Name______Per. _____ Date______
1. Define ‘people’s capitalism.’ An economy in which virtually all Americans could participate; if every American owned a house, a car, could buy quality clothes, go to the movies, own stock, and take vacations, then economic inequality would cease to matter as a political issue
2. – 3. Briefly describe its achievements and limitations:
Achievements / LimitationsMore consumer goods, i.e., cars, washing machines, refrigerators, radios, vacuum cleaners
More fresh fruits & vegetables available; improvements in refrigeration & packaging; extended shelf life
Radios extended the ‘cultural horizon’
Cars, asphalt roads, service stations, hot dog stands, ‘tourist cabins’
Suburbs expand
Movies, amusement parks, sporting events
Americans could participate to some extent in the stock market / The actual percentage of Americans who owned stocks was relatively small
Those who bought cars often lacked money for other goods
In order to afford durable goods Americans used ‘credit’ and the installment plan
Working-class Americans benefitted only slightly from the consumer revolution.
4. What role did advertising play in changing 1920’s views of consumer goods?
Advertising professionals helped people manage their lives to increase satisfaction and pleasure; they encouraged Americans, especially the middle-class to fill their homes with the latest products. Advertising campaigns played on emotions and the vulnerability of their target audience. Edward Bernays, Doris Fleischman and Bruce Barton were leaders in the emerging field of advertising & marketing.
5. What led to the rise of the ‘age of celebrity?’
Mass marketers began to understand that $$ could be made by staging ‘mega-events.’ Through word-of-mouth, newspapers, but especially radio, millions became aware of previously unknown athletes, actors, and heroes. None of this could have happened without the new machinery of ‘celebrity culture.’ Aggressive journalists, radio commentators, and promoters.
6. Identify and describe a ‘flapper.’
Young, single, middle-class women who set out to break the informal rules governing young women’s lives. They wore short dresses, cut their hair, used makeup, drank & smoked in public. They did not look to politics to achieve their goals but aimed to create a new female personality base on self-reliance, outspokenness and a new appreciation for the pleasures of life.
7. Explain Calvin Coolidge’s remark, ‘the business of America is business.’
Coolidge admired productive business leaders. “the chief business of the American people is business…we want wealth…peace and honor.” Coolidge lowered taxes to give incentives to businesses. For the next six years the economy boomed.
8. Explain the term ‘yellow dog’ contract.
A written contract between employers and employees in which the employees sign an agreement that they will not join a union while working for the company
9. List reasons why the women’s movement did not live up to expectations once women received the right to vote in 1920:
Voter participation did not increase; flappers preferred private achievement & personal freedom over politics to improve the ‘collective status’, internal division and their inability to speak with a single voice. One accomplishment, the Sheppard-Towner Act, provided women with pre-natal and child healthcare centers.
8. Describe and give a detailed explanation of key political similarities and differences of the following:
Warren G. Harding (R) / Calvin Coolidge (R) / Herbert Hoover (R)Politics of personal gain
Corrupt administration
Ohio gang
Teapot Dome Scandal
Died unexpectedly in office / Laissez-faire
Pro-business
Rigidly honest
Nicknamed ‘Silent Cal’
Chose to not seek a second term / Associationalism- the concept of cooperation over competition, negotiation over conflict, & public service over selfishness. Industrialists, wholesalers, retailers, railroad & shipping companies, small business, farmers, workers, doctors would form trade associations, share information, discuss problems, and seek ways to achieve greater efficiency & profit
9. What was the purpose of the ‘Dawes Plan?’ Was it successful?
It proposed that German war reparations be lowered and the terms of the original peace agreement (Treaty of Versailles) be modified. Also, it allowed the United States to lend Germany money to get back on its feet. The Dawes Plan provided short term economic benefits to the German economy. It softened the burdens of war reparations, stabilized the currency, and brought increased foreign investments and loans to the German market. However, it made the German economy dependent on foreign markets and economies, and therefore problems with the U.S. economy (e.g. the Great Depression) would later severely hurt Germany as it did the rest of the western world,
10. Explain the purpose of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and why it was or was not successful.
In 1928 the U.S., France and sixty-two other nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war. The pact, however, was essentially meaningless since it lacked any power of enforcement and relied solely on the force of world opinion.
12. Briefly describe Coolidge’s Latin American policy. What was his main concern in this region? Coolidge removed U.S. troops from the Dominican Republic ((1924) &Nicaragua (1925), but had to send Marines back to Nicaragua in 1926 to end a civil war & protect U.S. property; Haiti occupied from 1919-34 to keep a U.S. –friendly government in power.
