Roaring 20s
This term refers to the right to vote in political elections, and in the context of the early 20th century, it was especially associated with the decades-long struggle by women to gain voting rights in the United States.
What is suffrage?
In the 1920s, the widespread availability of household appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners transformed daily life, making household chores easier and contributing to the rise of a consumer-driven economy.
What are appliances?
This term refers to a period of significant economic decline characterized by reduced trade, high unemployment, and widespread hardship, often leading to a contraction in economic activity and a fall in living standards.
What is an economic depression?
This environmental disaster of the 1930s was caused by severe drought and poor farming practices, turning the Great Plains into a region of massive dust storms and forcing many farming families to migrate in search of work.
What is the Dust Bowl?
This phase of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, launched in 1935, focused on long-term reforms, such as Social Security, labor rights, and economic security, in response to ongoing challenges from the Great Depression.
What is the Second New Deal?
This period from 1920 to 1933, initiated by the 18th Amendment and enforced by the Volstead Act, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the U.S., leading to the rise of speakeasies and organized crime.
What is Prohibition?
This industrialist revolutionized the automobile industry by introducing mass production techniques, including the moving assembly line, which made cars more affordable and accessible to the American public.
Who is Henry Ford?
This economic issue occurs when the supply of goods exceeds demand, often leading to falling prices, unsold goods, and financial instability, as seen in agriculture and manufacturing sectors during the 1920s and Great Depression.
What is overproduction?
These makeshift shantytowns sprang up across the United States during the Great Depression, named sarcastically after the president many blamed for the economic crisis, and were inhabited by the homeless and unemployed.
What are Hoovervilles?
Passed in 1935 as part of the Second New Deal, this law established a system of pensions for the elderly, unemployment insurance, and welfare programs, providing a safety net for Americans in times of need.
What is the Social Security Act?
This manufacturing method, perfected in the 1920s by companies like Ford Motor Company, used assembly lines to produce goods more efficiently and cheaply, revolutionizing industry and contributing to a consumer culture in the U.S.
What is mass production?
This production method, popularized by Henry Ford in the 1920s, involved breaking down manufacturing into simple, repetitive tasks along a moving conveyor belt, drastically increasing efficiency and lowering costs.
What is the assembly line?
This economic condition happens when consumers do not purchase enough goods to match the level of production, leading to surpluses, reduced profits, and eventually layoffs and economic decline, especially during the late 1920s.
What is underconsumption?
Elected in 1932, this U.S. president led the country through the Great Depression and most of World War II, launching the New Deal to provide relief, recovery, and reform to struggling Americans.
Who is Franklin D. Roosevelt?
This controversial 1937 proposal by President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court after it struck down several New Deal programs, raising concerns about separation of powers and executive overreach.
What is court packing?
In the 1920s, this growing industry used new techniques in psychology and mass media to persuade consumers to buy products, fueling a booming consumer culture and helping define the modern American economy.
What is advertising?
This term refers to the various means of communication, such as radio, newspapers, and film, that reached large audiences in the 1920s, shaping public opinion, promoting consumer culture, and influencing social norms.
What is mass media?
In the 1920s, this risky financial behavior involved investors buying stocks with borrowed money, expecting prices to keep rising, which contributed to the stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression.
What is market speculation?
This series of programs and reforms, launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression, aimed to provide economic relief, create jobs, and prevent future financial crises through government intervention.
What is the New Deal?
As First Lady during the Great Depression and World War II, she redefined the role by actively promoting civil rights, women's rights, and social welfare, becoming a powerful political figure and humanitarian in her own right.
Who is Eleanor Roosevelt?
During the consumer boom of the 1920s, this distinction became blurred as advertising and mass production encouraged Americans to purchase goods not just for necessity but for comfort, status, and personal desire.
What is the difference between need and want?
This cultural movement of the 1920s, centered in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, celebrated African American culture through art, music, literature, and intellectual expression, with figures like Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, and Zora Neale Hurston leading the way.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
This financial disaster occurred in October 1929 when stock prices plummeted, wiping out billions of dollars in wealth and signaling the start of the Great Depression in the United States and around the world.
What is the Stock Market Crash of 1929?
These were the three main goals of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal—providing immediate assistance to those in need, fixing long-term economic problems, and revitalizing the economy during the Great Depression.
What are relief, reform, and recovery?
This outspoken senator from Louisiana criticized the New Deal for not doing enough to help the poor and proposed the "Share Our Wealth" program, which aimed to redistribute wealth through heavy taxation on the rich.
Who is Senator Huey P. Long?