"Yellow Journalism" - Pulitzer and Hearst, including: sensationalism journalism, lurid sheets, scandals and rumor.
Panama Canal ? connects Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the isthmus of Panama. US wanted one especially after there was trouble in Philadelphia and Oregon couldn't reach it in time. Nicaragua was another option. TR put the construction work under the direction of the U.S. Army Engineers.
"Dollar" Diplomacy - diplomacy used by a country to promote its financial and commercial interests abroad; diplomacy that seeks to strengthen the power of a country or effect its purposes in foreign relations by the use of financial resources. Promoted by Taft and had two sides: 1) Using foreign policy to protect Wall Street dollars invested abroad and 2) Using Wall Street dollars to uphold foreign policy?it was misunderstood and overplayed.
Progressivism ? A majority mood that sought to use state power to curb the trusts and to stem the Socialist threat by generally improving the common person's conditions of life and labor. It wanted people to have power again, gave democracy ?more democracy.?
Muckrakers ? Newspeople and writers that exposed American evils in the early 1900s; dug deep for dirt that the public loved to hate, editors financed extensive research and encouraged pugnacious writing (led to progressivism).
NAACP - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. W.E.B. DuBois, the founder, demanded full equality for blacks, socially, and economically.
"Ashcan" School - a group of painters in the early 1900's opposed the sentimentality and academic quality then popular in American art. Included William Glackens, Robert Henri, and John Sloan. They painted realistic street scenes, portraits, and landscapes.
New Freedom - Wilson's idea which favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the free functioning of unregulated and unmonopolized markets. It shunned social welfare and wanted economic competition; not regulation but fragmentation of big industrial corporations.
Treaty of Versailles - peace treaty signed on June 28, 1919, at the end of World War I between Germany and the Allies. It was a result from the Paris Peace Conference. It represented 27 countries. Germany signed only under duress.
Schenk Case - involved censorship, such prosecutions were confronted by the prohibition in the First Amendment. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire and causing a panic. The question in every case is whether the words are used in circumstances that would create clear and present danger.
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare ? Announced by Germany before WWI: they would make no exceptions for American vessels in the war zone.
League of Nations ? A system of collective security; the major problem was if if the U.S. was to have a tie with a nation it got into a war with. It was Wilson's dream that he held onto during the making of the Versailles treaty and continued to hold onto after the treaty. It was officially dissolved in 1946.
Fourteen Points - Fourteen goals of the United States in the peace negotiations after WWI. President Wilson announced the Fourteen Points to Congress in early 1918. They included public negotiations between nations, freedom of navigation, free trade, self-determination for several nations involved in the war, and the establishment of an association of nations to keep the peace. The ?association of nations? Wilson mentioned became the League of Nations.
Red Scare - The rounding up and deportation of several hundred immigrants of radical political views by the federal government in 1919 and 1920. This ?scare? was caused by fears of subversion by communists in the United States after the Russian Revolution.
18th Amendment - national prohibition; lasted for only thirteen years.
SaccoVanzetti Case - Two anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were convicted of a robbery and two murders in Massachusetts in the early 1920s, and were sentenced to death. Sacco and Vanzetti were born in Italy, but had been living in the United States for years when they were tried. Several faulty procedures took place in the trial. Many people have thought that Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted because of their political views and not because of the evidence against them. Their supporters obtained several delays of their execution, but a special committee appointed by the governor of Massachusetts upheld the original jury's verdict, and they were put to death in 1927. Liberals and Radicals all over the world were outraged by the execution.
Scopes Trial - The trial of John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, for teaching the Theory of Evolution in violation of state law. The trial was held in 1925, with eminent lawyers on both sides ? William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. At the time, many saw the Scopes trial as a sign of deep conflict between science and religion.
Harlem Renaissance - With its substandard housing and high levels of unemployment and poverty, Harlem is a symbol of urban decay. The Renaissance was a 1920's movement wren black literature and music flourished; where Jazz originated.
Prohibition - The outlawing of alcoholic beverages nationwide from 1920 to 1933, under an amendment to the Constitution. By extension, the term also denotes those periods in history when such bans have been in force, as well as the political and social movements advocating them.