13. The 1920 Census confirmed that Protestants were outnumbered by which groups in cities?
Roman Catholics, Jews, and African-Americans
14. How did Protestants view these groups socially and politically?
They were perceived by Protestants as supporters of Bolshevism and other radical ideas. Cities were the homes of secular intellectuals who scrapped their belief in God and embraced science as their new authority.
15. On the issue of Prohibition, which groups continued to support it, and which groups had second thoughts about its effectiveness?
Protestants continued to support it; the violence spawned by illegal bootleggers confirmed their view of alcohol as evil. Irish, Italians, and Jews did not support Prohibition, and this made supporters even more determined to rid the country of Jews and Catholics.
16. Describe and explain the purpose of new Ku Klux Klan.
The new Klan presented itself as the righteous defender of the traditional values of small-town Protestant America. It relied on publicity & advertising to expand its membership. They supported Prohibition, attacked Darwinism and Roman Catholics, advocated ‘100% Americanism’ and white supremacy.
17. Describe the significance of the Johnson-Reed Act.
In 1921, Congress passed the Immigration Act, limiting the amount of immigrants each year, essentially to stem the flow of southern and eastern Europeans. In 1924, the Johnson-Reed Act revised these quotas downward even more. It also excluded immigrants from Asia. In retaliation, the Japanese government slapped a 100% tariff on goods imported from America. The Johnson-Reed Act essentially codifed the principal of racial discrimination
18. Describe and explain the impact of the Scopes Trial on both Fundamentalism and liberal Protestants. In 1925, religious fundamentalists in Tennessee passed a law outlawing teaching ‘any theory denying the story of divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.’ The ACLU searched for a teacher willing to challenge the constitutionality of this law.John T. Scopes, a 24-year-old biology teacher from Tennessee agreed and confessed that he had taught evolution in his class. He was quickly arrested. Nationally recognized attorneys William Jennings Bryan, prosecutor and Clarence Darrow, defense squared off in court. Scopes was found guilty but the public ridicule took its toll on fundamentalists. However, textbook publishers quietly removed references to Darwin, and would continue to do so until the 1960’s.
19. How where the experience of ethnic and racial communities in the 1920’s similar to each other; how were they different?
Southern & Eastern Europeans opposed Prohibition, banded together within their respective religious/ethnic communities (Catholics & Jews), resented immigration restriction policies, established churches & synagogues, schools, kept cultural traditions & language alive, developed political power. Their children found a way to embrace both their heritage from their former country with the customs of their new one. Although they faced discrimination from organized groups (KKK) and cultural discrimination from ‘nativists.’ Limited to low paying jobs upon arrival, upward social mobility was possible, albeit highly difficult.
African Americans also formed neighborhoods unto themselves.(Harlem in NY, Southside in Chicago) The black community was a complex society, self-sufficient, providing business, education, healthcare and entertainment all within the confines of their neighborhood. Most Africa Americans could find only low paying jobs if working outside their own community. The higher population density & poverty led to higher infectious disease rates and a lower life expectancy. Segregation ensured that blacks would have an almost impossible struggle for upward mobility. The NAACP and the Urban League continued their goals of racial equality.
20. What was the Harlem Renaissance?
The emergence of jazz within the black community found its way to into white America. Both black & white audiences responded to this truly unique sound. Jazz musicians came from all over the country to play together. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, & Louis Armstrong were among the most famous musicians of the day. Paralleling the jazz movement was a literary awakening. Black novelists, poets, sculptors, painters and playwrights created works rooted in their own culture instead of imitating the styles of white Europeans & Americans. Langston Hughes, poet, Claude McKay & Zora Neale Hurston, painter Aaron Douglas were all participants of the Renaissance.
24. Describe the role of Mexican American workers during the 1920’s. Although Mexican culture flowered in Los Angeles, what challenges did they face?
After the Reed-Johnson Act, Mexicans became the country’s main source of immigrant labor. Over 500,000 came to the U.S. in the 1920’s. Some headed for the steel, auto and meatpacking plants in the Midwest, but most settled in the Southwest, working on railroads, construction or agriculture.
Mexicans usually made half of what white workers made, and were often barred from becoming ‘skilled’ labor. They had little opportunity to develop settled homes & communities. Agricultural workers were often in debt to employers. Their largest community was in Los Angeles.
25. There was a small group of californios which made up a small professional class. Also, a group of professionals, including artists and entrepreneurs who disagreed with Mexican politics, had been expelled from revolutionary Mexico and settled in the Los Angeles area. Unlike Immigrants from Europe, many Mexican immigrants showed little interest in becoming American citizens and acquiring the vote. While the emergence of their cultural impact on Los Angeles flowered, their upward mobility would
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