Unit Organizer: The 1920s
The Big Picture:
The end of World War I led America into a decade of wealth, prosperity, and social change known as the “Roaring Twenties.” America’s “return to normalcy”
meant a retreat into neutrality and return of laissez-faire policies and encouragement of business growth. Mass production and new technologies led to an increase
in consumer goods, urbanization, new forms of transportation such as the automobile and airplane, new forms of entertainment such as radios and “talking”
movies, and an increase in standard of living for most citizens. African-Americans and women experienced new cultural opportunities. However, fears of such
rapid social and cultural changes, especially changes in American cities, led to an anti-socialist “Red Scare,” a rise in nativism and new immigration restrictions,
and a commitment to religious fundamentalism.
Last Unit:
U.S. Foreign Policy & World War I
(1898—1919)
Schedule & Homework :
Monday
9/21 The Roaring Twenties/ Ch 12.1 & 12.2
(1-10)
Tuesday
9/22 The Roaring Twenties/ Ch 12.3 & 13.1
(11-25)
Wednesday/ Ch 13.2, 13.3, & 13.4 (26-38)
9/23 Conflicts, changes, problems of the
1920s: Prohibition, Red Scare, KKK, etc.
Thursday
9/24 1920s Assessment and TERMS (1-19)
DUE
Current Unit:
Next Unit:
The Great Depression & New Deal
(1929-1941)
The 1920s
(1920—1929)
Key Terms and Phrases:
1. Isolationism
2. President Harding’s
“Return to Normalcy”
3. Henry Ford
4. Mass production
5. Babe Ruth & Jack
Dempsey
6. Charles Lindbergh
7. Harlem Renaissance
8. Langston Hughes
9. Jazz & Louis Armstrong
10. “Flappers”
11. Ernest Hemingway & Lost
Generation
12. Prohibition
13. Speakeasy
14. Bootleggers
15. Communism & socialism
16. Red Scare
17. Sacco & Vanzetti
18. Emergency Quota Act,
1924
19. Religious fundamentalism
& the Scopes “Monkey”
Trial
Unit 4 Reading Guide: The 1920s
Name ________________________ Pd _____
Chapter 12, Section 1
1. RE-Define NATIVISM:
2. What economic theory called for the elimination of private property in favor of government ownership?
3. The “Palmer Raids” were directed against what groups of Americans?
4. Why was the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were such an important event in the 1920s?
5. What 1920s group was dedicated to “keeping blacks in their place, destroying saloons, opposing unions, and driving
Roman Catholics, Jews and foreign–born people out of the country?”
6. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 was an attempt to limit immigration from:
Chapter 12, Section 2
7. What did President Harding mean when he said that American needed “normalcy” in 1921?
8. Why was Russia not invited to participate in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921?
9. The Dawes Plan called for loans to Germany to help pay reparations to France and Great Britain, which then used the
reparations to repay debts owed to the United States – what country loaned the money to Germany?
10. Why was the Teapot Dome scandal so scandalous?
Chapter 12, Section 3
11. What product became the “backbone” of the American economy in the 1920s?
12. Which political party controlled the executive branch from 1921 until 1932 (Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover)?
13. What was the most “visible effect” of the automobile on the physical landscape of America?
14. During the 1920s, the people of the United States controlled about what percentage of the world’s wealth?
15. Why were prices farmers received for their products dropping during the 1920s?
16. How were many American consumers able to purchase products they couldn’t afford?
Chapter 13, Section 1
19. What percentage of Americans lived in urban areas (2,500 or more in population) in 1920?
20. Support for Prohibition came primarily from what two parts of the United States?
21. What act of Congress was enacted in 1919 in order to enforced the Eighteenth Amendment?
22. What was a “speakeasy?”
23. What were the three main sources of bootleggers’ liquor?
24. Al Capone, the crime boss of Chicago, was jailed for what crime?
25. What was the focus of the Scopes trial in 1925 and what argument did William Jennings Bryan make during this case?
Chapter13, Section 2
26. What was a “flapper?”
27. The “double standard” faced by women in the 1920s involved what area of a woman’s life?
28. According to men, women were temporary workers, and that their real jobs were – where?
Chapter 13, Section 3
29. About how many students attended American high schools in 1926?
30. What was the “most powerful communications medium” to emerge during the 1920s?
31. Who was the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the world’s greatest celebrity?
32. Why was the film The Jazz Singer so revolutionary?
33. Why did some writers of the 1920s call themselves the “Lost Generation?”
Chapter 13, Section 4
34. Who established the Universal Negro Improvement Association?
35. What was the “Harlem Renaissance?”
36. Who was the best known poet of the Harlem Renaissance?
37. Paul Robeson, an African–American actor during the Harlem Renaissance period, left the United States because of
racism and because he supported a country not popular in the United States – what country?
38. In what city was jazz “born?”