Ku Klux Klan - A secret society dedicated to the supremacy of white people in the United State. In the "Bible Belt" south and west, nativist movement; antiforeignism, anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, anti-evolutionist, anti-gambling, anti-adultery, and anti-birth control.
Normalcy - A word used by President Warren Harding to describe the calm political and social order to which he wished to return the United States after the idealism and commotion of the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Normalcy has been used as a general term for the political climate in the United States in the early 1920s.
John Maynard Keynes - A British economist of the early twentieth century who rejected traditional theories of the free market and advocated vast government spending in times of recession, even at the risk of unbalancing the budget.
Reconstruction Finance Corporation - Congress established the RFC in 1932 with the initial working capital of half a billion dollars. They became a government lending bank. Designed to provide indirect relief by assisting insurance companies, banks, agricultural organizations, railroads and local governments.
"Brain" Trust - A small group of reform-mined intellectuals that wrote speeches for Roosevelt. They authored much of the New Deal legislation.
Second New Deal - the hopes of 1933 for early recovery proved illusory. The US Supreme Court declared many of the hastily drafted early bills unconstitutional. These reverses, plus increasingly political opposition to Roosevelt, triggered a second flood of legislation, beginning in 1935, which some observers called the Second New Deal.
Dust Bowl - A parched region of the Great Plains, including parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, where a combination of drought and soil erosion created enormous dust storms in the 1930s. It suffered extensively from win erosion during the 1930's. The region suffered a period of severe droughts, and the soil began to blow away.
Share-Our-Wealth-Plan - Senator Huey P. Long's plan which promised to make every man "king" during FDR era, every family was to receive $5,000 at the expense of the more prosperous.
Destroyers-for-Bases Deal ? (1940) Britain was in critical need of destroyers, German subs were threatening to starve England out with attacks on shipping. Roosevelt agreed to transfer 50 old model, four funnel destroyers left over from WWI to Britain. The British promised to hand over eight valuable defensive base sites as compensation.
Lend-Lease Act - patriotically numbered 1776 was entitled, "An Act further to promote the defense of the United States." The underlying concept was ?send guns, not sons? or ?billions, not bodies.? It would send limitless supply of arms to the victims of aggression, who in turn would finish the job and keep the war on their side of the Atlantic. It was approved in March 1941 by sweeping majorities in the House and Senate.
Good Neighbor Policy - A policy of friendly treatment of Latin America by the United States, and avoidance of intervention in its affairs. The Good Neighbor Policy originated early in the presidency of FDR. The Good Neighbor Policy helped gain Latin American support for the allies in WWII.
Cash and Carry ? 1. (1917) - sold or provided for cash and usually without delivery service 2. (1921) The policy of selling on a cash-and-carry basis.
Appeasement ? 1) satisfaction, compromise, conciliation, placation, solace, soothing 2) A political policy of conceding to aggression by a warlike nation. A classic example of appeasement is the Munich Pact of 1938, negotiated between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain, the Prime Minster of Britain, allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia to Germany.
McCarthyism - The extreme opposition to Communism shown by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his supporters in the 1940s and 1950s. McCarthyism has become a general term for the hysterical investigation of a government's opponents, or the publicizing of accusations against these opponents without sufficient evidence to support the charges.
U-2 Affair - an American U-2 spy plane was shot down and its pilot captured deep inside Russia. After denials in Washington, President Eisenhower took the unprecedented step of assuming personal responsibility. Khrushchev stormed into the Paris Summit Conference in 1960 demanding Eisenhower to punish those responsible. The President naturally would not punish himself and the conference collapsed.
Containment Policy - President Truman declared that the US would help any free nation resist Communist aggression. The new policy became known as the Truman Doctrine.
Marshall Plan/European Recovery Program - The European Recovery Program, by which the United States made large donations after WWII to countries in Europe to help them rebuild their devastated economies. General George C. Marshall, the Secretary of the State, proposed the plan in 1947.
Suez Crisis - Government of Iran, supposedly influenced by the Kremlin, began to resist power of gigantic western company that began to control Iranian petroleum.
Sputnik - A series of Soviet satellites launched in 1957 and in following years. These were the first artificial satellites. The appearance of Sputnik stimulated a great deal of effort in the education of scientists and engineers in the United States. This period is now referred to as the post-Sputnik boom.
