Section I
IAETSOs — Identify & Explain the Significance Of
Click any term to reveal its significance. Check off terms you've studied. Organized chronologically by era.
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Ch. 18
The Progressive Era
1900 – 1916 ▼"New immigration" — what group, what period, and why was their quest for freedom a struggle?
Why did socialism thrive during the Progressive Era, and who led it?
What was "new feminism" and how did it spearhead broader reforms?
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti-democratic impulses?
How did each Progressive Era president view the federal government's role?
1900–1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
A 1911 factory fire in NYC that killed 146 garment workers, mostly immigrant women, due to locked exits and poor safety. Galvanized the labor movement and led to major workplace safety legislation and fire codes in New York and across the nation.
1900s
Muckrakers
Investigative journalists who exposed corruption, unsafe conditions, and corporate abuses. Figures like Upton Sinclair (The Jungle), Ida Tarbell (Standard Oil), and Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives) helped shape public opinion and drive Progressive legislation.
1900s
Child Labor
The widespread employment of children in hazardous industries — mines, factories, mills — was a Progressive Era target. Reformers like Lewis Hine documented abuse; the Keating-Owen Act (1916) was the first federal attempt to limit it (later struck down). Eventually restricted by New Deal laws.
1890s–1910s
Ellis Island & Angel Island
Ellis Island (NY) processed millions of European immigrants; Angel Island (CA) processed and often detained Asian immigrants under far harsher conditions. Symbolize both the promise and the inequalities of American immigration policy in the era of "new immigration."
1900s
AFL vs. IWW
The American Federation of Labor (craft union, skilled workers, Samuel Gompers) vs. the Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies" — radical, unskilled workers, all industries). Represented a fundamental split in labor strategy: incremental reform vs. revolutionary industrial unionism.
1900s–1910s
Birth-Control Movement
Led by Margaret Sanger, who challenged laws criminalizing contraception. Argued reproductive freedom was essential to women's autonomy. Founded what became Planned Parenthood. Represented the intersection of feminism, public health, and class politics.
1902
Coal Miner's Strike of 1902
United Mine Workers struck in PA; TR intervened and forced arbitration (first time federal gov't sided with labor, not capital). Established the precedent of presidential mediation in labor disputes and signaled a new activist role for the executive branch.
1906
Pure Food and Drug Act
Passed in 1906 following public outrage (partly spurred by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). Prohibited adulterated or mislabeled food and drugs sold in interstate commerce. Created the foundation for the modern FDA. Key example of federal consumer protection.
1901–1909
Roosevelt and Conservation
TR set aside 150 million acres of national forests, created 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, and 51 wildlife refuges. Signed the Newlands Reclamation Act (1902). Distinguished between preservation (Muir) and sustainable use (Pinchot); placed conservation on the national agenda.
Ch. 19
Safe for Democracy — World War I
1916 – 1920 ▼How did Progressive Era presidents promote American power overseas?
What two main events drew the U.S. into WWI?
How were civil liberties infringed upon during WWI?
How did the National Woman's Party change suffrage advocacy?
How were African Americans excluded from Progressive reforms? Compare DuBois vs. Garvey.
Why was 1919 a watershed year?
How did Wilson's "self-determination" animate third-world intellectuals?
1903
Panama Canal Zone
The U.S. backed Panamanian independence from Colombia in 1903 to secure canal rights. The Canal (completed 1914) connected Atlantic and Pacific, reducing shipping time dramatically. Symbolized American imperial reach and strategic economic interest in hemispheric dominance.
1904
Roosevelt's Corollary
Extension of the Monroe Doctrine (1904): the U.S. claimed the right to intervene in Latin American nations with "chronic wrongdoing" to prevent European interference. Justified repeated interventions (Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic). Seen across Latin America as Yankee imperialism.
1909–1913
Dollar Diplomacy
Taft's policy of using U.S. investment and financial control to advance foreign policy goals, especially in Latin America and China. Backed by force when necessary. Replaced gunboat diplomacy with economic leverage but still served U.S. imperial interests.
1917
Zimmermann Telegram
Secret German telegram (intercepted by Britain) proposing a military alliance with Mexico against the U.S., offering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Outraged American public; major catalyst for entering WWI in April 1917.
