Chapters 13 & 14 – Transition to Modern America
Chapter Summary
The roaring 20’s was a period of social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. With the U.S.
deciding to return to 'Normalcy' in the wake of World War I, many ideas from the era were
marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity, and a break with
traditions. During these years the United States prospered from a technology boom but
that cloud of prosperity will soon turn dark with the economic crisis of the Great
Depression looming.
Changing Roles of Women
1. Explain the changing roles of women during this period? What caused these changes?
2. How did women react to having the right to vote?
3. How did the demographics change in America during this time? Why did these changes
occur?
4. What was the Great Migration and why did it occur?
5. Why did Americans become obsessed with heroes like Charles Lindbergh & Amelia
Earhart and various sports figures?
Mass Media and the Jazz Age
6. How did the expansion and growth of “mass media” (movies, newspapers, magazines
and radio) help to create a “national culture”?
7. What was jazz and where did it originate?
8. Who were the “Lost Generation” and what were they trying to achieve?
9. Explain the type of literature that was popular and visible during the 1920’s?
10. Define the Harlem Renaissance.
Cultural Conflicts
11. What was Prohibition and what resulted from it?
12. Who were fundamentalists and what trial was a result of what they believed?
13. What legal right was the issue in the Scope’s Trial?
14. Why was the Ku Klux Klan able to gain power during this time and who became their
targets during the 20s?
15. Who was Marcus Garvey and what did he want to achieve and how?
Chapter 14
A Republican Decade
16. What was the Red Scare and how did it develop?
17. What was Schenk v United States and what did it establish?
18. Who were Sacco and Vanzetti and why were they executed?
19. Who did many people believe were behind the labor strikes in 1919?
20. Generally, whom did the Republican leaders favor during the 1920s?
21. What was the Teapot Dome Scandal?
22. What was laissez faire and how did it relate to Republicans and business?
23. How did Republican presidents respond to the red scare?
24. What did the National Origins Act of 1924 do?
A Business Boom
25. What helped to lead America to the economic boom of the 1920s?
26. How did Henry Ford manufacture his automobiles and what was so different about his
method?
27. How did the automobile change the landscape of America?
28. What other industries flourished because of the automobile?
29. Why did farmers suffer during the 1920’s?