Glossary

Boston police strike

Strike of Massachusetts public workers in 1919 in an effort to increase wages that contributed to the fear of labor activism. It brought Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge to national attention.

Dawes Plan

Plan proposed by the U.S. in 1924 under which the German debt was renegotiated and payment was spread over a longer period.

Eighteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in 1919 that outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The Volstead Act implemented it.

flapper

A young woman with a short skirt, bobbed hair, and a boyish figure who did the Charleston, smoked, drank, and was casual about sex and was the image of modern woman in the twenties. Few women were actually "flappers."

Harlem Renaissance

A flowering of black culture in the 1920s which emphasized black pride and grappled with the question of how to be black in America.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

High protective tariff passed in 1930, it was the culmination of the high tariff policies of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Multinational treaty of 1928 to outlaw war that was eventually signed by 62 nations. Its only enforcement power was moral precept.

Ku Klux Klan

Organization of southern white night-riders who used violence and terror to drive Republicans from power and end Reconstruction in the post-Civil War South.

Lost Generation

Writers whose works reflected their disillusionment with the materialism, conformity, and provincial prejudice that dominated American life in the 1920s, such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Marcus Garvey

Black leader, the "Black Messiah," in the 1920s who advocated self- help, black pride, and a back-to-Africa movement for African Americans.

McNary-Haugen Bill

Legislative measure supported by farmers which called for separating domestic and foreign markets by government purchase of key products at "fair exchange value" and the marketing of the excess of these products on the world market at lower world prices, thus keeping domestic prices high.

moving assembly line

System of assembly line production introduced by the Ford Motor Company in which the product is mechanically transported to the worker who then has a limited time to finish his specific task.

National Origins Act

Immigration laws of the 1920s which set quotas limiting immigrants from each country to a percent of those countries' nationals in the United States in a previous base year. It was designed to discriminate against southern and eastern Europeans.

oligopoly

The control of an industry by a few large firms.

Palmer raids

Raids conducted by the Justice Department in 1919-1920 to round up and deport alien radicals suspected of subversive activity which, in the process, resulted in widespread violation of civil liberties.

second Red Scare

The hysteria over the infiltration of Communists and Communist ideas in American society and government led by Senator Joseph McCarthy which swept the United States in the early 1950s.

Sacco-Vanzetti Case

Massachusetts court case in which two Italian anarchists were convicted and sentenced to death for robbery and murder on scant evidence primarily because of nativist sentiment.

Scopes trial

The case in which a Dayton, Tennessee, teacher was tried and convicted of violating a state law by teaching evolutionary theory to a high school biology class.

Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act

Social welfare measure, passed by Congress in 1921 and repealed in 1929, which provided for a million dollars a year in federal money to assist states in providing medical aid, consultation centers, and visiting nurses to teach expectant mothers how to care for themselves and their babies.

Teapot Dome scandal

Harding administration scandal that involved the illegal leasing of government-owned oil reserves by Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall.

Washington Conference

Conference on naval disarmament held in Washington, D.C., in 1921-1922 which reduced tonnage of capital ships and set tonnage ratios between the five major naval powers.

welfare capitalism

The introduction of pensions, profit-sharing plans, recreational facilities, cafeterias, and other amenities by employers to reduce worker discontent and discourage the growth of labor unions in the 1920s.

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