Key Words

• Anarchist


  A person who advocates or promotes anarchism or anarchy (a political theory advocating the abolition of hierarchical government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion)
• Assembly Line


  A series of workers and machines in a factory by which a succession of identical items is progressively assembled
• Black Renaissance (also known as the Harlem Renaissance)


  An intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theatre, politics and scholarship centred in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s
• Bootlegger


  A person who makes, distributes, or sells goods illegally
• Buying on the Margin

  Borrowing money from a broker to purchase stock
• Communism


  A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs
• Economic Boom


  An often- short-lived period of rapid growth of real GDP resulting in lower unemployment, accelerating inflation rate and rising asset prices
• Dust Bowl


  An area of land where vegetation has been lost and soil reduced to dust and eroded, especially as a consequence of drought or unsuitable farming practice
• Flapper


  (in the 1920s) a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behaviour
• Fordney McCumber Tariff


  1922 - A law that raised American tariffs on many imported goods to protect factories and farms.
• Hire Purchase


  A system by which one pays for a thing in regular instalments while having the use of it.
• Jazz


  A type of music black American origin characterised by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the 20th century
• Laissez-faire


  The policy of leaving things to take their own course, without interfering
• Lynching


  (of a group of people) kill (someone) for an alleged offence without a legal trial, especially by hanging
• Mass Production


  The production of large quantities of a standardised article by an automated mechanical process
• Moonshine


  Illicitly distilled or smuggled alcohol
• Racketeering


  Dishonest and fraudulent business dealings
• Red Scare


  A form of public hysteria provoked by fear of the rise, supposed or real, of leftist ideologies in a society, especially communism
• Rugged Individualism


  The belief that all individuals, or nearly all individuals, can succeed on their own and that government help for people should be minimal.
• Segregation


  The action or state of setting someone or something apart from others - the enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment
• Speakeasies


  (in the US during Prohibition) an illicit liquor shop or drinking club
• Speculation


  The forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence