Jacob Gellert
APUSH Flashcards 88-131
WWI
88. “Over There”
Define: "Over There" is a 1917 song written by George M. Cohan that was popular with United
States soldiers in both world wars. It was a patriotic song designed to galvanize American young
men to enlist in the army and fight the "Hun".
Describe & Explain: Cohan wrote the song in 1917 when the United States entered World War I
on the side of the Allies and began sending troops to Europe. The song reflected Americans'
expectations that the war would be short.
Significance: This song, as well as "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", was a popular patriotic song
during the First World War. On June 29, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Cohan
the Congressional Gold Medal for this and other songs.
Cross Reference: WWI, the “Hun”, “the Yankees Are Coming”
89. Trench Warfare
Define: Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely
of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are
substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western
Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in
conflict.
Describe & Explain: Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched
by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender
held the advantage.
Significance: On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and
dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire. The
area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed to artillery fire
from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties. The efficacy of
trench warfare was effectively ended with the invention and adoption of the tank.
Cross Reference: Tanks, WWI, the “Hun”
90. Flue Epidemic
Define: The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly
influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.
Describe & Explain: It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific
islands and the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the
world's population), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
Significance: Disease had already greatly limited life expectancy in the early twentieth century.
A considerable spike occurred at the time of the pandemic, specifically the year 1918. Life
expectancy dropped by about 12 years.
Cross Reference: WWI, Disease, Trench Warfare, Life Expectancy
91. War Industries Board
Define: The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on
July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies.
Describe & Explain: The WIB dealt with labor-management disputes resulting from increased
demand for products during World War I. The government could not negotiate prices and could
not handle worker strikes, so the War Industries Board regulated the two to decrease tensions by
stopping strikes with wage increases to prevent a shortage of supplies going to the war in
Europe.
Significance: The organization encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to
increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing products. The board set
production quotas and allocated raw materials. It also conducted psychological testing to help
people find the right jobs.
Cross Reference: WWI, the Big Three, Mass-Production
92. Committee on Public Information
Define: The Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee,
was an independent agency of the government of the United States created to influence U.S.
public opinion regarding American participation in World War I.
Describe & Explain: Over just 28 months, from April 14, 1917, to June 30, 1919, it used every
medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and enlist public support against foreign
attempts to undercut America's war aims. It primarily used propaganda techniques to accomplish
these goals.
Significance: The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward
supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign.
Cross Reference: WWI, Reparations, Infrastructure
93. Anti-Espionage Act
Define: The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917,
shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I.
Describe & Explain: It was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or
recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of U.S.
enemies during wartime.
Significance: In 1919, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled through Schenck v. United
States that the act did not violate the freedom of speech of those convicted under its provisions.
The constitutionality of the law, its relationship to free speech, and the meaning of its language
have been contested in court ever since.
Cross Reference: WWI, Sedition Act, Flu Epidemic
94. Anti-Sedition Act
Define: The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the
Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression
of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale
of government bonds.
Describe & Explain: It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language"
about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the
American government or its institutions with contempt.
Significance: Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for
five to 20 years.
Cross Reference: WWI, Flu Epidemic, Espionage Act, Red Scare
95. Formation of the modern US Army
Define: As time goes on, more and more wars are happening on land rather than water due to the
fact that machinery/technology has become more and more advanced.
Describe & Explain: The U.S is catching up with Europe and its Navy. Blockades are preventing
the use of Naval forces.
Significance: Tanks, machine guns, land mines, heavy artillery and mustard gas are being
developed to create a more modern warfare environment.
Cross Reference: Military Development, Navy, Tanks, Trench Warfare
96. Versailles Treaty
Define: The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It
ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers.
Describe & Explain: It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were
dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the
actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the
peace treaty.
Significance: Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial
required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the
loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties
containing similar articles).
Cross Reference: WWI, WWII, Armistice
97. The Big Three
Define: When used in relation to the United States automotive industry, most generally refers to
the three major American automotive companies: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler (FCA
US).
