Unit 4: Ecstasy and Depression (1920-1940)
Unit Overview: Ecstasy and Depression
This unit covers the years 1919-1940. Major events/themes found in the unit:
The Versailles Treaty and Post-WWI Europe
1920's: "Return to Normalcy"
1920's: Sweeping technological and social changes
1920's: The rise of the stock market
The Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression
Roosevelt's "New Deal"
Isolationism and the growing crisis in Europe
Unit Essay: The New Deal
In order to get credit for this project you must an essay on the following topic:
The New Deal
The decade following the end of WWI was one of great prosperity for the United States; This era, dubbed by historians "The Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age" was a blur of stock speculation, revolution in music and culture, and a prohibition that was mostly ignored. Unfortunately for Americans and the world, the Roaring Twenties came to an abrupt end with the stock market crash of 1929, and the world plunged into a Great Depression that destroyed economies, lives, and hope. While Herbert Hoover seemed to offer no solution to the Great Depression, in the election of 1932 Franklin Roosevelt promised the Americans a "New Deal" if elected, and he followed through on the promise with a series of programs designed to fight the depression that fundamentally altered the relationship between citizen and state. Using your knowledge of this era, pick three aspects of Roosevelt's New Deal and write an essay of 600 words or more explaining how the New Deal altered the traditional relationship between government and its citizens that had existed prior to the Great Depression.
Here is a list of New Deal programs that you may use and describe in your essay:
List of New Deal Programs. Several programs listed with a very brief description of what it does.
New Deal Agencies. List of New Deal agencies categorized into relief, recovery, and reform
FDR's New Deal. Much longer list of the New Deal programs, but no categorization.
The New Deal Wikipedia article on the New Deal discussing some of its implications
Unit Videos:
The Century Part 3, Boom and Bust (45:00)
American Experience: Riding the Rails (51:32)
The Century Part 4, Stormy Weather (45:00)
Unit Lectures:
Unit Primary Sources:
US History Recon A Unit 4 Key Terms
For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance.
Unit 4 Key Terms:
1. Great Migration
2. 1st Red Scare
3. Emergency Quota Act
4. Birth of a Nation
5. Normalcy
6. Harlem Renaissance
7. Roaring 20's
8. Steel Strike of 1919
9. 19th Amendment
10. mass production
11. The Jazz Singer
12. Scopes Monkey Trial
13. ACLU
14. 18th Amendment
15. Crash of 1929
16. The Great Depression
17. Hoovervilles
18. Elections of 1932
19. The New Deal
20. Dustbowl
Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:
William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)
Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)