American Promise Value Edition

Voulme II 6th Edition Roark Test Bank

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Name: __________________________ Date: _____________

Choose the letter of the best answer.

1. What characterized the period Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover described as a

New Era in 1920?
A) The dramatic growth of the Socialist party
B) A freewheeling economy
C) The implementation of progressive reforms in a peacetime economy
D) A narrowing of the gap between rich and poor

2. America's return to a peacetime economy in 1920 and 1921 was marked by

A) steady prices and economic well-being for most Americans.
B) a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor.
C) a 3.5 percent national unemployment rate, the lowest to date.
D) a 20 percent unemployment rate, the highest to date.

3. In its effort to create prosperity at home, the Harding administration supported

A) high tariffs to protect American businesses.
B) nationalization of American agriculture.
C) tight government regulation of industry.
D) a large public works program called Teapot Dome.

4. President Harding's administration was characterized by

A) ongoing government control of industry.
B) financial wrongdoing on the part of the president.
C) scandals that touched many members of his administration.
D) an aggressive foreign policy.

5. What did President Calvin Coolidge's economic policy include?

A) Advocacy for government regulation of corporate America
B) Reductions in government regulation of business
C) Support for higher taxes for American businesses
D) Pressure on the courts to prosecute companies that violated antitrust laws

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 6. What did the presidential election of 1924, in which Calvin Coolidge defeated John W.
Davis and Robert La Follette, reveal about American voters?
A) Their lack of support for labor unions, the regulation of business, and the
protection of civil liberties
B) Their strong support for government regulation of industry and for other
progressive principles
C) Low turnout showed that their interest in consumer goods far outweighed their
interest in politics
D) Their strong support for the candidate who was more physically attractive, despite
his lack of political experience

7. What was the goal of the Washington Disarmament Conference?

A) To negotiate peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary
B) To convince Congress to authorize $25 million to compensate Mexico for the loss
of its territory in the 1840s
C) To persuade England and France to forgive the reparations they wanted Germany
to pay after World War I
D) To establish a balance of naval power among Britain, France, Japan, and Italy

8. What was the purpose of the Dawes Plan, instituted in 1924?

A) It authorized the mobilization of U.S. military forces to ensure that Germany would
pay reparations.
B) It cut Germany's annual reparations payments in half and initiated fresh American
loans to Germany.
C) It called for the United States to join the League of Nations in order to enforce the
Kellogg-Briand pact.
D) It made provisions for the United States to assume Germany's war debts in
exchange for their commitment to peace.

9. Which industry formed the keystone of the American economy in the 1920s?
A) The housing industry
B) The steel industry
C) The banking industry
D) The automobile industry

10. What was the outcome of the shift toward repetitive assembly-line work and specialized
management divisions in the 1920s?
A) Lower enrollment in college and university managerial training programs
B) A worsening of safety and sanitary conditions in American factories
C) Massive layoffs of American workers in all heavy industries
D) A tremendous increase in business productivity and overall efficiency

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11. Who was responsible for the creation of “welfare capitalism” in the 1920s, and why did
they use it?
A) The government created welfare capitalism to address the needs of the less
fortunate.
B) Traditional labor unions established welfare capitalism to assist workers.
C) Businesses created welfare capitalism to encourage workers' loyalty to the
company.
D) Socialists designed welfare capitalism to bring apolitical workers into the radical
fold.

12. What did the authors of Middletown conclude from their study of life in a small
midwestern town in the 1920s?
A) Modern America was by and large producing remarkably well-adjusted citizens.
B) America's basic moral and spiritual framework had been virtually untouched by
rapid modernization.
C) The United States had developed a culture in which everything hinged on money.
D) The United States' technological revolution did not lead to significant social
dislocation.

13. Which relatively new industry in the 1920s linked the possession of material goods to
the fulfillment of spiritual and emotional needs?
A) The automobile industry
B) Public relations
C) Chemical manufacturing
D) Advertising

14. Which element of the American economy during the 1920s lay at the heart of its
fundamental lack of stability?
A) Production
B) Increasing wages
C) Consumption
D) Employment

15. What was Detroit's second largest industry during the 1920s?
A) Illegal alcohol sales
B) Automobile manufacturing
C) Steel production
D) Railroad construction

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16. Federal authorities sent Al Capone to prison on what charge?
A) Murder
B) Income tax evasion
C) Bootlegging alcohol
D) Armed robbery

17. Which of the following statements describes the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which
gave federal assistance to states seeking to reduce high infant mortality rates?
A) It was the first of a long string of women's political successes in the 1920s.
B) It demonstrated the political powerlessness of women.
C) It was a minor achievement for women in politics.
D) It was women's only significant national legislative success in the 1920s.

