Politics and Normalcy
This economic system, which many Americans feared was being threatened by "Bolshevism," is based on private property and free enterprise
What is capitalism?
Henry Ford used this manufacturing method to increase productivity and lower the costs of making automobiles.
What is the assembly line?
These radicals, who believe there should be no government, were blamed for a series of bombings in 1919.
Who are anarchists?
This risky practice involved borrowing money from a broker to buy stocks, paying only a small fraction upfront.
What is buying "on margin"?
These informal radio broadcasts were used by President Roosevelt to talk directly to the public and build trust in the banking system.
What are fireside chats?
President Harding’s 1920 campaign slogan promised a return to this, reflecting a desire for life as it was before World War I.
What is a "return to normalcy"?
This term describes the 1920s economic trend of buying goods, fueled by new products like radios and electric appliances.
What is consumerism?
This high-profile trial involving two Italian immigrants highlighted the decade's fear of radicals and prejudice against foreigners.
What was the Sacco and Vanzetti trial?
On this day, October 24, 1929, panicked traders sold almost 13 million shares of stock as prices plunged.
What is Black Thursday?
This New Deal program employed young people for public projects like planting trees, building levees, and improving national parks.
What is the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)?
This is the belief that the government should involve itself as little as possible in the lives of citizens and the workings of businesses.
What is laissez-faire?
This "liberated" woman of the 1920s challenged traditions with short hair, heavy makeup, and short skirts.
What is a flapper?
This Jamaican-born leader founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and promoted racial pride.
Who is Marcus Garvey?
These were makeshift shanty villages built by homeless people and named sarcastically after the current president.
What were Hoovervilles?
This 1935 act created a national welfare system that provided monthly pensions for retired workers and unemployment insurance.
What is the Social Security Act?
This 1928 agreement, eventually signed by 62 nations, called for the outlawing of war.
What is the Kellogg-Briand Pact?
This movement was a "blossoming" of African American culture in a New York City neighborhood, featuring artists like Langston Hughes.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
This belief, which rose in the 1920s, held that native-born Americans are superior to foreigners.
What is nativism?
This group of World War I veterans marched on Washington to demand early payment of a promised cash award.
What was the Bonus Army?
This term refers to Roosevelt’s controversial plan to increase the number of Supreme Court justices to protect his New Deal laws.
What was "court-packing"?
This policy, favored by both Harding and Coolidge, involved limited American involvement with other nations and a refusal to join the League of Nations.
What is isolationism?
Established by the Eighteenth Amendment, this law made the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal.
What is Prohibition?
This famous Tennessee trial centered on the conflict between the biblical story of creation and the theory of evolution.
What was the Scopes Trial?
This was the unemployment rate for American workers at the peak of the Great Depression in 1932.
What is 25 percent?
This agency built dams to provide electricity and flood control to thousands of homes in a specific Southern region for the first time.
What is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)?