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National Origins Act in 1924: established a quota system in which was based on the number of its nationals in the US in 1910. This quota was then reduced until it allowed only 150,000 immigrants a year to enter the country. This caused the foreign-born percentage of the population to fall. Instead of the open, cosmopolitan society eager to accept the “masses yearning to breathe free”, American now became committed to preserving a homogeneous, “Anglo-Saxon” population.

Volstead Act: act which allowed for the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

John B. Watson: believed that in order to raise children, “You should never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight.” His philosophy was that if you showed too much love, you could turn your kids into “mama’s boys”, and that “Children are made not born”.

“intra family democracy” : democracy at a family level. Husbands and wives would deal with each other as equals, which meant sharing housework and child care, downplaying male authority, and stressing mutual satisfaction in sexual and other matters.

Paul Fass, The Damned and Beautiful: showed how matters as fraternity and sorority initiations, “proms,” attendance at Saturday afternoon football games, styles of dress, and college slang, seemingly aspects of independence and free choice, were nearly everywhere shaped and controlled by peer pressure.

“New Woman”: changes in woman’s role in society led to a “new” woman

Alice Paul: led the Women’s Party and the equal rights amendment campaign. She had specific goals: disarmament, ending child labor, and liberalized birth control as well as total equality for women.

Equal Rights Amendment: when radical feminists discovered that voting did not automatically bring true equality, they founded the Women’s party and began campaigning for the equal rights amendment which was intended to bring true equality.

Margaret Sanger: the leading American proponent of birth control in the 1920’s. She began to write articles about contraception, and gained support. At last resistance was crumbling.

League of Women Voters: a League formed by women (originally) which then

Adkins v. Children’s Hospital: declared that a federal law that limited the hours of work for women in DC unconstitutional. This shows how most of the gains that were of particular importance to women seemed to be breaking down, yet the gains were illusionary.

D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation: a movie which was an important breakthrough in rapid technical and artistic improvements, which in turn led to more cultivated audiences. Sympathetic treatment of the KKK of Reconstruction days angered blacks and white liberals.

Charlie Chaplin: the greate4s film star of the era. His characterization became famous throughout the world. He was perhaps the greatest comic artist of all time.

Walt Disney: perfected the animated cartoon in the 1930s. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and other Disney cartoon characters gave endless delight to millions of children.

Babe Ruth: the sports star among stars; not only did he dominate baseball, but he changed it from a game ruled by pitchers and low scores to one in which hitting was more greatly admired. Originally himself a brilliant pitcher, his incredible hitting ability made him more valuable in the outfield, where he could play every day. He was so feared that by 1923, he was given a base on balls more than half the times he appeared at the plate.

Jim Thorpe: the greatest all-around athlete of the century, a Sac and Fox Indian who won both the pentathlon and the decathlon at the 1912 Olympic Games, made Walter Camp’s All-American football team, then played major leage baseball for several years before becoming a pioneer founder and player in the National Football League.

Red Grange: Harold Grange, averaged over 10 yards a carry during his college career and who in one incredible quarter carried the ball four times and scored a touchdown each time, gaining in the process 263 yards.

Jack Dempsey: known as the “Manassas Mauler”, a heavyweight champion, knocked out a succession of challengers in bloody battlers only to be deposed in 1927 by Gene Tynney who gave him a 15-round lesson.

fundamentalism: rejected the theory of evolution, basically the persistence of old-fashioned ideas in rural areas. Fundamentalists resented the modern urban culture, and that made them crusaders of their cause.

Clarence Darrow: chief counsel for the defendant in the Scopes Monkey Trial. He stated the issue clearly, “Scopes isn’t on trial civilization is on trial. The prosecution is opening the doors for a reign of bigotry equal to anything in the Middle Ages. No man’s belief will be safe if they win.”

William Jennings Bryan: was the leader of the fundamentalists. After leaving Wilson’s Cabinet in 1915, he devoted himself to religious and moral issues, but without applying himself conscientiously to study of these difficult questions. He went about the country saying “They”, meaning the mass of educated Americans, had “taken the Lord away from the schools”. He denounced the use of public money to undermine Christian principles, and he offered $100 to anyone who would admit to being descended from an ape. His immense popularity in rural areas assured him a wide audience and no one came forward to take his money.

Henry L. Mencken: a big-city reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun who flocked to Dayton to “make sport of the fundamentalists”.

Scopes Monkey Trial: Scopes purposely violated the Tennessee law that forbids instructors to teach any theory that “denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible”. He was put on trial, and a battery of nationally known lawyers came forward to defend him, and the state obtained services of Bryan himself. Scope’s conviction was a foregone conclusion; after the jury rendered its verdict, the judge fined him $100.

“Wets”: people who did not support prohibition

“Drys” : people who called for prohibition

Al Capone: gangster who was engaged in the “liquor traffic”. Their organizations existed even before the 18th amendment which was prohibition.

Speakeasies: the saloon disappeared, replaced by the speakeasies which was a secret bar or club operating under the benevolent eye of the local police.

KKK: Revival of Ku Klux Klan – for people who yearned to express their frustrations and hostilities without personal risk. They burned crosses at night, organized mass demonstrations to intimidate people they disliked, and put pressure on businessmen to fire black workers. Had little appeal in Northeast/metropolitan centers, yet much appeal in middle-sized cities and in the small towns and villages. Scapegoats – immigrants, Jews, and especially Catholics. They wanted to return to an older, supposedly finer America. However, the very success of the Klan led to its undoing. Factionalism, arguments, outrage, and opposition all led to this.

Alfred Smith (D): was a CATHOLIC democrat who was defeated in the 1928 election largely due to the KKK.

Sacco and Vanzetti: was an example of the confusion and disillusionment of the period. Two men in Massachusetts killed a paymaster and a guard in a daring daylight robbery of a shoe factory. Shortly thereafter, Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with the crime and convicted of murder. They were Italian immigrants, as well as anarchists. Their trial was a travesty of justice. The presiding judge conducted the proceedings like a prosecuting judge. For years Sacco and Vanzetti were kept alive by efforts to obtain a new trial, as prominent persons throughout the world protested. When in 1927 they were electrocuted, the disillusionment of American intellectuals with prevailing values was profound. Sacco and Vanzetti paid with their lives for being radicals and aliens, not for any crime.

Sinclair Lewis: another writer, though not equal to Hemingway or Fitzgerald, reflected the distaste of intellectuals for the climate of the times. He was the most popular American novelist of the 1920s. Like Fitzgerald, his first major work brought him instant fame and notoriety—which also captured the fears and confusions of the lost generation. He wrote Main Street and Babbitt. He then went on to dissect the medical profession, religion, and fascism.

T.S. Elliot: wrote the Wasteland.