Cuban Missile Crisis ? A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the ?hottest? periods of the Cold War. The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence after the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States set up a naval blockade of Cuba, and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did so.
Civil Rights Movement ? The national effort made by black people and their supporters in the 1950s and 1960s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. The first large episode in the movement was a boycott of the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, touched off by the refusal of one black woman, Rosa Parks, to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. A number of sit-ins and similar demonstrations followed. A high point of the civil rights movement was a rally by hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963, at which a leader of the movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his ?I Have a Dream? speech. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorized federal action against segregation in public accommodations, public facilities, and employment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed after large demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, which drew some violent responses. The Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination by race in housing, was passed in 1968. After such legislative victories, the civil rights movement shifted emphasis toward education and changing the attitudes of white people. Some civil rights supporters turned toward militant movements , and the late 1960s saw several riots over racial questions. The Bakke Decision of 1978 threw some of the legal gains of black people into question.
Cesar Ch�vez (1927-93), An American labor leader of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, Ch�vez organized food harvesters in California, many of them Mexican-Americans like himself, into the United Farm Workers. This union led nationwide boycotts against the table grape industry and the lettuce industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Ch�vez is known for his commitment to nonviolent resistance.
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka - The 1954 Supreme Court decision represented another turning point; reversing the 1896 ?separate but equal? ruling, the Court held that compulsory segregation in public schools denies black children protection under the law. It later direction that desegregated educational facilities be furnished ?with all deliberate speed.?
NOW - major feminist organization, founded in the middle 1960s, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to enforce a clause in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender. NOW has worked to promote occupational opportunities for women and has supported legislative proposals that would guarantee women equality with men.
Bays of Pigs - The location of a failed attempt by Cuban exiles to invade Cuba in 1961. The invaders, numbering about 1400, had left after the Cuban Revolution, and returned to overthrow the new Cuban leader, Fidel Castro; they were trained and equipped by the United States CIA. The operation was a disaster for the invaders, most of whom were killed or taken prisoner. The Bay of Pigs incident is generally considered the most humiliating episode in the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who had approved the invasion.
Taft-Hartley Act - A major law concerning labor, passed by Congress in 1947. President Harry Truman vetoed Taft-Hartley, but it became law by a two-thirds vote of Congress. It marked a reversal of the pro-labor policies pursued under the presidency of FDR. For example, the law prohibited a list of ?unfair? labor practices and restricted the political activities of Labor Unions.
Black Power Movement - A movement that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Black Power calls for independent development of political and social institutions for black people, and emphasizes pride in black culture.
Vietnam War - Military struggle fought primarily in South Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. It began as an attempt by Communist guerillas (the so-called Vietcong) in the South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. The struggle widened into a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into a limited international conflict.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - international organization primarily concerned with coordinating the crude-petroleum policies of its member states. OPEC has 12 members: Algeria, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
Attica - In 1971, the prisoners at the state prison in Attica, New York seized 39 hostages and a quarter of the grounds. The end came four days later, when police stormed the prison, killing 29 prisoners and 10 hostages.
Silent Majority - A term used by President Richard Nixon to indicate his belief that the great body of Americans supported his policies, and that those who demonstrated against the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War amounted to only a noisy minority.
Kent State ? An incident in 1970, in which students demonstrating against the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War were fired on by troops of the National Guard. Four students were killed and eleven wounded. The shooting occurred at Kent State University in Ohio.
1973 Middle East War - Full-scale war broke out between the Arabs and Israeli conflict. Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and major battles occurred in the Sinai Peninsula and in the Golden Heights. In 1974 agreements were reached for separation of the Arab and Israeli forces.
Robert La Follette - In the 1924 election, he ran for the Progressive Party and pulled 5 million votes. His supporters included the Socialist party, the American Federation of Labor, and the price pinched farmers.
A Mitchell Palmer - Attorney General during the 1920?s who saw red too easily during the red scare. He rounded up 6000 suspects and tried to route out radicals. He was called the fighting Quaker and after his home burned he was called The Quaking Fighter.
Marcus Garvey - (1887 ? 1940), American advocate of black nationalism, born in Saint Ann?s bay, Jamaica. He founded the Black Star Line to provide steamship transportation and the Negro factories Corp. to provide economic independence to urge blacks to return to Africa.