Describe & Explain: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US
are often referred to as the "Big Three," being the largest automakers in the United States and
Canada. They were for a while the largest in the world and two of them are still a mainstay in the
top five.
Significance: The Big Three are also distinguished not just by their size and geography, but also
by their business model. The majority of their operations are unionized.
Cross Reference: Unions, Monopolies, Automobile Industry
98. War Reparations
Define: War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war.
Describe & Explain: Russia agreed to pay reparations to the Central Powers when Russia exited
the war in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (which was repudiated by the Bolshevik government eight
months later). Bulgaria paid reparations of 2.25 billion gold francs (90 million pounds) to the
Entente, according to the Treaty of Neuilly.
Significance: Germany agreed to pay reparations of 132 billion gold marks to the Triple Entente
in the Treaty of Versailles, payments which were suspended before World War II.
Cross Reference: Armistice, Treaty of Versailles
99. Wilson’s 14 Points
Define: The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for world peace that was to be used
for peace negotiations in order to end World War I.
Describe & Explain: The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and
peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson.
Significance: The United States had joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Central Powers on
April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine
warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain. However, Wilson wanted to
avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great
powers; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to unlink the war from nationalistic
disputes or ambitions.
Cross Reference: Woodrow Wilson, Submarine Warfare, WWI, WWII
100. League of Nations
Define: An intergovernmental organization founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris
Peace Conference that ended the First World War.
Describe & Explain: It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to
maintain world peace.
Significance: Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through
collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and
arbitration.
Cross Reference: Treaty of Versailles, WWI, Paris Peace Conference
101. Senate Ratification
Define: The definition of Ratification is “making something valid by formally confirming it.”
When a grup wishes to make a bill into a law, the senate must ratify it in order to retain a system
of checks and balances.
Describe & Explain: The President can form and negotiate a bill, but it will only pass if it goes
through the Senate with a 2/3rds majority.
Significance: In instances with a treaty, members of the House of Representatives do not vote on
its ratification,
Cross Reference: Treaty of Versailles, Armistice, WWI
102. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
Define: Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 – November 9, 1924) was an American Republican
Senator and historian from Massachusetts.
Describe & Explain: Lodge received his PhD in history from Harvard. Lodge was a long-time
friend and confidant of Theodore Roosevelt. Lodge had the role (but not the official title) of the
first Senate Majority Leader.
Significance: He is best known for his positions on foreign policy, especially his battle with
President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles. Lodge demanded
Congressional control of declarations of war; Wilson refused and blocked Lodge's move to ratify
the treaty with reservations. As a result, the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Cross Reference: League of Nations, Senator Borah, Woodrow Wilson, WWI
103. Senator William Borah
Define: William Edgar Borah (June 29, 1865 – January 19, 1940) was a prominent United States
Senator from Idaho, a Republican noted for his oratorical skills and isolationist views.
Describe & Explain: Progressive, independent, and often outspoken, he served over 32 years in
the Senate and was internationally known as "The Lion of Idaho."
Significance: A member of the Republican National Committee from 1908 to 1912, Borah was a
delegate to the 1912 Republican National Convention. As a senator, he was dedicated to
principles rather than party loyalty, a trait which earned him the nickname "the Great Opposer."
Cross Reference: Senator Lodge, Woodrow Wilson, WWI, League of Nations
104. Whistle Stop Tour
Define: A whistle stop or whistle-stop tour is a style of political campaigning where the
politician makes a series of brief appearances or speeches at a number of small towns over a
short period of time.
Describe & Explain: Prince Charles of the United Kingdom started a five-day whistle-stop tour
of the United Kingdom on Monday 6 September 2010 with a speech in Glasgow.
Significance: Use of the term has spread to cover any travel done very quickly and with only
brief pauses. It is common to hear this expression in the United States, where the term originated,
as well as the United Kingdom.
Cross Reference: President, Elections, Political Parties
105. Rejection of the Treaty of Versailles
Define: President Woodrow Wilson left Paris to return to America to promote the treaty. He felt
that the center of the treaty was the League of Nations. He considered the League to be a way to
make the world safe for democracy and end wars.
Describe & Explain: Upon his return he discovered a considerable skeptical congress. Senator
Lodge headed the anti-treaty sentiment with help from Senator Borah and Senator Johnson at the
time.
Significance: The United States as a result did not join the League of Nations.
Cross Reference: League of Nations, Treaty of Versailles
The Intolerant 20’s
106. Red Scare
Define: A "Red Scare" is the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism or radical
leftism.
Describe & Explain: In the United States, the First Red Scare was about worker (socialist)
revolution and political radicalism. The Second Red Scare was focused on national and foreign
communists influencing society, infiltrating the federal government, or both.
Significance: The first Red Scare began following the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917 and
the intensely patriotic years of World War I as anarchist and left-wing social agitation aggravated
national, social, and political tensions. Political scientist, and former member of the Communist
Party Murray B. Levin wrote that the Red Scare was "a nationwide anti-radical hysteria
provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was
imminent—a revolution that would change Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American
way of Life."
Cross Reference: McCarthyism, Soviets, Communists
107. Soviet Ark
Define: A combination cargo/passenger ship, originally launched in 1890 as the SS Mississippi.
She was purchased by the US Army in 1898 for transport duty in the Spanish-American War.
Describe & Explain: In 1919, she was briefly transferred to the US Navy, commissioned as the
USS Buford to repatriate troops home after World War I, and then later that year returned to the
Army.
Significance: he was sold to private interests in 1923, contracted in mid-1924 to be the set for
Buster Keaton's silent film The Navigator, and finally scrapped in 1929.
Cross Reference: Ships, Navy, WWI
108. “Normalcy”
Define: Plain or simple times.
Describe & Explain: Many people wanted to return to a time of normalcy but the advancing age
of the world itself would not allow for it.
Significance: A concept many of other generations wished, wistfully, to maintain.
Cross Reference: Lost Generation, Military Advancements, Conformity
109. Harding of Administration Scandals
Define: The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States
from 1921 to 1922.
Describe & Explain: During the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the
Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and
two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive
bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by
Senator Thomas J. Walsh.
Significance: Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the
first Cabinet member to go to prison. No person was ever convicted of paying a bribe, however.
Cross Reference: Grant’s Scandals, WWI, Navy
110. The Second KKK
Define: The second coming of the Klan came up in Georgia in 1915. By 1921, it became a group
of recruitment, causing a nation-wide growth in the KKK.
Describe & Explain: The re-popularity of the group, especially in cities, was mainly a side effect
of the increasingly industrializing, immigrating world.
Significance: By 1930s, the Klan drastically plummeted to 300,000. Through a series of criminal
activity and opposition, both internal and external, the KKK finally collapsed.
Cross Reference: KKK, Carpet Baggers
111. Scoopes “Monkey” Trial
Define: The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes
and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in 1925.
Describe & Explain: A substitute high school teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating
Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded
school.
Significance: The trial was deliberately staged to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton,
Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution,
but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant.
Cross Reference: Trial, Mock, Supreme Court Case
112. Schenck vs. US
Define: Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), is a United States Supreme Court case
concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I.
Describe & Explain: A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed leaflets to draft-age men, urging
resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense.
Significance: The First Amendment did not alter the well-established law in cases where the
attempt was made through expressions that would be protected in other circumstances.
Cross Reference: Supreme Court Case, WWI
113. Sacco & Vanzetti
Define: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born US anarchists who were
convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the armed robbery of the Slater and
Morrill Shoe Company on April 15, 1920, in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States, and
were executed by the electric chair seven years later at Charlestown State Prison.
Describe & Explain: Both adhered to an anarchist movement that advocated relentless warfare
against a violent and oppressive government.
