Course Content
Technical Support
1-800-234-5832
M–Th: 8:00A.M.–Midnight EST
F: 8:00A.M.–10:00P.M. EST
Lesson Plans
The American Nation: A History of the United States ©2000
by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes
Focus Lesson 20
Chapter 25: "Postwar Society and Culture: Change and Adjustment"
Chapter 26: "The New Era: 1921 to 1933"
AP* Course Description
- The New Era: The 1920s
- Republican governments
- Business creed
- Harding scandals
- Economic development
- Prosperity and wealth
- Farm and labor problems
- New culture
- Consumerism: automobile, radio, movies
- Women, the family
- Modern religion
- Literature of alienation
- Jazz age
- Harlem Renaissance
- Conflict of cultures
- Prohibition, bootlegging
- Nativism
- Ku Klux Klan
- Religious fundamentalism versus modernists
- Republican governments
- Depression, 1929–1933
- Wall Street crash
- Depression economy
- Moods of despair
- Bonus march
Key Components
- Instructor's Manual:
Chapter 25, pp. 242–250
Chapter 26, pp. 251–260 - Study Guide, Vol. II:
Chapter 25, pp. 147–162
Chapter 26, pp. 163–178 - Test Bank:
Chapter 25, pp. 418–434
Chapter 26, pp. 435–451
Key Web Sites
Given the changing nature of the Internet, you may wish to preview these sites. Check the Online Companion Web site for updated links to U.S. history sites.
- Business, Economics and Labor: Automotive History
- Jazz Online
- Harlem: 1900–1940
- Major League Baseball Statistics
- The Coolidge Experience
- The Crash of 1929
Key Words and Terms
Chapter 25
- immigration quota system
- Greenwich Village Bohemian
- decathalon
- speakeasy
- assembly line
- The Jazz Singer
- Federal Communications Commission
- Prohibition
- Ku Klux Klan
- Universal Negro Improvement Association
- Alice Paul
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- H.L. Mencken
- William Jennings Bryan
- Langston Hughes
- Sinclair Lewis
- eugenics
- nickelodeons
- fundamentalism
- "lost generation"
- Birth of a Nation
- Scopes trial
- Comstock Act
- Lever Act
- Middletown study
- Harlem Renaissance
- John B. Watson
- Sacco and Vanzetti
- Frederick W. Taylor
- Clarence Darrow
- Margaret Sanger
- Ernest Hemingway
Chapter 26
- normalcy
- adjusted compensation
- totalitarian
- Washington Naval Conference
- Good Neighbor Policy
- stock market crash
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation
- Andrew Mellon
- Albert Fall
- Ohio Gang
- Harry Sinclair
- Dwight Morrow
- Felix Frankfurter
- infant industries
- Yankeephobia
- Teapot Dome
- Kellogg-Briand Pact
- Manchukuo
- Hawley-Smoot Tariff
- Hoovervilles
- Charles Forbes
- Thomas J. Walsh
- Harry Daugherty
- John W. Davis
- Alfred E. Smith
Suggested Pacing
Allow two weeks for teaching these two chapters on the 1920s. Together, they provide a look at the political, social, cultural, and economic changes that took place in this pivotal decade between the world wars.
Test Strategy
Point out to students that in answering an essay question about the significance of an event or person, they should discuss how the person or event influenced other people or events. For example, the significance of the introduction of the assembly line in automobile manufacturing is that it made possible the quick, relatively inexpensive production of cars. But this would explain only a little of the importance of the auto assembly line. The production of large numbers of relatively inexpensive cars made it possible for more people to afford to buy cars. Once they had cars, people wanted somewhere to go, thus creating a demand for improved road systems, and with cars and better roads, people could move out from the city to less crowded areas. As a result, suburbs spread.
Key Concepts
- The prosperity of the 1920s
Through class discussion, assist students in understanding how unevenly distributed the prosperity of the United States was in the 1920s. Discuss the life of the average farmers, women, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Continue the dialogue by making the connection between Marcus Garvey's philosophy and that of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. - Roots of World War II
The peace treaty that ended World War I contained the root causes of World War II. Some of those causes related to the division of territory, but perhaps the most important was the growing worldwide depression. One of the measures that hit Germany hardest was the demand that it pay the Allies reparations, which led to highly inflated currency worth little. - Global economy
The United States began the decade as the world's creditor nation. While European nations were able to borrow money, they could buy U.S.-made goods, but once the United States began to demand repayment of war loans, the market for U.S. goods began to dry up. The internal market for goods also began to decline because there was a finite number of consumers who could afford to buy goods—even on credit. Business expansion had been fueled by stock prices and once businesses stopped expanding, prices began to fall. The United States joined the depression that had already hit Europe in the early part of the 1920s.
Summing Up Student Understanding
To connect history and literature, design a cross-curricular unit with the English/Language Arts Department. Together, plan a unit in which students will read an example of literature from the 1920s, such as The Great Gatsby, in English class, and will learn about the society that created the environment that spawned Jay Gatsby in your class . Include African American writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and have students do research on the Harlem Renaissance and its contributions to literature.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
You might also find these additional readings useful in developing students' background knowledge or for DBQ activities:
- American Issues: Vol. II Since 1865, edited by Unger and Tomes—Chapter 8
- The Power of Words: Vol. II From 1865, edited by Breen—Chapter 7
- Constructing the American Past, Vol. II, edited by Gorn, Roberts, and Bilhartz—Chapter 8
- American Experiences: Vol. II From 1877, edited by Roberts and Olson (secondary source readings)—Part Four