamentalist Protestants Movement (Religion)
Christian fundamentalism, movement in American Protestantism that arose in the late 19th century in reaction to theological modernism, which aimed to revise traditional Christian beliefs to accommodate new developments in the natural and social sciences, especially the theory of biological evolution. -
The Assembly Line (economy)
The Assembly Line helped Ford reduce labor costs within the production process by moving the product from one team of workers to the next, each of them completing a step so simple that workers had to be—in Ford’s words—“no smarter than an ox.” Ford’s reliance on the assembly line placed emphasis on efficiency over craftsmanship. -
Red Scare (Immigration)
Causes of the Red Scare. During the Red Scare of 1919-1920, many in the United States feared recent immigrants and dissidents, particularly those who embraced communist, socialist, or anarchist ideology. -
Volstead Act (culture)
Volstead Act, formally National Prohibition Act, U.S. law enacted in 1919 (and taking effect in 1920) to provide enforcement for the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. -
Ohio Gang (politics)
The Ohio Gang was a gang of politicians and industry leaders closely surrounding Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States of America. Many of these individuals came into Harding's personal orbit during his tenure as a state-level politician in Ohio, hence the name. -
Harlem Renaissance (African American Identity)
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem, New York, spanning the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, the 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. -
LANGSTON HUGHES (African American Identity)
Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, which was the African American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture. Hughes's creative genius was influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American neighborhood. -
Louis Armstrong (african american)
In popular culture, Harlem Renaissance is famous for African American music which gained prominence during the movement, especially jazz. Rising to prominence in the 1920s as the renaissance peaked, Louis Armstrong is not only the most popular musician of the movement but also considered among the greatest artists in jazz history -
DUKE ELLINGTON (AM Identity)
Jazz is considered the heartbeat of Harlem Renaissance and Duke Ellington’s contribution to the genre was phenomenal. He moved to Harlem in the mid-1920s and became one of the early innovators of orchestral jazz, which is a fusion of jazz’s rhythmic and instrumental characteristics with the scale and structure of an orchestra. -
JOSEPHINE BAKER (AM identity)
Though she performed in Paris during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Baker was a highly influential figure in the movement being the first black woman to become a world-famous entertainer. She was a fashion trendsetter for black and white women alike and a muse for several famous artists of the time. -
18th Amendment (Prohibition)
The ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution–which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors–ushered in a period in American history known as Prohibition. -
Bootleggers and Speakeasies (Prohibition)
Americans who disagreed with the 18th Amendment created alcohol illegally, such as moonshine. The people who made or distributed liquor illegally were called bootleggers. Now even though they were making booze, they couldn't just sell it on the streets. So, over time, places called speakeasies started to pop up around America. A speakeasy is an illegal liquor store or an illegal nightclub. -
Lost Generation (Literature)
Lost Generation, a group of American writers who came of age during World War I and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. The term is also used more generally to refer to the post-World War I generation -
Advertising Age (culture)
The consumer economy that started around the turn of the century was flourishing, and a mass market was in the making. By 1925, nearly 40% of the U.S. workforce earned $2,000 or more a year, and the six-day workweek was reduced to five. People had free time and could take vacations -
Roaring 20's (Culture)
The Roaring Twenties refers to the decade of the 1920s in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Western Europe, particularly in major cities such as Berlin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, and Sydney -
Teapot Dome Scandal (politics)
Teapot Dome Scandal, in American history, scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, -
Fordney McCumber Tariff (economy)
The Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 was a law that raised American tariffs on many imported goods to protect factories and farms. -
Child Labor Amendment (Political)
The child labor amendment, submitted to the states by Congress in 1924 for ratification as a part of the federal Constitution, has now been pending for nearly ten years. The amendment would give power to Congress to “limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.” -
The Immigration Act
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. -
Scopes Trial (Religion)
The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach evolution -
Great Gatsby (Literature)
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. -
Federal Farm Board (economy)
The Federal Farm Board was established by the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 from the Federal Farm Loan Board established by the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, with a revolving fund of half a billion dollars to stabilize prices and to promote the sale of agricultural products. -
Great Depression (Econ)
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. -
Stock Market Crash
Stock market crash of 1929, also called the Great Crash, a sharp decline in U.S. stock market values in 1929 that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. -
Wage Policy (Hoover)
Hoover's views on wage policy, and his interpretation of the fact that high wages and prosperity go hand in hand. Hoover believed that increasing wages in and of themselves were important for promoting prosperity, while he apparently discounted the impact of raising wages above worker productivity on business hiring decisions. -
Dust Bowl (Dust Bowl)
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes caused the phenomenon -
Bank Run (stock market crash)
