The following is an outline for the 1920 through the New Deal. As you read and go over your notes, answer the
questions. This should help you in understanding significances of events, connection between time periods, etc. Try
to do this on your own for the rest of the chapters. Reading for a purpose tends to help students retain material.
1920s & The Great Depression
I.
The 1920s
A. Harding Administration
1. Why did the Harding Administration fail?
B. Extensions of Reform
1. What effect did the Progressive Era have on the 1920s?
2. How were American Indians affected by the 1920s?
3. How were women affected by the 1920s?
C. Materialism Unbound
1. Why was there a movement toward consumerism?
2. What aided consumerism?
D. Cities, Migrants, and Suburbs
1. What was happening in the urban areas of the country?
E. New Rhythms of Everyday Life
1. How was life changing for Americans during the 1920s?
a. family life
b. senior citizens
c. social values
d. women
F.
Lines of Defense
1. What was the response to these new social trends?
a. How was the Ku Klux Klan different?
b. What was the importance of the Sacco and Vanzetti case?
c. What the Quota Act of 1921 and what was its objective?
d. What the Immigration Act of 1924 and what was its objective?
e. What was the Scopes Trial all about?
G. Age of Play
1. What were the new forms of entertainment for Americans?
2. What was Prohibition?
3. What was important about Al Capone?
H. Cultural Currents
1. How did the dualism of the 1920s affect art and literature?
a. focus of new literature
b. Harlem Renaissance
c. Jazz
I.
II.
The Election of 1928 and the End of the New Era
1. Who was Al Smith?
2. Who was Herbert Hoover?
a. What were his beliefs about the American system?
3. Why did the Stock Market crash?
4. What were the underlying causes of the crash?
The Great Depression and The New Deal
A. Hoover and Hard Times: America’s Worsening Depression, 1929-1933
1. What caused the depression to worsen?
2. How did segments of society react?
3. How did President Hoover try to end the depression?
a. Why didn’t his measures work?
B. Franklin Roosevelt and the Election of 1932
1. Who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)?
2. Who was Eleanor Roosevelt?
3. What was important about the 1932 election?
4. What were the components of the New Deal?
a. What were the objectives of the First New Deal? Examples?
b. How did the First Hundred Days affect society and the economy?
5. Why was there opposition to FDR’s New Deal?
a. What was important about Father Charles Coughlin, Dr. Francis Townsend, and
Huey Long?
6. What are the forms of the criticisms of the New Deal
C. The Second New Deal and the Election of 1936
1. How did the two New Deals differ?
2. What was the importance of the measures FDR pushed through Congress?
3. What was the “New Deal coalition”?
D. Roosevelt’s Second Term: Court Packing and Other Failures
1. What was Roosevelt’s objective with his court-packing plan?
2. Why were the setbacks to FDR’s economic plans for this term?
E. Industrial Workers and the Rise of the CIO
1. How was unionization aided by the New Deal?
2. Why were there growing conflicts between the AFL and industrial unions?
a. Who was John Lewis?
b. What was the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO)?
3. How did the CIO evolve?
4. What is the importance of the Memorial Day Massacre?
F.
Mixed Progress for People of Color
1. How did the New Deal affect African Americans?
2. What were the Scottsboro Trials?
a. What was their significance?
b. What was FDR’s “Black Cabinet”?
3. Why didn’t the new measures insure equality for African Americans?
4. What was the response of the Black community?
5. How did the New Deal affect American Indians?
a. Who was John Collier?
b. How did the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) change?
6. What was the effect on the New Deal for Mexican Americans?
G. Women, Work, and the Great Depression
1. How did women cope with the depression?
2. What happened to women who worked?
3. In what ways did the New Deal aid women? Or did it?
H. The Election of 1940 and the Legacy of the New Deal
1. What was the significance of the election of 1940?
2. How do historians assess the New Deal?
3. Why is the New Deal considered the foundation of the “welfare system”?