Significance: After a few hours' deliberation, the jury found Sacco and Vanzetti guilty of firstdegree murder on July 14, 1921. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private
Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony,
conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pre-trial statement by the jury foreman, and a
confession by an alleged participant in the robbery.
Cross Reference: Senator Lodge
114. Emergency Immigration Act of 1921
Define: Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the
Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted
immigration into the United States.
Describe & Explain: Although intended as temporary legislation, the Act "proved in the long run
the most important turning-point in American immigration policy" because it added two new
features to American immigration law: numerical limits on immigration and the use of a quota
system for establishing those limits.
Significance: The Emergency Quota Act restricted the number of immigrants admitted from any
country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the United
States as of the U.S. Census of 1910.
Cross Reference: National Origins Act of 1924
115. National Origins Act of 1924
Define: The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act,
and Asian Exclusion Act enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that limited the
annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of
people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the
3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890.
Describe & Explain: It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was primarily aimed
at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans.
Significance: In addition, it severely restricted the immigration of Africans and outright banned
the immigration of Arabs and Asians.
Cross Reference: Stock Market Crash, Normalcy, Conformity
116. Prohibition
Define: Prohibition is the act of prohibiting the manufacturing, storage in barrels or bottles,
transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol including alcoholic beverages.
Describe & Explain: Prohibition focused on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of
alcoholic beverages; however, exceptions were made for medicinal and religious uses. Alcohol
consumption was never illegal under federal law. Nationwide Prohibition did not begin in the
United States until January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went
into effect, and was repealed in December, 1933, with the ratification of the Twenty-first
Amendment.
Significance: Concern over excessive alcohol consumption began during the American colonial
era, when fines were imposed for drunken behavior and for selling liquor without a license.
Cross Reference: Speak Easies, Prohibition
117. Speak Easies
Define: A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells
alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the
Prohibition era (1920–1933, longer in some states).
Describe & Explain: During that time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of
alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States, except in Maryland.
Significance: Speakeasies largely disappeared after Prohibition was ended in 1933, and the term
is now used to describe some retro style bars.
Cross Reference: Prohibition, Flappers, Jazz Age
118. Flappers & Flaming Youth
Define: Flappers were a "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short
skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered
acceptable behavior.
Describe & Explain: Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking,
treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and
sexual norms.
Significance: Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social,
political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World
War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe.
Cross Reference: Prohibition, Speak Easies
119. “Lost Generation”
Define: The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I.
Describe & Explain: The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two
contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises.
Significance: The term is used for the period from the end of World War I to the beginning of the
Great Depression, though in the United States it is used for the generation of young people who
came of age during and shortly after World War I, alternatively known as the World War I
generation.
Cross Reference: Normalcy, Conformity
120. Conformity
Define: Dictionary definition: “Behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or
standards.”
Describe & Explain: n the early 20th century, there was a strong urge to conform to the
American Dream, and to reject all forms of outside culture being immigrated to the country at
the time.
Significance: After World War I, many returning GIs had a terrible time trying to conform to
their lives before the war. As hard as the country tried, it was nearly impossible to return to preWWI lifestyle.
Cross Reference: Normalcy
121. Hero Worship
Define: Dictionary definition: “Admiration for great men, or their memory.” During the years
after WWI, servicemen were regarded very highly and respected by society. They became the
public’s role models, exemplifying bravery and national pride.
Describe & Explain: During this time, celebrities began to integrate into American pop culture.
Movie stars and singers were idolized, along with athletes and authors.
Significance: With the increasing economy of surplus, recreational activities began to soar. More
and more people began to have the time to enjoy life, rather than work it away.
Cross Reference: Idolizing, National Past Time
122. Consumer Revolution
Define: The term Consumer revolution refers to the period from approximately 1600 to 1750 in
England in which there was a marked increase in the consumption and variety of "luxury" goods
and products by individuals from different economic and social backgrounds.
Describe & Explain: Consumerism has weak links with the Western world, but is in fact an
international phenomenon. People purchasing goods and consuming materials in excess of their
basic needs is as old as the first civilizations (e.g. Ancient Egypt, Babylon and Ancient Rome).