1917
Committee on Public Information (CPI)
George Creel's propaganda bureau created to manufacture consent for WWI. Used posters, films, pamphlets, and "Four-Minute Men" speakers. Stoked nationalist fervor and anti-German hysteria; set a precedent for modern government propaganda and the use of mass media in wartime.
1919
18th Amendment
Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors (Prohibition). Ratified 1919, took effect 1920. Driven by Progressive temperance movement. Led to rise of organized crime, speakeasies, and widespread flouting of the law; repealed by 21st Amendment (1933).
1917
Espionage Act of 1917
Made it illegal to obstruct military recruitment or interfere with war operations. Used to prosecute antiwar voices including Eugene Debs (sentenced to 10 years). The Supreme Court upheld it in Schenck v. U.S. (1919) with Holmes's "clear and present danger" test. Major civil liberties violation.
1918
Sedition Act
Extended the Espionage Act to criminalize "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the U.S. government, flag, or military. Effectively suppressed all dissent. Targeted socialists, labor organizers, and immigrants. Repealed in 1920.
1900s
Color Line
W.E.B. DuBois's concept (from The Souls of Black Folk, 1903) describing racial segregation as the defining problem of the 20th century. The color line structured American life through Jim Crow, disenfranchisement, lynching, and exclusion from Progressive reform and WWI democracy.
1909
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — founded 1909 by DuBois, Ida B. Wells, and others. Fought for civil rights through legal challenges, publicity, and political lobbying. Key organization in the long civil rights struggle; won landmark cases including Brown v. Board (1954).
1920s
Garveyites
Followers of Marcus Garvey's UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association). Advocated Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and "Back to Africa." Mass movement among urban Black Americans in the 1920s; challenged the integrationist approach of the NAACP. Garvey deported in 1927.
1919–1920
Red Scare
Post-WWI wave of anti-communist fear; Palmer Raids (1919–20) arrested thousands of suspected radicals, many immigrants, with little due process. Accelerated nativist sentiment leading to the 1924 Immigration Act. ACLU founded in response. Foreshadowed 1950s McCarthyism.
1918
Fourteen Points
Wilson's 1918 peace plan: freedom of the seas, self-determination, open diplomacy, arms reduction, and a League of Nations. Inspired subject peoples worldwide but were largely ignored at Versailles. The Senate rejected U.S. membership in the League; Wilson's idealism crashed against political reality.
1919
League of Nations
Wilson's proposed international peacekeeping body (Article X of the Treaty of Versailles). Senate rejected it — isolationists and reservationists (led by Henry Cabot Lodge) refused to surrender U.S. sovereignty. The U.S. never joined. Weakened the League and set the stage for WWII.
Ch. 20
Business Culture to Great Depression — The Twenties
1920 – 1932 ▼What products became staples of the 1920s and how did they create a "new society"?
How did Harding and Coolidge fuse government and business like no other time?
How did the Scopes Trial highlight the tension between fundamentalist and modernist?
How did the KKK's resurgence and Coolidge's race policy inspire the 1924 Immigration Act?
What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were government responses by 1932?
1927
Sacco and Vanzetti
Italian immigrant anarchists convicted of murder in 1920 and executed in 1927 despite thin evidence. Case became international symbol of nativist hysteria, anti-radical bias, and failure of American justice. Widely seen as victims of the Red Scare and ethnic prejudice.
1920s
"Welfare Capitalism" vs. American Plan
Welfare capitalism: companies offered benefits (pensions, housing) to discourage unionization. American Plan: open-shop movement to eliminate unions entirely. Together they weakened organized labor in the 1920s prosperity decade. When the Depression hit, workers had no safety net.
1923
Equal Rights Amendment
First introduced in 1923 by Alice Paul and the NWP — proposed constitutional equality regardless of sex. Opposed by many progressives who feared it would overturn protective labor laws for women. Remained controversial throughout the period; not passed by Congress until 1972.
1920s
Flapper Girls
Symbol of 1920s "new woman" — bobbed hair, short skirts, jazz clubs, cigarettes. Challenged Victorian femininity and gender norms. Reflected new consumer culture, women's greater economic independence post-suffrage, and the cultural rebellion of the Jazz Age.
1923
Teapot Dome Scandal
Secretary of Interior Albert Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves at Teapot Dome, WY and Elk Hills, CA to private companies in exchange for bribes. First cabinet member imprisoned for crimes in office. Epitomized Harding administration corruption and government-business collusion.
