American History 1920-1940 Twenties and Great Depression
Terms
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- Secretary of Commerce for both Harding and Coolidge, elected President in 1928. Served when the Great Depression began with the 1929 stock market crash
- Herbert Hoover
- US General who used the Army to force the Bonus Army to move from Washington, DC
- Douglas MacArthur
- Visited the Second Bonus March on Washington and remarked on their politeness, soothing fears of the new "radical" Roosevelt administration
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Depression photographer whose photos of despair and poverty inspired "The Grapes of Wrath"
- Dorothea Lange
- Director of the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration which provided funds to relief agencies ($5 million in 2 hours)
- Harry Hopkins
- Developed the Empire State Building, wrote article "Everybody Ought to be Rich" promoting savings
- John J Raskob
- Democratic Presidential candidate in 1932, pledged "New Deal" for America
- Franklin D Roosevelt
- FDR's Secretary of the Interior
- Harold Ickes
- Wrote "The Man Nobody Knows," a portrayl of the life of Jesus in business terms
- Bruce Barton
- FDR's Secretary of Labor, first woman in executive cabinet
- Frances Perkins
- Appointed Director of Division of Negro Affairs, she helped to increase African-American support of the New Deal
- Mary McLeod Bethune
- FDR's Republican opponent in 1936 (his second term); presidential loser
- Alfred Landon
- The monetary value of American stocks in October 1929, before the Great Crash
- $87 billion
- Passed in 1933, repealed Prohibition
- 21st Amendment
- Years considered to be during the Great Depression
- 1929 - 1941
- 1930 import tax passed to protect American industry; highest in peacetime history
- Hawley-Smoot Tariff
- The term FDR used for radio brodcasts in which he spoke to inform and reassure Americans
- Fireside Chats
- Name given to FDR's first few months as President, during which he pushed an aggressive program of relief and recovery
- The Hundred Days
- Practice of buying stocks for a fraction of their value and borrowing the rest; one cause of the Great Crash
- Buying "on margin"
- New Deal agency established to insure bank deposits up to $5000
- (FDIC) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- Congressional legislation designed to increase prices on farm products
- McNary-Haugen Bill
- City in Alabama in which 9 black youths were arrested for raping 2 white women on a train; their conviction caused complaints of discrimination from many groups
- Scottsboro
- Hoover's 1932 Agency that loaned money to banks, which would then loan to people; later loaned to states for unemployment relief
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation
- 1930's political party with 14000 members (labor organizers and intellectuals), called for radical action for fairer distribution of wealth
- Communists
- Causes of the Depression (5 listed)
-
- Inflated stock values caused overspeculation
- Falling prices for farm goods kept farmers from paying off debt
- Increased American consumer debt
- Overproduction of industrial and agricultural products
- Lack of concern for economy by Republican presidents - Worst day of the Great Crash (although not the first nor last)
- "Black Tuesday" October 29, 1929
- Drought-induced phenomenon over the Great Plains, especially Kansas; characterized by clouds of dirt blown around
- The Dust Bowl
- Focus of FDR's Second New Deal (1935 - 1938)
- (Relief) Direct relief for ordinary Americans with social welfare benefits and for farmers
- Focus of FDR's First New Deal (1933 - 1935)
- (Reform, Recovery) Restoring the economy to pre-Depression levels, regulation of Wall Street, bank deposit insurance, labor unions; deficit spending paid for all of this
- FDR's proposed but rejected bill to add a Supreme Court Justice for each existing Justice over 70 (1937)
- The Court-Packing Bill
- Foreign Policy that ended trade with Japan after Japan attacked Manchuria in China (1931)
- Hoover-Stimson Doctrine
- Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, promoted Republican Lasseiz-Faire, saying not to worry about national debt
- Andrew Mellon
- Event in which 20000 WWI veterants march to Washington, DC because they're not getting pension
- The Bonus Army March (Bonus Expeditionary Force)
- Depression unemployment rates (average and worst)
-
Average: 25% unemployed
Worst: 33% unemployed - Republican President who died in San Francisco before the end of his first term, succeeded by his VP, Coolidge (1923)
- Warren G. Harding
- Series of Socialist crackdowns named after Wilson's Attorney General, whose men had thousands of foreigners (mostly Russians) brutally deported, arrested, or lynched (1918 - 1921)
- Palmer Raids
- In 1921, restricted the immigration from any given country to 3% of its 1910 population
- Emergency Quota Act
- Coolidges's Vice President
- Charles Dawes
- FDR's first Vice President
- John Garner
- Gangster who made a fortune bootlegging during Prohibition
- Alphonse Capone aka Scarface
- Vastly improved industry, making all products identical
