Lesson 2: Social Change Flashcards
Bootlegger Definition
a person who smuggled liquor into the United States during Prohibition
Equal Rights Amendment Definition
a 1923 proposed constitutional amendment intended to prohibit all discrimination based on sex; the amendment was never ratified
League of Women Voters Definition
an organization established in 1920 to educate voters and promote rights for women
Mass Culture Definition
a set of shared practices and beliefs that arise from widespread exposure to the same media
Organized Crime Definition
criminal activity carried on by one or more organized groups as a business
Prohibition Definition
the legal ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor anywhere in the United States from 1920 to 1933
Repeal Definition
to cancel, remove from law
Suburb Definition
a residential area on the outskirts of a city
For nearly a century, which groups worked towards prohibition? Which amendment established prohibition in the United States and when? What was Prohibition often referred to? What is prohibition?
For nearly a century, reform groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union had worked to ban alcoholic beverages. They finally achieved this when the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919. One year later, Prohibition, often referred to as the “noble experiment,” went into effect. Prohibition was the legal ban of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol.
In 1920, how severe was alcohol abuse, as today? What benefit did Prohibition have on the American people? What was its overall effect?
In 1920, as today, alcohol abuse was a serious problem. Many Americans hoped the ban on liquor would improve American life. In fact, the ban did have some positive effects. Alcoholism declined during Prohibition. However, in the end, the ban did not work.
How did Americans getting around the law deem prohibition to be a failure? What were ways in which Americans got around the law? What were bootleggers?
One reason that Prohibition failed was that many Americans found ways to get around the law. Some people manufactured their own alcohol in homemade stills. Others smuggled in liquor from Canada and the Caribbean. Because these smugglers sometimes hid bottles of liquor in their boots, they became known as bootleggers.
How did speakeasies help deem Prohibition as a failure? In which way did speakeasies increase the love for drinking? How did the Government try to limit the illegal practices of speakeasies, homemade stills, and smuggling? What were Prohibition agents, or “g-men”?
Illegal bars, called speakeasies, opened in nearly every city and town. In some ways, speakeasies made drinking liquor more popular than ever. To enforce the ban, the government sent out federal Prohibition agents. These “g-men” traveled across the United States, shutting down speakeasies, breaking up illegal stills, and stopping smugglers.
How did Prohibition give a boost to organized crime? What was organized crime? What role did gangsters play in the supplying of speakeasies? What did they do to territories? How did crime become a big business? Was there any bribery?
Prohibition gave a huge boost to organized crime, or criminal activity organized as a business. Every speakeasy needed a steady supply of liquor. Professional criminals, or gangsters, took over the job of meeting this need. As bootleggers earned big profits, crime became a big business. Gangsters divided up cities and forced speakeasy owners in their “territories” to buy liquor from them. Sometimes, gangsters used some of their profits to bribe police officers, public officials, and judges.
Gradually, why were many Americans viewing Prohibition as a mistake? What was the evidence for this reasoning? By the mid-1920s, what were the statistics for Prohibition-related crimes?
Gradually, more Americans began to think that Prohibition was a mistake. The ban reduced drinking but never stopped it. Even worse, argued critics, Prohibition was undermining respect for the law. Every day, millions of Americans were buying liquor in speakeasies. By the mid-1920s, almost half of all federal arrests were for Prohibition-related crimes.
By the end of the 1920s, what were Americans asking for in relation to Prohibition? What amendment repealed prohibition? When was it passed?
By the end of the decade, many Americans were calling for the repeal, or ending, of Prohibition. In 1933, the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The noble experiment was over.
When was the Nineteenth Amendment ratified?
1920
In November 1920, what did women do for the first time? Who did they help elect? Did they vote in groups?
Women went to the polls nationwide for the first time in November 1920. Their votes helped elect Warren Harding President. Women did not vote as a group, however, as some people had predicted. Like men, some women voted for Republicans, and some for Democrats, and many did not vote at all.
In 1920, what did Carrie Chapman Catt, leader of the National Women Suffrage Association, establish? What does this organization do and what does it work for?
In 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National Woman Suffrage Association, set up the League of Women Voters. The organization worked to educate voters, as it does today. It also worked to guarantee other rights, such as the right of women to serve on juries.
In 1924, what advances had women made in terms of delegation? In the same year, who were the first two female governors?
Women served as delegates in the 1924 Republican and Democratic conventions. That year, the first two women governors were elected—Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas.
In 1929, how did Puerto Rican women, under the United States, receive the right to vote? Who was Ana Roqué de Duprey?
Women in Puerto Rico asked if they now had the right to vote. They were told that they did not. Led by Ana Roqué de Duprey, an educator and writer, Puerto Rican women crusaded for the vote. In 1929, their crusade finally succeeded.
What legal rights did women still lack after gaining suffrage? What constitutional amendment did Alice Paul propose in 1923? What was it called and what did it state?
Leaders in the suffrage movement began to work for new goals. Alice Paul, who had been a leading suffragist, pointed out that women still lacked many legal rights. For example, many professional schools still barred women, and many states gave husbands legal control over their wives’ earnings. Paul called for a new constitutional amendment in 1923. Paul’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Why did many think that the Equal Rights Amendment, proposed by Alice Paul in 1923, went to far? What protections did people fear women would lose? How long did Alice Paul push for this amendment? Although being passed by Congress, why was the Amendment not ratified?
Many people feared that the ERA went too far. Some argued that women would lose legal safeguards, such as laws that protected them in factories. Paul worked hard for the ERA until her death in 1977. The amendment passed in Congress but was never ratified by the states.
Remember: Women’s lives changed in other ways in the 1920s. During World War I, thousands of women had worked outside the home for the first time. They filled the jobs of men who had gone off to war. When the troops came home, many women were forced to give up their jobs. Still, some remained in the workforce.
Women’s lives changed in other ways in the 1920s. During World War I, thousands of women had worked outside the home for the first time. They filled the jobs of men who had gone off to war. When the troops came home, many women were forced to give up their jobs. Still, some remained in the workforce.
For some women, why was working outside the home normal? Which women joined these women in the 1920s?
For some women, working outside the home was nothing new. Poor women and working-class women had been cooks, servants, and seamstresses for many years. In the 1920s, they were joined by middle-class women who worked as teachers, typists, secretaries, and store clerks. A few women even managed to become doctors and lawyers despite discrimination.
