The Legal Battleground
Passed across several Southern states during the early Reconstruction era, these laws were a set of inconsistent rules that implemented labor contracts and selective criminal penalties to standardize control over formerly enslaved people, transforming freedom into a legally conditional status while formally avoiding a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
What are the Black Codes?
This constitutional doctrine, formalized by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), provided legal cover for Jim Crow segregation by claiming equality under the law while permitting states to enforce racially separate public facilities in practice.
What is “separate but equal”?
Because of this technology, jazz musicians could achieve national fame even without selling records or touring widely.
What is the radio?
From lipstick to labor-saving appliances, ad executives in the 1920s saw this group as the untapped “gold mine” of the consumer market.
Who were women?
Mid-century “slum clearance” projects often targeted neighborhoods that federal maps had already labeled as hazardous or declining, revealing how this earlier discriminatory practice helped justify later urban renewal efforts that displaced Black communities.
What is redlining?
Under 19th-century American law—especially during Reconstruction—this term described a person who lacked documented employment, could be arrested for unpaid taxes or “idleness,” fined or imprisoned without committing a violent crime, and then forced into labor through convict leasing, making poverty itself a punishable offense.
What is a vagrant?
Often linked with flappers and jazz clubs, this dance was condemned by traditionalists for its “wild” style but celebrated by youth as an expression of freedom.
What is The Charleston?
From 1920 to 1928, the percentage of American households with this rose from 35% to 70%, fueling a boom in demand for household appliances.
What is electricity?
Urban planners argue that this form of localized resistance helps preserve racial and economic segregation by preventing apartments, public housing, or social services from being built in wealthier neighborhoods.
What is NIMBYism?
Frequently referenced in Contested Waters, this national organization served to organize and engage in litigation, investigative reporting, and federal pressure to challenge racially discriminatory laws, housing policies, and public-space segregation—particularly when local governments framed inequality as neutral regulation rather than state-perpetrated racism.
What is the NAACP?
This religious movement gained momentum in the early 20th century as traditionalists rejected modern science—especially evolution—and insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible.
What is Fundamentalism?
Thanks to this financial practice, millions of Americans could own big-ticket items they couldn’t afford upfront, helping turn desire into debt.
What is buying on installment (or using consumer credit)?
Automobiles freed middle-class families from reliance on streetcars, fueling this transformation of the American landscape, characterized by single-family homes, lawns, and commuting.
What is the growth of the suburbs/suburbanization?
Staged in Dayton, Tennessee, and attracting reporters from across the country, this trial became a media spectacle that exposed deep cultural divisions over whether Darwin’s theories should be taught in public schools.
What is the Scopes Trial or the "Monkey Trial"?
During the mid-20th century, many cities closed or privatized public swimming pools to avoid integration, accelerating this demographic pattern as white families moved to suburbs with private pool access.
What is white flight?
The publication of this book ignited a long-running debate between modern science and religious traditionalism; by the 1920s, attempts to ban its ideas from classrooms symbolized a broader struggle over American identity.
What is The Origin of Species?
Praised for innovation but blamed for exploitation, this system encourages endless growth by turning workers into producers—and consumers with “an unquenchable thirst for more stuff.”
What is capitalism?
Major urban projects like museums, parks, and revitalization efforts are often shaped not only by public budgets but by this form of private giving, prompting debates about whose vision of the city gets realized.
What is philanthropy?
This ideology surged in the 1920s as many Americans blamed immigrants for cultural change, economic instability, and moral decline, fueling support for laws like the National Origins Act.
What is nativism?
This concept, defined by Kerryn Higgs, explains how the consumer economy thrived by convincing ordinary people that luxury was no longer indulgence but entitlement, effectively making aspiration a universal economic engine.
What is the democratization of desire?