ROARING TWENTIES The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture”; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. However, for a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed. 

RETURN TO NORMALCYPopular support for Republicans grew, since Republicans promised a “return to normalcy.” Republicans ceased to promise progressive reforms and instead aimed to settle into traditional patterns of government.

RED SCARE

A period of general fear of communists.

TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL A government scandal involving a former United States Navy oil reserve in Wyoming that was secretly leased to a private oil company in 1921; became symbolic of the scandals of the Harding administration.

WARREN HARDING

The 29th President of the United States; two of his appointees were involved in the Teapot Dome scandal (1865-1823).

CALVIN COOLIDGE

Elected vice president and succeeded as 30th President of the United States when Harding died in 1923 (1872-1933).

HERBERT HOOVER

The 31st President of the United States; in 1929 the stock market crashed and the economy collapsed and Hoover was defeated for reelection by Franklin Roosevelt (1874-1964).

RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM

Individualism in social and economic affairs; belief not only in personal liberty and self-reliance but also in free competition.

HENRY FORD

United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production (1863-1947).

PROHIBITION

The prevention by law of the manufacture and sale of alcohol, esp. in the US between 1920 and 1933.

FRANCES WILLARD

An American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT

An amendment to the Constitution of the United States adopted in 1920; prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; repealed in 1932.

TWENTY-FIRST AMENDMENT

The amendment to the United States Constitution that repealed the Eighteenth Amendment that had created National Prohibition.

SCOPES “MONKEY TRIAL” The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was a famous American legal case in 1925 in which a high school teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school

CLARENCE DARROW

United States lawyer famous for his defense of lost causes (1857-1938)

IMMIGRATION ACTS a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890.

EUGENICS

the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

FLAPPER

In the 1920s, a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior.

TIN PAN ALLEY

A city district (originally in New York) where composers and publishers of popular music do business.

GREAT MIGRATION The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that lasted up until the 1960s.

HARLEM RENAISSANCE

A period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished.

LANGSTON HUGHES

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry.

MARCUS GARVEY A Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.

CHARLES LINDBERGH

United States aviator who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1902-1974).