Concepts - America of the 1920s

1. The American Dream

1.1. is the ideal that the government should protect each person's opportunity to pursue their own idea of happiness (The Declaration of Independence)

1.2. 1920s: right to create a better life = desire to acquire material things

1.3. Greed- driven version: unattainable, stock market crash of 1929, Great Depression

2. The Ku Klux Klan

2.1. founded in 1866

2.2. white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction era

2.2.1. Republican Party's Reconstruction era- the policies that aimed at establishing political and economical equality for blacks

2.3. underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at black and white Republican leaders

2.4. GOAL: Reestablishment of white supremacy

2.5. early 20th century -> White Protestant nativist group

3. The Palmer Raids

3.1. raids constructed by the US Department of Justice in 1919/1920 in attempt to arrest foreign anarchists,communists and radical leftists (many deported)

3.2. Led by attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer

3.3. The climax of RED SCARE

3.3.1. RED SCARE - Strong anticommunistic attitudes in America (2 Times- 1919/1920 & 1947-1957)

4. Bootlegger

4.1. smuggler

4.2. to make,sell, transport (alcholic liquor) for sale illegally

4.3. rum-running

4.4. illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages when such transport is forbidden by law

5. Speak easy

5.1. blind pig/tiger

5.2. illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages

5.3. prominence in the USA during prohibition era

5.4. NOW: most disappeared or retro-style bars

6. Isolationism

6.1. non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in international politics

6.2. George Washington advocated non-involvement in European wars and politics

6.3. Caused by Great Depression and tragic losses in the WWI

6.4. ISOLATIONISTS was a diversed group

7. The Jazz age -

7.1. created by Fitzgerald; defining era of Fitzgerald's life as a writer

7.2. 1920s

7.3. a period of wild economic prosperity, cultural flowering and shaking up the social morales

7.4. after war,booming stock market, new money = new morality

7.5. individualism and modernism

7.6. prohibition -> underground clubs

7.7. sexual morales loosend

7.8. youth-centric culture flourished

7.9. right to vote (19th amendment)

7.10. women could drink and smoke and not be considered prostitues

7.11. psychoanalysis - Freud

8. The Lost Generation

8.1. growing community of American artists and writers drawn to France for its inexpensive costs of living, liberal sexual codes,greet bars,numerous presses and magazines willing to publish them

8.2. living cheaply in Paris and working for US publishers hungry for new talent, paying handsomely

8.3. group of expatriates presided over arguably the Renaissance in USA literature

8.4. examples: Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot,Ernest Hemingway

8.5. artist born during WWI and often fought in the army

9. Flapper

9.1. describing women who smoked,drank,danced and voted

9.2. cut her hair, wore make-up, went to parties, giddy, took risks, young girls

9.3. not yet entered womenhood

9.4. wearing clothes enabling movement