- Mass Production (specifically the assembly line)
- New Deal policy that sent funds to agencies to relieve poverty; basically welfare, run by Harry Hopkins of "Brain Trust"
- Federal Emergency Relief Administration
- New Deal policy that recruited single men 18-25 to work in countryside, building reservoirs, watersheds, dams, parks, forests; only paid $1 a day, but gave free food and board
- Civilian Conservation Corps
- New Deal Policy meant to restore employment by imposing minimum wage and workday limits, but declared unconstitutional
- (NRA) National Industrial Recovery Act
- New Deal organization that built bridges, dams, and low-cost housing, providing jobs
- Public Works Administration
- New Deal organization that made low-interest loans to homeowners to pay off mortgages and home improvement
- (HOLC) Homeowners' Loan Corporation
- New Deal policy that paid farmers to take acreage out of production, declared unconstitutional; lead to FDR's Court packing
- Agricultural Adjustment Act
- New Deal organization that provided electricity to rural America and subsidized power bills
- Rural Electrification Administration
- New Deal event; flooded TN River to build dams for hydroelectricity, bought lots of private land under the name of the 5th Amendment
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- New Deal policy meant to regulate Stock Market; prevents buying on margin, falsified information, insider trading
- Securities and Exchange Commission
- New Deal policy that built schools, airports, roads; supported culture and the arts
- Works Progress Administration
- Replaced National Industrial Recovery Act, supporting labor unions and collective bargaining
- Wagner Act
- New Deal policy that taxed paychecks to save for unemployment
- Social Security Act aka Federal Insurance Contribution Act
- New Deal policy that created parity, which guaranteed farmers at least the average price of a crop over the past 10 years
- Agricultural Adjustment Administration
- New Deal policy meant to ban racial discrimination, although due to rampant racism was only able to ban it in government contracts
- Fair Employment Practices Commission
- Strongest opposers of the New Deal; thought it was Communist and limited individual freedom
- American Liberty League
- Radicals who thought the New Deal should go further
- Progressives, Socialists
- The "Radio Priest" who at first supported the New Deal, but later denounced government control of anything
- Charles E Coughlin
- Supported FDR but not the New Deal; used his popularity to push for his "Share the Wealth" policy
- Huey Long
- An economic collapse late in the Depression that was caused by the new Social Security Tax
- Recession of 1937
- President of United Mine Workers, created Committee for Industrial Organization to help American Federation of Labor draw together unskilled workers; promoted sit-down strikes and fought for better workplace conditions
- John L Lewis
- The "Three R's" of FDR's New Deal
- Relief, Recovery, Reform
- Name for FDR's personal advisors for the New Deal, most from Columbia University
- The "Brain Trust"
- Four things that distinguished Communism in the USSR
-
The government:
- owned all property
- was ruled by one party
- vowed to spread Communism
- respected no individual rights - Supreme Court case in which the defendant was convicted of espionage after sending letters discouraging draftees from reporting (1919)
- Schenck v USA
- Two Italian immigrants that were arrested on counts of murder and eventually executed without a fair trial; raised lots of protest
- Sacco and Vanzetti
- Police strike of 1919 that led to huge riots all through this city, ended by National Guard
- Boston Police Strike of 1919
- Presidents from the 1920's through the Depression
- Warren G Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Fraklin Delano Roosevelt
- Scandalous 1920's President who opposed immigration and competition with American industry
- Warren G Harding
- Scandal in which Albert B Fall illegally sold oil drilling rights to private companies
- Teapot Dome Scandal
- New payment method of the 1920's that involved paying in small increments over a long time, resulted in consumer debt
- Installment Plan
- Known for first mass-producing the automobile, making it affordable and commonplace
- Henry Ford
- Girls with a short dress, tight clothes, slim figure, and boyish attitude (1920's fad)
- Flappers
- First Congresswoman
- Jeannette Rankin
- First female Governor (2 simultaneous)
- Miriam Ferguson, Nellie T. Rose
- General movement of African-Americans northward due to Jim Crow laws and lack of opportunity in the south (1920's)
- The Great Migration
- Popular new music genre in the 1920's, including George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and the Jelly Roll Morton Band
- Jazz
- 1920's literary movement focusing on black struggles, including Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and James Weldon Johnson
- The Harlem Renaissance
- Revivalist fundamentalist preacher with 100 million followers
- Billy Sunday
- Trial in which two brilliant lawyers, Darrow and Bryan, defended evolution and creationism, respectively
- The Scopes Trial