1924–1928
McNary-Haugen Farm Bill
Proposed federal price supports for farm commodities — government would buy surpluses and sell abroad. Twice vetoed by Coolidge as government interference in the market. Highlighted the agricultural crisis of the 1920s and farmer political mobilization; presaged New Deal farm policy.
1930
Hays Code
Hollywood's self-censorship code (enforced from 1930s) that prohibited certain content in films — crime, sexuality, religious disrespect. Reflected cultural conservatism reacting against 1920s permissiveness. Showed the power of religious and civic groups to police popular culture.
1920
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Founded 1920 by Roger Baldwin in response to the Palmer Raids and WWI civil liberties violations. Defended free speech, press, and due process. Represented John Scopes (1925); has fought landmark civil liberties cases ever since. Essential countervailing force to government repression.
1920s
"100 Percent Americanism"
Nativist ideology of the 1920s demanding cultural, linguistic, and racial conformity. Fueled KKK revival, the 1924 Immigration Act (quotas targeting Southern/Eastern Europeans and Asians), and anti-communist hysteria. Defined "real" Americans against immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and Blacks.
1920s
"Illegal Alien"
Term emerged after the 1924 Immigration Act made Mexican migration illegal for the first time (no quota assigned). Created a new category of criminalized worker; Border Patrol founded 1924. Began the pattern of mass deportations (including during the Depression) that defines modern immigration politics.
1920s
New Negro
Cultural movement (Harlem Renaissance) asserting Black dignity, artistic achievement, and political assertion. Alain Locke's 1925 anthology; Hughes, Hurston, Cullen. Harlem became center of Black cultural life. Represented rejection of accommodation and a new assertion of Black identity and pride.
1932
Bonus Marchers
WWI veterans who marched to Washington in 1932 demanding early payment of their promised bonus. Hoover ordered MacArthur to forcibly disperse them with tanks and tear gas. The violent response shocked the nation and destroyed Hoover's political standing; contributed to FDR's landslide election.
Ch. 21
The New Deal
1933 – 1939 ▼Compare and contrast FDR and Theodore Roosevelt.
What were the major policy initiatives of the First Hundred Days? How did they transform the role of government?
What did the CIO set out to do, and what did they accomplish?
How did the Second New Deal differ from the First?
To what extent did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities?
1933
Bank Holiday
FDR declared a 4-day national bank holiday on March 6, 1933 — his first major act. Stopped bank runs; Treasury inspected banks before reopening only the solvent ones. Restored public confidence. Accompanied by the Emergency Banking Act. The First Hundred Days began here.
1933
Glass-Steagall Act
Separated commercial and investment banking, preventing banks from using deposits for stock speculation. Created FDIC (federal deposit insurance). Addressed the reckless banking that contributed to the Depression. Partially repealed in 1999 — deregulation many blame for the 2008 financial crisis.
1933
National Recovery Administration (NRA)
Created codes for industry: fair wages, prices, hours, and collective bargaining. Struck down by SCOTUS in Schechter Poultry (1935) as unconstitutional delegation of congressional power. Symbolized First New Deal's attempt at cooperative economic planning and its constitutional limits.
1933
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Employed 3 million young men in national parks and forests — planting trees, building trails, fighting fires. Provided income sent home to families. Popular and successful; symbol of New Deal's conservation legacy. Excluded women; Black CCC workers often in segregated camps.
1933
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Federal corporation that built dams and hydroelectric plants across the Tennessee Valley — one of the poorest regions of the U.S. Provided cheap electricity, flood control, and economic development to 7 states. Most ambitious example of New Deal regional planning; still exists today.
1933
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
Paid farmers to reduce crop production to raise prices. Controversial — destroyed food while people starved; Black sharecroppers often cut out of payments. Struck down in 1936 but reenacted. Established federal role in agricultural markets and transformed the political economy of farming.
1930s
Dust Bowl
Drought + over-farming of Great Plains led to catastrophic dust storms ("Black Blizzards") throughout the 1930s. Displaced 3.5 million people — "Okies" migrating to California. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath captured it. Led to federal soil conservation programs and migrant labor policies.
1933
21st Amendment
Repealed Prohibition (18th Amendment) in 1933. FDR supported repeal as an economic stimulus (taxable alcohol revenue) and as a morale boost. Symbolized the failure of government moralism and the pragmatic New Deal approach to Depression-era politics.
