MXMS U.S. History

Roaring Twenties: the era of exuberant, freewheeling popular culture of the decade; a time when many people defied Prohibition, indulged in new styles of dancing and dressing, and rejected many traditional moral standards.

 

Business cycle: alternating periods of growth and decline that the economy goes through.

 

Sacco and Vanzetti: were two Italian-born American laborers and anarchists who were tired convicted and executed in Massachusetts for a 1920 armed robbery. 

 

Ford Model T: the first mass produced American automobile.

 

Henry Ford: founder of Ford Motor Company, father of modern assembly lines, and inventor credited with 161 patents.

 

Assembly line: mechanical system in a factory whereby an article is conveyed through sites at which successive operations are performed on it

 

Eighteenth Amendment: a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages.

 

Nineteenth Amendment: prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on gender; Women's Suffrage.

 

Twenty-First Amendment: repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, legalizing the production, transportation and sale of alcohol.

 

Jazz: a type of music of African-American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the Twentieth century. 

 

Harlem Renaissance: a period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished.

 

Prohibition: prohibited the production, transportation and sale of alcohol. 

 

Speakeasies: secret bars where alcohol could be purchased illegally. 

 

Bootleggers: smugglers of illegal alcohol during the Prohibition era. 

 

Great Depression: the economic crisis beginning with the stock market crash in 1929 and continuing through the 1930s.

 

Black Tuesday: October 29, 1929; the day the stock market crashed.

 

Black Thursday: October 24, 1929; almost 13 million shares sold that day alone.

 

Shantytowns: unplanned slum development on the margins of cities, dominated by crude dwellings and shelters made mostly of scrap wood, iron, and even pieces of cardboard.

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR): 32nd President of the United Stats; began New Deal programs to help the nation out of the Great Depression.

 

New Deal: the historic period (1933-1940) in the U.S. during which President Franklin Roosevelt's economic policies were implemented.

 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): a federally sponsored corporation that insures accounts in national banks and other qualified institutions.

 

Agricultural Adjustment Administration: attempted to regulate agricultural production through farm subsidies 

 

Social Security Act: guaranteed retirement payments for enrolled workers beginning at age 65.

 

Sit-Down Strikes: work stoppage in which workers refuse to leave a factory.

 

Dust Bowl: region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages.