Unit 5 Organizer
The 1920s and 1930s: The Roaring 20s to the New Deal
Topics
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Harding’s “Return to Normalcy”
Mass production
Consumerism
Henry Ford
Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey
Charles Lindbergh
Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes
Jazz and Louis Armstrong
“Flappers”
The Lost Generation, Ernest
Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Prohibition
Red Scare
Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
Immigration Acts of 1921, 1924
Religious fundamentalism
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial
On-margin buying
Overproduction
Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929
President Hoover, Rugged
Individualism
“Hoovervilles”
Dust Bowl
President F. Roosevelt’s New Deal
The First Hundred Days
Fireside chats
Bank Holiday
“Relief, Recovery, Reform”
programs
Alphabet Soup
Federal Deposit Insurance
Commission
Securities & Exchange Commission
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
National Recovery Administration
(NRA)
Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth”
plan
FDR’s Second New Deal (19351937)
Work Progress Admin (WPA)
Wagner Act
Social Security Act
Court-Packing
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Vocabulary
Fundamentalism
Harlem Renaissance
Prohibition
Recession
Depression
Buying on the margin
Speculation
Market economy
Free enterprise
Laissez-faire
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Essential Questions
What influences popular culture?
What are the pros and cons of
“progress”?
What is the role of government in
the economy?
How much influence should the
government have over people’s
personal lives?
How does the economy affect
politics and society?
How did changes in the 1920s
impact:
o (a) the economy
o (b) entertainment
o (c) politics
o (d) minority groups
How did the cultural clash
between rural and urban
American impact:
o (a) immigration
o (b) religion
o (c) national laws
What caused the Great
Depression?
o To what extent should
President Hoover be
blamed for the Great
Depression?
How successful was Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal at:
o (a) providing relief for
the unemployed
o (b) recovering the
economy
o (c) creating long-term
economic reforms?
Turning
Points
Movement
Conflict and
Compromise
Freedom,
Equality,
1. How was the stock market crash a turning point in American history?
2. Was the creation of the New Deal a turning point?
1. How did the US Presidents and their administrations developed and implemented
imperials foreign policy strategies?
2. How did the economic circumstances of the Great Depression influence patterns of
migration and settlement?
3. How did the onset of the Dust Bowl influence the displacement and migration of “Okies”
during the Great Depression?
4. Why and how did various national, cultural, and ethnic groups decide to immigrate to the
US?
5. How did the Immigration Quota Act of 1924 affect specific groups of immigrants?
Political Issues: Analyze the political issues and conflicts that impacted the U.S.
1. How and why did eugenics become a political movement in several states at the
beginning of the 20th Century? How did the movement impact various groups?
2. How did the administration of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover revert to conservative
government practices based on lower taxes and deregulation of industries?
3. How did Herbert Hoover become a scapegoat for what ailed the economy at the
beginning of the Great Depression? Why did his “rugged individualism” failed to work?
4. How did Franklin D. Roosevelt deliver a “New Deal” to the American people that aimed to
ease the effects of the depression through government programs and agencies that
provided direct government relief, recovery, and reform?
5. Why were the New Deal programs opposed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Huey Long,
Francis Townshend, and Charles Coughlin?
6. To what extent did the New Deal fundamentally change the nation’s political and
economic systems.
7. How and to what extent did domestic programs proposed by Democratic presidents after
FDR extended the relief, recovery, and reform efforts of the New Deal (Fair Deal, New
Frontier, and Great Society)?
Economic Issues: Analyze the economic issues and conflicts that impacted the U.S.
8. How did rampant speculation in the stock market led to the “Black Tuesday” crash of
October 29, 1929? What were the global impacts of the crash?
9. Why did the Great Depression occur in the U.S.? To what extent did it affect the livelihood
and fortunes of various Americans?
10. To what extent did FDR’s New Deal ease the economic effects of the depression through
direct government relief, recovery efforts, and reform?
11. To what extent did a consumer based economy flourish in the 1920s?
Social Issues: Analyze the social and religious conflicts, movements, and reforms that
impacted the U.S.
12. How did the eugenics movement affect several groups of Americans during the 20th
Century?
13. How did prohibition become “the law of the land” and why was it later repealed?
Cultural Conflicts: Analyze the cultural conflicts that impacted the U.S.
14. How did “modernism” develop and challenged conventional and traditional practices of
American society during the 1920? (jazz, flappers, the Harlem Renaissance, Negro
nationalism, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein)
15. In what ways did defenders of tradition react to modern thought and rapid change in
American society of the 1920s? (nativism, Sacco and Vanzetti case, rise of
fundamentalism, Scopes Monkey Trial, Ku Klux, Klan, Prohibition, eugenics)
16. How did American culture continue to flourish during the Great Depression?
1. How did the Harlem Renaissance raise awareness of issues affecting the lives of African
Americans in the 1920s through various forms of expression such as literature, art,
and Power
2.
Foreign
Policy
War
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Progress,
Crisis, and
“American
Dream”
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5.
music, and drama?
Why did FDR attempt to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court and how did the attempt affect
the New Deal and the balance of power between the executive and judicial branches of
government?
How did international trade policies and tariffs such as the Hawley-Smooth Tariff shape
the economic development and foreign policy of the U.S.?
Why did American foreign policy shift to isolationism after WWI?
Why did Allied countries of WWI reject Wilson’s Fourteen Points? How does this affect
U.S. politics between world wars?
How did labor unrest and strikes during and after U.S. involvement in WWI impact the
economy and society?
How, why and to what extent did the consumer based economy of the US flourish in the
decades following WWI?
How, why and to what extent did consumerism and materialism impact American society
following WWI?
How, why, and to what extent did Americans fear the spread of communism after WWI?
How did that fear impact American culture?
How did the birth of the automobile industry impact the economic and cultural
development of the U.S?
How did the invention and use of the radio impact the economic, political, and cultural
development of the U.S?
How did the onset of the Dust Bowl influence the displacement and migration of people
during the Great Depression?
How did the “Lost Generation” of American writers express the cultural struggle between
modernism and tradition during the 1920s? (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, Faulkner)
How did the people who lived during the Great Depression reflect on the conditions and
turmoil of the era (Such As Us, The Grapes of Wrath, Native Son, Hard Times)