Currents of Intolerance
Revived in 1915 by William J. Simmons, this organization expanded nationwide in the 1920s to target Catholics, Jews, and immigrants alongside African Americans.
What is the (Second) Ku Klux Klan?
The 1927 film starring Al Jolson that revolutionized cinema by becoming the first commercially successful "talkie".
What is "The Jazz Singer"?
The iconic 1920s female archetype characterized by bobbed hair, shorter hemline dresses, cigarette smoking, and public defiance of traditional social norms.
What is a flapper?
The vibrant literary, musical, and artistic outpouring rooted in upper Manhattan that celebrated Black identity and culture.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
The "Noble Experiment" enacted under the 18th Amendment that banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors.
What is Prohibition?
The 1925 Dayton, Tennessee trial that pitted religious fundamentalism against modern evolutionary science.
What is the Scopes Trial (or Monkey Trial)?
By providing nationwide shared broadcasts of sports, music, and news, this household technology served as the centerpiece of 1920s home entertainment.
What is the radio?
Service-sector occupations—such as typists, secretaries, switchboard operators, and department store clerks—predominantly filled by working women.
What are "pink-collar" jobs?
The post-WWI cohort of disillusioned American authors—including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald—who critiqued materialism and expatriated to Europe.
Who was the Lost Generation?
Warren G. Harding's winning 1920 campaign slogan promising a retreat from wartime sacrifice and Progressive reform.
What is "Return to Normalcy"?
This 1924 legislative act established strict immigration quotas based on 2 percent of foreign-born individuals from each nationality counted in the 1890 census.
What is the National Origins Act of 1924?
This mechanical innovation, exemplified by Vannevar Bush's differential analyzer developed in the late 1920s, began automating complex engineering equations.
What is the early (analog) computer?
This 1921 federal act allocated matching grants to states to establish maternal and child healthcare programs before being terminated in 1929.
What is the Sheppard-Towner Act?
The preeminent Harlem Renaissance poet who captured the spirit of the era in works like "The Weary Blues".
Who is Langston Hughes?
Corporate practices providing perks such as cafeteria plans, pensions, and recreational clubs to encourage employee loyalty and discourage unionization.
What is Welfare Capitalism?
First-generation Japanese immigrants who were barred from naturalized U.S. citizenship, unlike their American-born children.
Who are the Issei?
Popularized in urban dance halls to energetic rhythms, this dance craze became the premier symbol of uninhibited 1920s youth culture.
What is the Charleston?
The constitutional milestone ratified in 1920 that granted women nationwide voting rights, launching debates over the next phase of feminist activism.
What is the Nineteenth Amendment?
Acerbic Baltimore journalist and essayist known for relentlessly mocking American middle-class culture, Prohibition, and religious fundamentalism.
Who is H.L. Mencken?
The economic standard sought by struggling 1920s farmers, meant to ensure agricultural crop purchasing power matched pre-war price ratios.
What is parity?
Sparked by post-WWI patriotism and mail bombs targeting officials in 1919, this wave of anti-radical hysteria resulted in mass deportations and raids led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
What was the Red Scare?
Silent cinema's premier romantic heartthrob, whose sudden death in 1926 triggered mass public hysteria and fan mourning.
Who is Rudolph Valentino?
Feminist leader and National Woman's Party founder who opposed protective maternal health laws because they legally categorized women exclusively as mothers.
Who is Alice Paul?
Iconic New Orleans-born cornet and trumpet virtuoso whose improvisational style propelled 1920s jazz onto the global stage.
Who is Louis Armstrong?
Jamaican-born leader whose Universal Negro Improvement Association promoted Pan-Africanism, racial pride, and the Black Star Line shipping company.
Who is Marcus Garvey?