Ohio American History EOC Module 3 (The Twenties, the Depression and the New Deal): a complete overview of the Roaring Twenties, cultural conflict, the Great Migration, the causes of the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal

What Module 3 actually demands

Module 3 is the story of America's wildest boom and deepest bust. It covers Ohio's Prosperity, Depression and the New Deal topic (about 1919 to 1941): how mass production and consumer credit made the Roaring Twenties roar, how the decade's modern life triggered cultural conflict, how the Great Migration reshaped cities and sparked the Harlem Renaissance, why the boom collapsed into the Great Depression, how the Dust Bowl and Hoover's failure deepened the crisis, and how Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal answered it and expanded the federal government. Ohio's rubber and steel cities run through the story.

This guide ties together the matching dot-point pages, each with its own worked questions: the Roaring Twenties, cultural conflict in the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration, the causes of the Great Depression, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal.

The Roaring Twenties

After World War I the economy boomed on mass production, led by Henry Ford's assembly line and the automobile. New machines (cars, radios, appliances, movies) and a consumer culture of advertising and installment buying reshaped daily life, while national radio and Hollywood created a shared mass culture with heroes like Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. The prosperity was uneven, and the credit and speculation behind it carried hidden risk.

Cultural conflict in the 1920s

The modern decade produced a backlash of traditional values, often splitting rural and urban America. Prohibition (the Eighteenth Amendment) bred bootlegging and crime before its 1933 repeal; the Scopes trial dramatized fundamentalism versus modernism over evolution; nativism drove immigration quotas and a revived Ku Klux Klan that spread across the Midwest, including Ohio; and the Nineteenth Amendment and the flapper marked new roles for women.

The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance

Push factors (Jim Crow, racial violence, poor farming) and pull factors (war-era factory jobs, higher wages, freedom) drew hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to northern cities, including Ohio's Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. This Great Migration produced the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of Black literature, art, and music (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston), and spread jazz and the blues that named the Jazz Age.

The causes of the Great Depression

The Depression had multiple causes. The 1929 stock market crash followed reckless speculation and buying on margin, but it exposed deeper weaknesses: overproduction, an uneven distribution of wealth, excessive credit and debt, a weak banking system, struggling farmers, and high tariffs. Bank failures then wiped out savings and froze lending, sending the economy into a downward spiral.

The Dust Bowl and Hoover's response

In cities the Depression meant 25 percent unemployment, breadlines, and Hoovervilles; on the Plains it meant the Dust Bowl, where drought plus over-plowing created dust storms that drove farm families ("Okies") west to California. President Hoover believed in rugged individualism and refused direct federal relief, so his response was too small. The Bonus Army's removal in 1932 sealed his unpopularity, and voters elected Franklin Roosevelt.

The New Deal

FDR's New Deal answered the Depression with the three R's, Relief, Recovery, and Reform, launched in the First Hundred Days with a bank holiday and reassuring fireside chats. The alphabet agencies (CCC, WPA, TVA, AAA, FDIC, SEC) and the lasting Social Security Act (1935) and Wagner Act reshaped American life. The New Deal did not end the Depression (World War II did) but greatly expanded the federal government's role, and it was debated as too much government by the right and too little by the left.

Check your knowledge

A mix of recall and reasoning questions covering Module 3. Attempt them under timed conditions, then check against the solutions.

1. What method of manufacturing made cars affordable in the 1920s, and who pioneered it? (2 marks)
2. Explain how installment buying changed American shopping in the 1920s. (2 marks)
3. Which amendments began and ended Prohibition? (2 marks)
4. What conflict did the Scopes trial dramatize? (2 marks)
5. Give one push factor and one pull factor of the Great Migration. (2 marks)
6. What was the Harlem Renaissance? (2 marks)
7. What does it mean to buy stocks "on margin," and why was it dangerous? (2 marks)
8. Name two structural causes of the Great Depression besides the crash. (2 marks)
9. What caused the Dust Bowl, and where did it strike? (2 marks)
10. Name the three R's of the New Deal. (3 marks)
11. What lasting program did the Social Security Act create? (2 marks)
12. Explain one way the New Deal changed the role of the federal government. (2 marks)