And All That Jazz
This term was used for high-quality, illegal alcohol, often smuggled in via the coat legs of sailors or hidden in footwear.
What is Bootleg (or Bootlegging)?
This famous nightclub in Harlem featured many of the greatest Black entertainers of the era, though it originally served only white patrons.
What is the Cotton Club?
This 18th Amendment, which lasted from 1920 to 1933, made the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal.
What is Prohibition?
This technological "box" became the primary source of news and entertainment in American homes during the 20s.
What is a Radio?
In one of his most famous poems, Hughes asks "What happens to a dream ____?"
What is "deferred"?
This high-speed, rhythmic dance became the defining craze of the decade, named after a city in South Carolina.
What is the Charleston?
This 1917 event, where thousands of Black New Yorkers marched down Fifth Avenue in silence, is often cited as a precursor to the Harlem Renaissance.
What is the Silent Protest Parade?
Ratified in 1920, the 19th Amendment finally granted this group the right to vote.
Who are women?
This industrialist revolutionized the economy by using the assembly line to make the Model T affordable for the average family.
Who is Henry Ford?
Hughes spent much of the 1920s traveling; he famously worked his way to Africa and Europe on this type of merchant vessel.
What is a freighter (or steamship)?
To avoid the law during Prohibition, people went to these illegal, secret bars that required a password for entry.
What are speakeasies?
These informal gatherings, held in private apartments to help pay the landlord, featured "cutting contests" between jazz pianists.
What are Rent Parties?
This Chicago-based gangster, nicknamed "Scarface," became the most infamous symbol of the era's organized crime.
Who is Al Capone?
This October 1929 event signaled the end of the 1920s economic boom and the start of the Great Depression.
What is the Stock Market Crash (or Black Tuesday)?
Hughes was often criticized by some Black intellectuals for writing about the lives of this "lower" class of people.
Who are the working class (or "the folks")?
If a 1920s party-goer called something "the cat’s pajamas" or "the bee's knees," they meant it was this.
What is excellent/great/wonderful?
Often called the "Father of African American Art," this painter's mural-style works captured the spirit of the era.
Who is Aaron Douglas?
This movement saw millions of African Americans move from the rural South to Northern cities, fueling the Harlem Renaissance.
What is the Great Migration?
These were the "Big Three" auto companies that began to dominate the market during the 1920s.
What are Ford, General Motors (GM), and Chrysler?
Hughes spent time in this country during the 1930s to escape American racism and study its socialist system.
What is the Soviet Union?
This legendary 1920s actor was known as "The Latin Lover" and caused mass hysteria among fans before his untimely death in 1926.
Who is Rudolph Valentino?
This literary magazine, edited by Charles S. Johnson, held the 1925 awards dinner that effectively launched the Harlem Renaissance and fostered talents such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.
What is Opportunity?
This 1921 act signed by President Warren G. Harding was the first federal social welfare program, providing funds for infant and maternity care.
What is the Sheppard-Towner Act?
This massive construction project, finished in 1936 but planned in the late 20s, provided thousands of jobs and harnessed hydroelectric power.
What is the Hoover Dam?
While working as a busboy in a Washington D.C. hotel, Hughes "discovered" his talent by slipping three poems to this famous poet.
Who is Vachel Lindsay?