1930s
Huey Long
Louisiana governor and senator, "Kingfish." Populist critic of FDR from the left — "Share Our Wealth" plan proposed capping fortunes and guaranteeing minimum income. Assassinated 1935. His popularity forced FDR left toward the Second New Deal's more redistributive policies.
1935
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Employed 8.5 million workers in public construction, arts, and literacy projects. Built airports, roads, schools; funded Federal Theatre and Writers Projects. Largest New Deal employment agency. Demonstrated government's capacity as employer of last resort. Transformed public infrastructure.
1935
Social Security Act
Created old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and aid for the disabled and dependent children. Most consequential New Deal measure — established the American welfare state. Excluded farmworkers and domestic workers (disproportionately Black and Latino). Expanded significantly in subsequent decades.
1937
Court Packing Plan
FDR's attempt to add up to 6 new justices (one for each sitting justice over 70) after SCOTUS struck down New Deal programs. Congress rejected it — even Democrats opposed. Political blunder that damaged FDR's second term. But SCOTUS suddenly began upholding New Deal laws ("switch in time").
1930s
American Communist Party
CPUSA gained influence during the Depression as the only major organization actively fighting for Black civil rights (Scottsboro Boys), organizing unemployed workers, and building multiracial coalitions. Tied to Soviet Comintern policy; later devastated by Cold War repression. Critical to understanding 1930s labor and civil rights history.
1938
Minimum Wage Laws
Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) established federal minimum wage (25¢/hr), maximum 44-hour workweek, and abolished child labor in interstate commerce. Final major New Deal reform. Did not cover domestic workers or farmworkers (again excluding minorities). Established federal standards for labor.
1934
Indian New Deal
Indian Reorganization Act (1934), John Collier's "Indian New Deal" — ended Dawes Act allotments, restored tribal self-governance, and supported Native cultures. Most significant shift in federal Indian policy since the 1880s. Reversed forced assimilation; restored ~2 million acres. Contested by some Native leaders.
1935–1939
The Popular Front
Communist International strategy (1935) to unite liberals, socialists, and communists against fascism. In the U.S., it shaped labor organizing (CIO), cultural production, and civil rights activism. Created a broad left coalition in the 1930s. Collapsed with the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939).
1931
Scottsboro Boys
Nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama (1931). Convicted by all-white juries; SCOTUS overturned twice (Powell v. Alabama, Norris v. Alabama). ILD and CPUSA led the defense. Became international symbol of Jim Crow injustice and the struggle for Black civil rights.
1938
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
Congressional committee created 1938, originally to investigate both Nazi and Communist influence. Became a platform for anti-communist witch hunts. Presaged McCarthyism; targeted Hollywood, labor unions, and civil rights activists. Chilling effect on free speech and political organizing.
Ch. 22
Fighting for the Four Freedoms — WWII
1939 – 1945 ▼What steps led to American participation in WWII?
How did the U.S. mobilize resources and promote popular support for the war?
How did a war for "essential human freedoms" fail to protect the rights of Blacks, Native peoples, Japanese-Americans, and Mexican-Americans?
What role did African Americans play in WWII? How did the NAACP, CORE, and Black internationalists fight for equality postwar?
Was the U.S. justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
How did Bretton Woods positively position the U.S. in the postwar period?
1941
Four Freedoms
FDR's Jan. 1941 State of the Union articulated the four freedoms worth fighting for: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. Defined American war aims ideologically; Norman Rockwell's paintings made them iconic. Created an ironic tension with domestic racism.
1933
Good Neighbor Policy
FDR's hemispheric policy — renounced military intervention in Latin America, repealed the Platt Amendment, withdrew from Haiti. Built goodwill and solidarity in WWII. Reversed TR's Corollary; acknowledged prior imperialism. Made Pan-American solidarity possible against the Axis.
1941
Lend-Lease Act
1941 act allowing FDR to lend or lease war materials to any nation vital to U.S. defense. Primarily aided Britain and later USSR. Got around neutrality laws. Committed U.S. resources to Allied cause before Pearl Harbor. "Arsenal of Democracy" — $50B total aid by war's end.
1942
Bataan "Death March"
After fall of Bataan (Philippines, April 1942), 76,000 Filipino and American POWs were force-marched 65 miles in brutal heat with no food or water; thousands died. Shocked American public; intensified Pacific war hatred and propaganda. Symbol of Japanese war crimes.
