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Chapter 20 Review Joe Puccio
Key Terms
1. Lost Generation- group of 1920s writers who wrote about disillusionment with American society
Harlem Renaissance- a 1920s literary movement by black poets and novelists living in Harlem
2. Palmer raids- 1919-1920 rai ds authorized by Attorney General Palmer against thousands of suspected Communists
Red Scare- the 1919-1920 panic over socialism and communism in the Untied States
3. Ohio Gang- a group of political friends whom Warren Harding appointed to high government posts
Teapot Dome scandal- the secret, illegal leasing of government oil reserves to private oil companies during the Harding administration
People To Identify
John Scopes
Charles A. Lindbergh
Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Marcus Garvey
Henry Ford
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Al Capone
Places To Locate
D
F
B
C
E
A
Reviewing the Facts
Workers believed that wages had to rise to keep pace with prices and they wanted to be allowed to join unions. During the war, they agreed not to go on strike, but when the war ended, strikes began. In 1919 alone, some 3,600 strikes took place, many of them violent.
The Red Scare was the panic in 1919-1920. The main cause of this was the fear that was growing about there being communist or anarchist conspiracies to overthrow the United States government. Efforts to crack down on radical groups led to violations of civil liberties.
The first of the scandals during Harding’s term was in 1923 when a federal investigation revealed that Charles R. Forbes, head of the Veteran’s Bureau, had swindled the country out of $200 million. He resigned post and fled to Europe, only to eventually return and be sentences to two years in prison. Another scandal took place by the Ohio Gang. The public learned that they had been selling all manner of favors, such as pardons, and appointments to office. The scandals caused exhaustion for Harding and he went on a trip to Alaska. On the way back, he fell ill and died in San Francisco. The biggest scandal that took place during his term was not revealed until after he died. It was the Teapot Dome scandal. The Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, was found to have leased government oil reserves – including one in Teapot Dome, Wyoming – to oilmen who paid him in kickbacks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were also many other scandals, such as Attorney General Harry Daugherty being forced to resign for accounts of bribery and fraud.
Calvin Coolidge was a very laid back President. He often only worked four hours a day, with a nap thrown in. He did not cultivate political friendships and had little contact with Congress. This relaxed-style reflected his belief that government did not have to do much to make America prosper, because he did, in fact, want the economy to flourish.
The 1920s is often referred to as the “Roaring 20s” because of the flourishing economy. This was mostly due to the automobile industry. Henry Ford, in 1913, had made mass production possible through the use of an assembly line. By making the assembly line faster, he was able to lower the price of his cars so not just the rich could afford them. Because of the flourishing automobile industry, the rubber, steel, and glass industries prospered as well because they were used to make the cars.
Because the 1920s gave shorter working hours, Americans needed something to occupy them in their spare time and they also had plenty of extra money to spend on it. This gave way to many new forms of entertainment. Radio, movies, and sports became the focus of American popular culture.
New trends that developed in literature during the 1920s consisted of narrowness of small-town life, satirizing American life, and accusations towards American society of hypocrisy and greed. Some of the most prominent authors of the decade were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, and Langston Hughes.
One of the main causes of the farm crisis was urbanization changing people’s eating habits. People ate less when they did not have to do hard physical labor. The average American ate 75 pounds less of food a year by 1920. Other causes were less grain being needed by livestock because of automobiles replacing horses, and prohibition made it so farmers could no longer sell their grapes for wine or barley for beer. This caused an overproduction of farm goods and a plunge in prices.
During and after World War I, southern rural blacks began to move – first by thousands, and later by millions – to northern industrial cities. Blacks thought of the North as a place where they could escape prejudice. Unfortunately, prejudice seemed to follow them. Living conditions were harsh, jobs were scarce, and poverty surrounded them. To make conditions worse for minority groups, along came the Ku Klux Klan. The racial minority groups that were targeted and made objects of racial and cultural intolerance by the KKK were the blacks in the South, the Catholics in the Midwest and West, the Jews in the East, and immigrants everywhere.
There were many ways that citizens got around the Eighteenth Amendment (prohibition) that was ratified in 1919. Thousands of “speakeasies”, or illegal bars, opened up. The sale of illegal liquor through “bootlegging” became a big business. The smuggling of liquor over the Mexican and Canadian borders also took place. Respectable middle-class Americans brewed homemade liquor in their cellar. Other Americans paid their doctors to write prescriptions for liquor, which was still legal for medical purposes.
Critical Thinking
This statement is completely unjustified. I was shocked that a judge said this. For a judge to tell a jury to convict a man not because he is guilty, but because he has differing political views is appalling. Today this would be an incredibly huge scandal, especially if he were found guilty.
To be a loved president all you really have to do is avoid controversial issues and not mess up. To be a loved president (as counterintuitive as that seems) you have to address and take care of controversial issues.
While immigration is still an issue today, some issues with it have almost disappeared. Mainly racism, and fear of new political ideas. What remains the same is that people are still afraid of immigrants hurting the economy by “stealing jobs”.