Terms of the 20's

Warren Harding- 29th President of the United States from 1921-1923. He was a republican president from Ohio, and was involved in many scandals. Many experts consider him one of the lowest ranking presidents ever. Harding’s lack of controlling his administration, led to twelve years of failed republican rule.

Fordney McCumber Tariff Act- 1922 Act that increased tariff rates. Reflected American isolationist inclinations following World War 1.

Bureau of the Budget- A Place for all government expenditures, to be placed in a single budget for Congress to review and vote on. This was the beginning of Presidential assistance over federal budget decisions.

Teapot Dome- Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior, accepted a bribe for leasing the Elk Hills oil reserve near Teapot Dome, Wyoming in 1924.He was convicted in 1929. Attorney General Harry Daughtery also took bribes for agreeing not to prosecute certain criminal suspects. This scandal was one that labeled the Harding administration to be dishonest and one of the worst administrations in American history.

Calvin Coolidge- 30th President of the United States from 1923-1929. He obtained the presidency after the sudden death of Harding. He won the election in 1924, and helped restore the trust of the American people in their government officials. He was a republican who was very popular with the middle class. Coolidge is known for his dormancy as President, as well as big business views.

McNary-Haugen Bill- The bill that would have assisted farmer’s price supports. It was shot down twice by President Coolidge. The two vetoes of this bill labeled Coolidge as a president of inaction.

Herbert Hoover- 31st President of the United States from 1929-1933. After the Stock Market crashed in 1929, Hoover attempted to hinder the situation. All his plans failed, and the Great Depression was a result. Hoover is also considered by many experts to be one of the lowest ranking presidents ever. President responsible for biggest depression in American history.

Alfred Smith- Democratic candidate that lost to Hoover in the 1928 election. He was a Roman Catholic and strong opponent of prohibition. This helped him gain a lot of support from immigrant voters in the city. Smith’s loss showed that American’s were still not ready for a Democratic President.

Business prosperity- The period in America from 1922-1928, in which life was the most enjoyable. It was after the 1921 recession, and before the stock market crash of 1929. Harding and Coolidge both liked this, reducing impact as strong political leaders.

Assembly line- The manufacturing system which improved methods of mass production. A system in which workers remained in one place all day, and performed the same simple actions over and over again. A system perfected by Henry Ford and adopted by most major industries in the 1920’s. The assembly line helped America’s industry gain faster and cheaper methods of mass production.

Open shop- keeping jobs open to nonunion workers. By refusing to hire exclusively union members, construction employers effectively undercut many of the conditions, such as the eight hour day, that unions had achieved over the past several decades.

Welfare capitalism- Companies voluntarily offering their employees improved benefits and higher wages in order to remove the need for organized unions. This helped working class Americans gain better salaries and better benefits, and helped quell company’s fears of unions.

Jazz age- In the 1920’s college and high school students rebelled by listening to and dancing to jazz music. The Jazz age was the period in the 1920’s in which African American musicians brought jazz north as a symbol of new and modern culture. This was the beginning of a huge transformation in the music and culture of America, with the popularity of the big band.

Consumerism- The growing rate of electricity in the common home enabled Americans to purchase the new consumer appliances of the decade. Refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines were some of the largest selling products. Advertising also expanded and companies found that they could manipulate the consumer to buy their product. This was the beginning of the expansion of commonly used appliances, and America’s need to shop.

Charles Lindberg- The man to complete the first non-stop transatlantic flight. The flight took 33 hours for Lindberg to get from Long Island to Paris. Lindberg showed that a solo flight is possible and shocked the world due to the incredible feat for its time in 1927.

Sigmund Freud- Austrian psychiatrist who stressed the role of sexual expression in mental illness. Man responsible for the term Freudian slip, a commonly used term in modern psychology.

Margaret Sanger- A birth control activist who achieved growing acceptance in the 1920’s. The use of contraceptives for birth control was still against the law in almost every state. Paved the way for proper protection against pregnancy and STDs.

Modernism- A range of influences, including the changing role of women, the Social Gospel movement, and scientific knowledge, caused large numbers of Protestants to define their faith in new ways. Modernists took a historical and critical view of certain passages in the Bible and believed they could accept Darwin’s theory of evolution without abandoning their religious faiths. This changed the way people looked at religion.

Fundamentalism- One who believes only in religious texts as literally true, and does not accept ideas against religious morals, generally Christianity. Fundamentalists in the South, debated theories such as evolution greatly and led to the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Revivalists- Revivalists such as Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPhereson, fought for the country to come back to their Protestant routes. The Revivalists used new instruments such as the radio to attract followers. This was the first use of mass communication used for transforming people's ideas.

Gertrude Stein- A writer from the 1920's who wrote novels as one of the first of the Lost Generation. Her novels were a catalyst for a new form of literature and modern art.

Lost Generation- The generation of writers in the 1920's that talked about materialism and disillusionment. This group of writers changed the focus of literature during the era to focus on a new subject matter that was taboo years earlier.

F. Scott Fitzgerald- A controversial writer whose writings were edgy and talked about the night life of the roaring 20's. He was one of the first to write stories about new ideas like kissing in public and large liquor parties.

Ernest Hemingway- An extremely influential writer who wrote about economy and the working class. His writing played a big part in all 20th century non-fiction, and taught messages of working class triumphs and failures.

Sinclair Lewis- An author's whose books criticized American society and showed a strong capitalist theme. His book “Babbitt” won him the first American Nobel Prize in Literature.

Ezra Pound- An American author who led the modernist movement in the 20's. His writings are some of the major movers of modernist ideas and movements.