Norman Thomas - (1884 ? 1968), American Socialist party leader and six-time candidate for the U.S. presidency. He authored more than 20 books and devoted his later years to lecturing and writing.
Bonus Army - During the depression, thousands of improvised veterans went to Washington trying to encourage the government to give them bonuses. They set up giant camps called Hooverville and created a menace to public health.
Fireside Chat - A series of informal radio addresses given FDR in the 1930s. In his fireside chats, Roosevelt sought to explain his policies to the American public, and to calm fears about the Great Depression.
CCC ? (Civilian Conservation Corps) - Employment in fresh-air government camps for 3 million young men, would do reforestation, fire fighting, flood control, and swamp drainage; help old folks by sending home their pay; human and natural resources conserved.
AAA ? (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) - through ?artificial scarcity? this agency established ?parity prices? for basic commodities.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) A corporation created by the federal government in the Great Depression to promote the economic development of the Tennessee River and adjoining areas. The TVA, known as a builder of dams, is responsible for flood control, the generation of electric power, soil conservation, and other areas of economic development. The TVA was part of the New Deal.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: (FDIC) - Federal agency that insures deposits in savings accounts of qualifying banks. Independent agency of the US government created in 1933 under a section of the Federal Reserve Act to insure deposits in banks in the event of bank failure. In 1950, the section of the act concerning the corporation was amended and made a separate law, the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. The act provides up to $100,000 insurance for each depositor in an insured bank.
Dr. Francis Townshend - Retired physician who savings were whipped out attracted the pathetic support of 5 million senior citizens with his fantastic plan. Each senior with 60 years or over were to receive $200 a month provided that the money was spent in that month, one estimate had the scheme costing half of the national income.
Father Charles Coughlin - American clergyman. Ordained Roman Catholic priest (1916). Pastor of Shrine of the Little Flower, Royal Oak, Mich. (1926 ? 66).
Huey P. Long - (1893 ? 1935) A political leader of the 1920s and 1930s who served as governor of Louisiana and represented that state in the Senate. He promised every family enough money for a home, car, radio, pension, and college education. A demagogue, Long dominated Louisiana's politics and pushed aside opposition. He planned to run for president, but was assassinated before he could do so. Long was nicknamed the ?Kingfish.?
Social Security Act - Established in 1946. The program is the nation?s primary means of assuring a continuing income when family earnings stop or are reduced because of the retirement, death, or disability of any person who contributes to the support of the family.
WPA Works Progress Administration - 1935. A program of the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s. The WPA built sidewalks, government buildings, and similar public works throughout the United States. During the Great Depression, the WPA employed many people who could not find other work.
Servicemen?s Readjustment Act - low interest loans for houses and schooling (or servicemen).
McCarren Internal Security Act, 1950 - A Wisconsin Republican Senator, Joseph R. McCarthy spectacularly charged there were known Communists in the Dept. of State. He proved utterly unable to substantiate his accusations and many feared the red hunt was turning into a witch hunt. Truman vetoed the McCarren Bill which authorized the president to arrest and detain suspicious persons during an internal security emergency. The bill was enacted over Truman?s veto.
SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference - Is a civil rights organization in the US. It works to gain equal rights for black Americans and other minority group through nonviolent civil protest and community development programs. Martin Luther King, Jr., founded it in 1957.
Office of Economic Opportunity - A federal agency, founded in the 1960s as part of the WAR ON POVERTY conducted by President Lyndon Johnson. The OEO distributed federal money to a variety of local programs designed to promote educational opportunities and job training among the poor, and to provide legal services for the poor. The OEO was abolished in the middle 1970s, and its programs have been curtailed or scattered among other federal agencies.
VISTA Volunteers in Service to America - Nonsectarian philanthropic organization with headquarters in New York City, founded by the American reformers Ballington Booth and his wife, Maud Charles Booth (1865 ? 1948), in 1896.
?New Federalism? - In 1969 Nixon proposed a series of major domestic reforms, which he termed the New Federalism. One of the reforms called for a minimum federal payment to every needy family with children. Action on the reforms was stalled as Democrats in Congress asked for major changes.
Watergate - Designa