Every card in The twentieth-century world, Year 10: Prohibition, immigration, the Klan and the Red Scare (America 1920–1973 option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- In which year did national Prohibition of alcohol come into force in the USA? (year)
1920
HintIt happened right at the start of the Roaring Twenties.
WhyThe Volstead Act spelled out the ban: it outlawed the making, selling and transporting of alcohol.
- An illegal bar of the Prohibition era, whose name is usually explained as coming from the need to speak quietly
Speakeasy
HintEntry often needed a quiet password.
WhyThousands were set up in cities, from fancy jazz clubs to basement back rooms, and owners often paid police to look the other way.
- Why did Prohibition make gangsters such as Al Capone rich?
It created a huge illegal market for alcohol, which gangsters supplied
HintBanning something people still want makes a business for lawbreakers.
WhyIn Chicago, Capone led the Outfit, a leading gang of the era, and rival gangs fought over territory.
- Why was Prohibition so hard to enforce?
Few agents, widespread bribery, and many people still wanted to drink
HintThink about who was meant to catch the lawbreakers.
WhySeveral federal agencies were tasked with enforcing the Volstead Act, yet bootleggers operated with relative impunity, and local police were often overwhelmed or paid to look away.
- Which amendment to the Constitution ended Prohibition in 1933?
The 21st Amendment
HintPresident Roosevelt had backed repeal.
WhyIt was ratified on 5 December 1933 by special state conventions. Roosevelt had campaigned for repeal in 1932.
- What was the effect of the 1924 Immigration Act on immigration from southern and eastern Europe?
It set quotas that cut it sharply
HintA limit was set for each nationality.
WhyThe law also excluded immigrants from Asia entirely.
- Besides Black Americans, which other groups did the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s target?
Catholics, Jews and immigrants
HintIt saw native-born white Protestants as the only true Americans.
WhyFounded again at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915, the second Klan grew into a national movement with millions of members in the mid-1920s, though estimates vary.
- A period of intense fear of communists and anarchists in the USA after the Russian Revolution, strongest in 1919 and 1920
The Red Scare
HintThe colour stood for revolution.
WhyStrikes in 1919 and news of the Russian Revolution of 1917 made many Americans fear a revolution at home.
- Who ordered the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920, in which thousands of suspected radicals were arrested?
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
HintHe ran the Justice Department.
WhyMany of those seized were immigrants, and hundreds were deported.
- Why did the Sacco and Vanzetti case alarm many people about justice in 1920s America?
Many felt prejudice against immigrants and anarchists, not the evidence, decided the verdict
HintThink about who the two men were and what the public feared at the time.
WhySacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, were convicted of a 1920 payroll robbery and murder in Massachusetts and executed in 1927. In 1977 the state's governor declared that they had not been treated justly.
1★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0176
2★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0177
3★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0178
4★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0179
5★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0180
6★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0181
7★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0182
8★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0183
9★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0184
10★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0185
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.