Significance: The consumer revolution marked a departure from the traditional mode of life that
was dominated by frugality and scarcity to one of increasingly mass consumption in society.
Cross Reference: Appliances, Cult of Domesticity
123. Radio
Define: Radio is the use of radio waves to carry information, such as sound, by systematically
modulating some property of electromagnetic energy waves transmitted through space, such as
their amplitude, frequency, phase, or pulse width.
Describe & Explain: When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields
induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and
transformed back into its original form.
Significance: Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate (change) some property of the
energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle
modulation (which can be frequency modulation or phase modulation).
Cross Reference: Consumer Revolution
124. “Talkies” 1927
Define: Sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically
coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film.
Describe & Explain: The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in
Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially
practical.
Significance: Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc
systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate.
Cross Reference: Movies, Radio, Consumer Revolution
125. The Automobile
Define: A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of
the automotive industry.
Describe & Explain: Most definitions of the term specify that cars are designed to run primarily
on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels with tires, and to
be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.
Significance: The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car. In that year, German
inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars did not become widely available
until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908
Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company.
Cross Reference: Car, Model-T
126. Advent of “The National Pastime”
Define: A national sport or national pastime is a sport or game that is considered to be an
intrinsic part of the culture of a nation. Some sports are de facto (not established by law) national
sports, as baseball is in the United States.
Describe & Explain: These sports do not have to be necessarily the most played or most
followed, which would be either association football or basketball in all but a few countries, but
are widely considered to be important to the country or significant for its culture.
Significance: Gave many people a new way to spend their time and it showed the emergence of a
middle class.
Cross Reference: Baseball, Middle Class
127. Harlem Renaissance
Define: The Harlem Renaissance, a cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in
Harlem, New York, spanned the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro
Movement," named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.
Describe & Explain: The Movement also included the new African-American cultural
expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by the
Great Migration (African American).
Significance: The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African-American arts.
Cross Reference: Jazz Age, Normalcy, Conformity
128. Jazz Age
Define: The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s, ending with the Great Depression in which jazz
music and dance styles became popular, mainly in the United States, but also in Britain, France
and elsewhere.
Describe & Explain: Jazz originated in New Orleans as a fusion of African and European music
and played a significant part in wider cultural changes in this period, and its influence on pop
culture continued long afterwards.
Significance: The Jazz Age is often referred to in conjunction with the Roaring Twenties.
Cross Reference: Harlem Renassiance
Causes of the Great Depression
129. Inequitable Distribution of Income
Define: Unequal pay for the varying classes of workers.
Describe & Explain: Manual laborers were hardly paid and were put into dangerous situations
while workers such as those in the form of entrepreneurs would sell their products at the lowest
price possible to make the largest or rather highest possible profit.
Significance: Caused disruption and disgruntlement in the working community.
Cross Reference: Great Depression, over production, foreign debt
130. Over Production
Define: Products were being overproduced and were exceeding the demand.
Describe & Explain: It was believed that supply drove demand but it was really demand that
drove supply. And this backwards psychology hurt the American Economy.
Significance: The Great Depression was caused due in part to a backwards understanding of
capitalism.
Cross Reference: Foreign Debt, Over Production
131. Bad Foreign Debt from WWI
Define: During WWI many countries fought as their resources neared depletion and they relied
on their allies to assist them to finish the war up.
Describe & Explain: Much money was owed between various countries so that the war effort
could continue but the economic disaster that followed was more troublesome than anticipated.
Significance: Debt was barely cleared up even to this day and it left its mark on many countries
economies.
Cross Reference: Overproduction
132. Stock Market Speculation
Define: Predicating market trends to better anticipate the risk of the market.
Describe & Explain: There were too many supposed experts predicting these trends and it caused
a great deal of confusion and miscalculation.
Significance: Through severe market crashes the Great Depression was ultimately caused by this.
Cross Reference: Overproduction, Great Depression