Chapter 31: American Life in the “Roaring Twenties”

Name:______date:______

  1. Seeing Red/Hooded Hoodlums/Stemming the Foreign Flood
  1. In your own words, discuss American “fears” during the 1920’s.
  2. Identify: red scare
  3. Define: radicalism
  4. Discuss the Sacco & Vanzetti trial. What were they accused of? Did they receive a “fair “ trial ? Why or why not?
  5. Define: communism
  6. Define: socialism
  7. What region of the U.S. Was the KKK most powerful during the 1920’s? What did members of this group believe in?
  8. Identify: Emergency Quota Act 1921
  9. Identify: Immigration Act 1924
  10. What groups were exempt from the Immigration Act of 1924?
  1. The Prohibition Experiment/The Golden Age of Gangsterism
  1. Identify: 18TH Amendment
  2. How did Americans respond to prohibition?
  3. Identify : ”speakeasies”
  4. What impact did prohibition have on organized crime?
  5. What American city was the “heart” of organized crime?
  6. Discuss the life of Al “Scarface” Capone
  7. Define: racketeers
  8. Identify” Lindberg Law
  1. Monkey Business in Tennessee
  1. Discuss Professor John Dewey’s thoughts regarding education
  2. Discuss the specifics of the “ Scopes Monkey Trial”
  1. The Mass Consumption Economy/Putting America on Rubber Tires/The Advent of the Gasoline Age
  1. How many Americans owned cars by 1930?
  2. Discuss the emergence of sports celebrities during the 1920’s.
  3. What does “buying on credit” mean?
  4. What city became the “motorcar capital of the world?
  5. What is considered a “social by-product” of the automobile? (hint: what impact does the automobile have on where people choose to live?)
  1. Humans Develop Wings/ The Radio Revolution
  1. What does the “miracle of the Kitty Hawk” refer to?
  2. Why was Charles Lindbergh so famous during the 1920’s? What was his greatest achievement?
  3. What impact did the radio have on daily American life?
  1. Hollywood’s Film land Fantasies / The Dynamic Decade
  1. Identify the fist “talkie”
  2. What signaled the emergence of the “movie star”?
  3. Critics during the 1920’s argued that radio and film impacted American family values in a negative way. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Is this argument still valid?
  4. Discuss ways in which women “Rebelled” against society during the 1920’s
  5. Why was Harlem New York considered an African American cultural center during the 1920’s?
  1. Cultural Liberation/Wall Street’s Big Bull Market

List books written by the following authors:

  1. F. Scott Fitzgerald

  1. Theodore Dreiser

  1. Ernest Hemingway

  1. What is meant by the expression “buying stocks on margin”?