Another phenomenon that compounded the nation’s economic woes during the Great Depression was a wave of banking panics or “bank runs,” during which large numbers of anxious people withdrew their deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans and often leading to bank failure. -
Bonus Army (Economy)
The Bonus Army were the 43,000 marchers—17,000 U.S. World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. -
Tax Policies (Hoover)
The economy had very little chance to recover. Along with gross and ongoing monetary policy mismanagement, President Hoover raised taxes in 1932. ... President Herbert Hoover asked for a temporary tax increase…in June 1932, raising the top income tax rate from 25% to 63% and quadrupling the lowest tax rate from 1.1% to 4% -
Economy Act (Program)
The Economy Act cut the salaries of government employees and reduced benefits to veterans by 15%. The goal of this act was to reduce federal debt by $500 million, but only ended up reducing it by $243 million. Ultimately the Economy Act had little to no effect on the federal deficit or the economy in general. -
Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) -> PRogram
This was one of the most popular and successful relief programs of the New Deal. It put unemployed, unmarried men (and eventually unemployed war veterans) to work planting trees, building fire towers, restoring forests, and creating camp grounds and picnic areas. Workers received free food, accommodation, clothing, medical care, and a salary. The program ended in 1942 but has lasting effects on the infrastructure of the United States. -
New Deal (Political)
The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore prosperity to Americans. -
Unemployment during Great Depression (Culture)
Unemployment statistics for the Great Depression show a remarkable collapse in the labor market in just a few years, with recovery that did not take place until the onset of World War II created an industrial demand that brought the economy back to prosperity. In addition to unemployment, workers during the Great Depression found themselves working in an atmosphere of insecurity for lower salaries and wages than before. -
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Program)
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an independent federal agency insuring deposits in U.S. banks and thrifts in the event of bank failures. -
Emergency Banking Relief Act (program)
Before this act, banks were not always a safe place to keep your money. Banks could lose all of your money and fail. FDR attempted to fix this problem by shutting down all US banks for a period of four days. During that time, he introduced the Emergency Banking Relief Act, which allowed the treasury secretary to issue loans to banks in need, limit operations of banks who were failing, and giving the president executive power to investigate and regulate banks during emergencies. -
Tennessee Valley Authority Act (TVA) -> Program
A relief program that built dams, controlled flooding, and brought electricity, and agricultural and industrial development to rural areas in the Tennessee Valley, which was hit hard by the Depression. This program made farms more productive, brought new industries to the area, and provided jobs to those who were unemployed. -
National Employment System Act (Wagner-Peyser Act) -> Program
This act established a national employment system, known as the United States Employment Service (USES), which assisted with state public employment services, provided a labor exchange system, and created job-finding assistance to unemployed Americans. -
Home Owners Loan Act (program)
Created the Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC), which provided financing for small homes to prevent foreclosure and allowed homeowners to pay off loans in monthly installments over the course of several years. Eventually led to 25- or 30-year mortgages. -
public Works Administration (PWA) -> prog
An agency that spent over $3.3 billion dollars on public works projects, creating jobs and providing loans to private industries for the creation of large-scale projects, such as bridges, power plants, hospitals, sewage plants, and more. It’s notable that this program include African Americans workers. The program ended when FDR started gearing up for WWII. -
Civil Works Administration (CWA) _> prog
The CWA was a temporary job creation program that put unemployed people to work building bridges, sewage systems, roads, and more. By the time it ended in 1934, over 4 million people had been given jobs and 225,000 miles of road, 30,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and 1,000 airports had been constructed. -
Gold Reserve Act (prog)
This act changed the price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35. This increased the amount of money in circulation, which greatly helped the economy. It also helped the government control the fluctuations of the US dollar. -
The Second New Deal program
The Second New Deal focused on reforming the nation. It consisted of more aggressive and liberal programs and responded to the Supreme Court’s resistance of previous campaigns. -
National Labor Relations Board (Program)
In February 1935, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York introduced the National Labor Relations Act, which would create a new agency dedicated to enforcing employee rights. -
Black Sunday (Dust Bowl)
Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. -
Social Security Act
This social welfare act created the Social Security system in the US. This marked the first time a president advocated for federal assistance for the elderly. The act provided benefits and support to retirees, the unemployed, the handicapped, and the aged. It excluded many women and minorities at first, but it has changed over time to improve the lives of millions of Americans. -
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) -> Program
he Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), typically known as Fannie Mae, is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) founded in 1938 by Congress during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal. ... It purchases and guarantees them via the secondary mortgage market. -
Grapes of Wrath Literature
The Grapes of Wrath at a Glance. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad and his family are forced from their farm in the Depression-era Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out for California along with thousands of others in search of jobs, land, and hope for a brighter future.