T.S. Eliot- An author of the Lost Generation that played a key part in the modernist movement with his poems. His first poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, was seen as the masterpiece of modernism, and was one of the most important writings in the 1920's.

Frank Lloyd Wright- An American architect who designed over 500 buildings, and supported the opening of the Prairie School of Architects. He developed the Usonian home, which became incredibly popular in the 30's, 40's, and 50's.

Functionalism- The line of thinking that something created should first function well and correctly, and then look good after. Functionalism created a new idea of construction, by creating stronger structures and leading to the creation of skyscrapers.

Edward Hooper- A realist painter that painted extremely detailed scenes of both rural and urban life. His paintings showed the modern American life of both urban and rural life styles with more detail then most painters before.

Georgia O'Keeffe- An abstract painter who painted American landscapes with abstract colors and ideas. O’Keefe played a large part in making American art popular in Europe.

Harlem Renaissance- A vast cultural explosion from African American artists in Harlem, NY. Poets' and musicians' writings and music became popular around the country to both African Americans and whites. The Harlem Renaissance was the first time African American culture was being embraced in America. The writers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance influenced many people both African American and white.

Countee Cullen- An African American poet who became famous as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Countee Cullen was a key member of the Harlem Renaissance and is celebrated as one of the greatest African American poets of all time.

Langston Hughes- An African American poet/novelist who wrote during the Harlem Renaissance era. Langston's novels and poems are seen to be some of the greatest sources/recollections of African American poverty in the early 20th century.

Louis Armstrong- An African American Jazz musician who led the beginning of the Jazz Age. His music was the first to cross cultural border lines and become popular with all races.

Bessie Smith- A blues singer who became incredibly popular during the Jazz Age touching many with her voice. Bessie's singing influenced many other singers and helped spread African American music to the popular mainstream.

Marcus Garvey- A Jamaican immigrant who brought over the United Negro Improvement Association to Harlem. He supported racial pride and a back-to Africa movement for African Americans. Many African American leaders disagreed with his idea to go Africa, but fed greatly on his ideas for racial pride and self-respect.

Scopes Trial- A trial in which John Scopes was arrested for teaching Evolution to a class in Tennessee. His lawyer was the famous Clarence Darrow and the lawyer for the fundamentalists that apposed Scopes's teachings was presidential loser William Jennings Bryan. Scopes was eventually convicted as guilty, but once released from jail he continued to teach Evolution to his class. This trial was one of the first clashes between fundamentalists and modernists and was a step towards solving the still unsolved problem of whether religion and school should be combined.

Clarence Darrow- A modernist lawyer who is most famous for his defending of John Scopes in the Scopes Trial. Clarence Darrow was one of the first modernists to assert authority against fundamentalists.

Prohibition- The 18th Amendment prohibited the sale, and manufacture of all alcoholic beverages. Very few obeyed this Amendment and people still drank at speakeasies and bootleggers became incredibly common. This Amendment created a large amount of corruption and organized crime that sold bootleg alcohol, and divided the nation once more.

Organized Crime- A newly created “big business” caused by the 18th Amendment and the public's want of alcohol regardless of the Amendment. From their start with bootlegging, organized crime has expanded into illegal gambling, prostitution, and narcotics.

Immigration Quota Laws- Two laws that limited immigration greatly. The first of the two made it so only 3% of foreign-born persons were allowed in based upon the 1910 census. In order to keep many southern Europeans out, the second act limited to only 2% of foreign-born persons could immigrate based on the 1890 census. These laws restricted European and Asian immigration and ended the long standing United States unlimited immigration policy.

Sacco and Vanzetti- Two Italian immigrants who were convicted of murder because they were poor immigrants. They were eventually executed after much repeal and debate over their trial. This was the first national example of racism and nativism being publicly displayed together.

Ku Klux Klan- A nativism group started many years before that in the 1920 re surged as an extremely racist group that was hostile towards many minorities. The group grew very large until it began to collapse after one of its leaders, David Stephenson, was convicted of murder. The KKK was an example of hostile American racism that had grown to become a large voice in the nation.

Disarmament- With hoping to induce peace Republican Presidents of the 20's tried to reduce the national supply of guns the country held. The 20's were one of the first times a President spoke out against America's arms supply in comparison the rest of the world.

Washington Conference- A conference where Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes met with world ambassadors, to discuss relative navy sizes between the countries and resolve conflicts in the Pacific. They came up with the Five-Power Treaty, which limited the sizes of the 5 countries with the biggest navies, the Four-Power Treaty, which made the 4 countries with the largest navies respect each others territory in the Pacific, and lastly the Nine-Power Treaty, which caused the nine nations at the conference to all respect the territorial integrity of China. This was one of the first conferences in which the strongest countries of the world discussed peace through military disarmament.

Kellogg-Briand Treaty- A pact that made mobilizing against another country for national ends illegal. It served little purpose because it allowed defensive wars and did not explain how to deal with violators. This treaty showed the first time world powers came together to ban war for national gain.

War Debts- After World War 1 America had lent the Allies $10 million and required that they receive every penny back. America had rarely been a creditor nation and tried to receive all its money back from crediting the allies.

Reparations- As part of the Treaty of Versailles Germany was supposed to pay the allies $30 million to help repair their countries, but Germany was bankrupt, in ruin, and close to anarchy. Britain and France were unable to collect their money so plans such as the Dawes Plan were created.

Dawes Plan- A compromise created by Charles Dawes that created a system where the U.S. would help rebuild Germany's economy so that it could repay the reparations so Britain and France could pay back the U.S. war debts. With the collapse of the stock market in 1929 U.S. loans to Germany ceased and money for reparations stopped causing the problem to reappear