Facts and Details in U.S. Economic History from 1899 to the Present - SAT Subject Test in United States History

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (b. April 22, 1891) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (b. June 11, 1888) were convicted of murder and executed on August 23, 1927.

The managers of The Triangle Waist Company routinely locked exit doors and doors leading to the stairwells in order to prevent thieving. When a fire broke out at the factory, the mostly female garment workers were unable to evacuate. 146 workers died in the fire.

The New Deal was a widespread series of government programs undertaken by Roosevelt when he became President to boost the American economy during the depths of the Great Recession. In general, the programs sought to expand government’s role in the economy, making the answer about lowering taxes the only answer choice that does not fit in as a New Deal program.

The Federal Reserve Act was designed (at least according to most politicians of the time and the majority of modern historians) to bust the banking monopolies of JP Morgan and others. It directed that the banking system should be placed under public control. Banks remained private, but were now to be both supervised and supported by the newly created Federal Reserve Board. This allowed the government to better control currency practices and credit.

Although many of the New Deal actions were later pushed through the fireside chats for public appeal, the original intent of the broadcast was to disseminate the panic related to the closing of the banks as the unemployment skyrocketed, and the markets crashed dramatically. This was later dubbed the Emergency Banking act.

The Stock Market Crash of 1929, which began the 10-year Great Depression, is also known as Black Tuesday, as it happened on a Tuesday.

The Federal income tax is progressive for both individuals and corporations. This, essentially, means that the higher your personal income the greater percentage of that income is subject to taxation. The history of personal income tax in the United States is, perhaps, surprisingly recent. The first income tax was levied on wealthy individuals during the Civil War, but was repealed following the war’s end. Not until 1895 did the Federal government institute its first peacetime income tax. Shortly thereafter Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment that enabled the government to levy taxes on all personal income. From that moment until now there has been a gradual trend of taxation increases and increases on the proportion of income that the wealthy are required to pay. This reflects the trends of much greater government spending and much greater social awareness in the twentieth and twenty-first Centuries.

JFK launched an ambitious attempt to re-energize the economy and provide for greater social equality. Much of this New Frontier legislation met with opposition in Congress, as Republicans and Southern Democrats blocked a great deal of laws from passing; however, the Trade Expansion Act did pass Congress. It gave the executive branch the ability to lower existing tariffs by as much as fifty percent. The intention was to stimulate the economy.

The Underwood Tariff Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1913, was signed into practice by President Wilson. It lowered the existing tariff rate from forty-percent to twenty-five percent, in an effort to encourage foreign trade. It also established a graduated income tax following the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment (which had established the constitutional right of the Federal government to levy income taxes).

The Taft-Hartley Act was passed to restrict the ability of American labor unions to organize for better wages and treatment. It was supported by the majority of Republicans in Congress and managed to pass despite President Truman’s veto attempt. Many historians believe that the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in response to the unprecedented level of strikes that the post-war United States witnessed in 1946. During, the war the vast majority of unions had agreed to refrain from strikes over wages and benefits to assist the war effort; however, with the war ended and wages falling across the country, strikes consistently broke out in almost all major American industries.

During his 1932 election campaign, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised that within his first 100 days in office he would pass numerous measures through Congress that would address the economic issues brought about by the Great Depression. Most of these were immediate fixes, focused on helping people's immediate economic plight. Chief among these was a measure of insurance for money held in American banks, which protected banks and allowed them to stay open while also guaranteeing that citizens would have money available to them.

October of 1929 would see the start of the largest economic decline in American History. Once the stock market crashed, it started a series of events that would cause the accumulated wealth of most Americans to evaporate.

Direct Relief is an economic principle where a government attempts to help an ailing economy by giving citizens assistance in the form of money either as a handout or in the form of a job. The idea being that if an average person has a few extra dollars to spend, they will spend it, thus getting money flowing through the economy again.

Hoover ran for president on the platform that government should not spend more than it takes in. As the Great Depression was in full swing, the government was bringing in much less in taxes than it needed to spend in order to operate. This meant the government could barely afford to support itself, never mind give relief to citizens, so Hoover decided to stick to principles and allow the economy to right itself.

The Cartels were groups of people who sold stock in companies they knew to be worthless that way the demand for those stocks would rise. This is when they would sell their own stocks at a huge profit, but leave all the people who had bought these stocks with nothing as they figured out the company they bought into was a sham.

The Stock Market Crash was not as many people think, the cause of the Great Depression, it simply signaled the start of the deep decline that was caused by a host of factors.

Hoovervilles were named after the President who many blamed for their woes. President Hoover's response to the Depression was considered slow, and when he did respond, inadequate. He generally did nothing to ease the suffering of American workers, and when he did do something it often only made matters worse.

The Bread line was a staple of most major cities in America in the 1930's. Each morning many people would line up looking for a meal, which as the name suggest, would usually consist of a piece of bread and possibly some soup. Often the length of these lines would far exceed the amount of food that was available.

The Dust Bowl was caused by farming techniques that stripped the Great Plains of their top soil. This mixed with a severe drought meant that the winds blowing across the plains cause massive dust storms that choked towns and cities, and destroyed the few crops that would still grow. This meant a mass migration of people would follow.