1944
D-Day (Operation Overlord)
June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy — 156,000 troops, 5,000 ships. Opened Western Front Stalin had demanded. Turned the tide in Western Europe; Germany now fighting on two fronts. Led to liberation of France and ultimate Allied victory in Europe (May 1945).
1942
Office of War Information
Federal agency managing wartime propaganda — films, posters, radio, print. Promoted unity, patriotism, and enemy hatred. Built on CPI model from WWI. Collaborated with Hollywood. Contradictions: promoted racial tolerance abroad while enforcing Jim Crow at home.
1942
War Advertising Council
Partnership between government and advertising industry to create pro-war consumer messaging. Promoted war bonds, rationing, and home front sacrifice. Created lasting infrastructure for public service advertising. Became the Ad Council after the war.
1942
Rosie the Riveter
Cultural icon of female industrial workers during WWII — 6 million women entered the workforce in war industries. J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" poster. Symbolized transformation in gender roles; women proved competence in traditionally male jobs. Many fired after war to give jobs to veterans.
1944
Economic Bill of Rights
FDR's 1944 State of the Union proposed a "second bill of rights" — right to employment, fair wages, decent housing, medical care, and education. Never enacted but influenced postwar liberal politics and the GI Bill. Represented FDR's vision of social democracy for postwar America.
1944
GI Bill of Rights
Servicemen's Readjustment Act (1944) — provided veterans with college tuition, low-interest home loans, and unemployment benefits. Created the postwar middle class; 8 million veterans attended college. However benefits were administered locally and often denied to Black veterans — deepened racial wealth gap.
1942
Bracero Program
1942–1964 guest worker program importing Mexican agricultural laborers to replace drafted American workers. 4.6 million contracts; workers often exploited. Demonstrates wartime labor contradictions — needed Mexican labor but simultaneously deported "illegal aliens." Laid groundwork for postwar immigration patterns.
1943
Zoot Suit Riots
June 1943 LA — white sailors attacked Mexican-American youth wearing zoot suits, which they deemed unpatriotic (excess fabric). Police arrested victims, not attackers. Symbolized racial violence against Latinos, wartime racial tensions, and the limits of the "Good War" ideology of equality.
1942–1945
Navajo Code Talkers
Native Americans (primarily Navajo) recruited to develop and transmit military communications in their native language — unbreakable code. Contributed to victories at Iwo Jima and elsewhere. Irony: same people whose language and culture had been suppressed in federal boarding schools were now using it to win the war.
1942
Executive Order 9066
FDR's order authorizing the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast — 70,000 were U.S. citizens. Forced into camps; lost homes, businesses, and property. No charges, no trials. One of the worst civil liberties violations in American history; Congress apologized in 1988 (Civil Liberties Act).
1944
Korematsu v. United States
SCOTUS upheld EO 9066 in a 6-3 decision (1944), ruling national security interests outweighed individual rights. Dissents by Murphy and Jackson were powerful. Formally overruled by Trump v. Hawaii (2018). Represents SCOTUS's failure to protect civil liberties during wartime and racial hysteria.
1942–1945
Double-V Campaign
Pittsburgh Courier's 1942 campaign: "Double Victory" — victory abroad over fascism AND victory at home over racism. Linked WWII to civil rights struggle; argued that fighting fascism abroad while tolerating Jim Crow at home was hypocritical. Set agenda for postwar civil rights movement.
1942–1945
Manhattan Project
Top-secret program to develop atomic weapons — 130,000 workers, $2B, sites in TN, WA, NM (Los Alamos). Led by Oppenheimer; Einstein's letter prompted it. Produced the bombs dropped on Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9), 1945. Inaugurated nuclear age and Cold War arms race.
1945
Yalta Conference
Feb. 1945 — FDR, Churchill, Stalin. Agreed on post-war occupation zones in Germany, free elections in Eastern Europe (Stalin ignored this), Soviet entry against Japan, and United Nations. Later seen as a "sell-out" to Stalin; set stage for Cold War divisions. FDR died 2 months later.
1944
Bretton Woods Conference
July 1944 — 44 nations. Created IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank; established dollar as global reserve currency (tied to gold). Designed postwar international economic order to prevent another Great Depression. Cemented U.S. economic dominance in postwar world until Nixon ended gold standard (1971).