18. What factor diluted the influence of women in politics in the 1920s?
A) A lack of unity around the issues
B) A major crime wave, which kept women from venturing to the polls
C) Required literacy tests for all new women voters
D) Laws prohibiting women from joining the major political parties

19. The National Woman's party supported which of the following?

A) An Equal Rights Amendment
B) Special legal protection for women
C) Laws against black voting
D) Laws allowing child labor

20. During the 1920s, most American women who worked had
A) manufacturing jobs in factories.
B) office and sales jobs.
C) jobs in domestic and food service.
D) medical, legal, and financial jobs.

21. In the United States, the flapper of the 1920s represented

A) the determination of women to become writers and artists.
B) the hopelessness that was pervasive among American youth.
C) a youth culture that sought radical cultural and political reform.
D) a challenge to women's traditional gender roles.

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22. The image of the new woman in American society in the 1920s
A) reinforced the traditional concept of separate spheres.
B) created a double standard for the sexual conduct of men and women.
C) was felt by all women, even those who believed in traditional gender roles.
D) reduced acceptance of and access to birth control for most women.

23. Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association urged black Americans in
the 1920s to
A) revolt against the U.S. government and their white oppressors.
B) rediscover their African heritage and take pride in their culture and achievements.
C) adopt the accommodationist stance advocated by Booker T. Washington to
increase their status.
D) lobby the federal government for reparations for the time they and their ancestors
spent in slavery.

24. Who wrote the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, an example of Harlem
Renaissance literature?
A) Langston Hughes
B) Countee Cullen
C) Claude McKay
D) Zora Neale Hurston

25. What did popular culture and consumer goods have in common in the 1920s?
A) Both condemned by the Catholic Church as sinful.
B) Both had become so inexpensive that most Americans could afford them.
C) Neither had penetrated the rural areas of the United States.
D) Both were mass-produced and mass-consumed.

26. Which of the following statements describes professional baseball in the 1920s?
A) It was dominated by college rivalries.
B) Games were played on weekdays, when workers could not attend.
C) It was fully integrated, both on the field and in the seats.
D) It attracted players and spectators from the working class.

27. In the 1920s, Harold “Red” Grange was associated with

A) Madison Avenue advertising firms.
B) Calvin Coolidge's administration.
C) football.
D) boxing.

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28. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to
A) swim the English Channel alone.
B) fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.
C) drive an automobile across the United States in less than a week.
D) fly around the world.

29. Who funded the rapid growth of radio in the United States between 1922 and 1929?
A) Record companies
B) The federal government
C) Sports teams
D) Advertisers

30. One result of the loosening of the traditional bonds of community, religion, and family
in the United States in the 1920s was
A) more crime and an increase in the number of school dropouts.
B) a rapidly increasing divorce rate in urban areas.
C) the emergence of youth as a distinct social class with their own culture.
D) a significant increase in cohabitation among young, unmarried couples.

31. For which group of Americans did authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
William Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis speak?
A) Corporate America and the nation's consumer society
B) Their co-participants in the Harlem Renaissance
C) Critics of American anti-intellectualism and materialism
D) Republicans and supporters of prohibition

32. How did rural Americans perceive cities during the 1920s?
A) As the places where the truest American values of freedom and democracy were
expressed
B) As the sources of vice, religious threats, and other assaults on traditional values
C) As potential suppliers of well-trained but cheap agricultural laborers
D) As idyllic places where they might go to enjoy restaurants, theater, and museums

33. What was the purpose of the immigration laws of the 1920s, including the
Johnson-Reed Act?
A) To open the nation's borders to an unprecedented influx of new immigrants
B) To place strict limits on immigration
C) To close off immigration to the United States from other areas of the Western
Hemisphere
D) To overturn the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

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34. What did the outcome of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial suggest about the United States in
the 1920s?
A) The American judicial system was a model of impartiality.
B) Americans generally loathed thieves and murderers.
C) The legal appeals process often brought a fairer verdict than the original trial.
D) Antiforeign hysteria was rampant in many areas of American life.

35. What accounted for the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States in 1915?
A) The widespread belief that blacks, immigrants, radicals, feminists, Catholics, and
Jews threatened traditional American values
B) The notion that African Americans were gaining equality in the new world of giant
corporations and needed to be kept in their place
C) The belief that the government was conspiring to subvert the fundamental rights of
U.S. citizens
D) The belief that some apocalyptic event was about to occur and the Klan would
bring salvation

36. Which of the following describes the Ku Klux Klan of the mid-1920s?
A) It dominated politics in California, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and
Vermont.
B) It had embraced the changes that came with modernity.
C) It had stopped its attacks on foreigners and Jews and was concentrating on
cleansing the nation of Negroes.
D) It had a strong influence on politics in California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas,
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas.

37. What was the central issue addressed by the highly publicized Scopes trial of 1925?
A) The Ku Klux Klan's right of the to be involved in politics at the state level
B) The legality of the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee
C) The 1920s-era conflict between fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics in
America
D) The biblical evidence for human evolution from lesser primates

38. How did Americans respond to Alfred E. Smith's candidacy for president in 1928?
A) Positively, which is why he came so close to defeating Hoover in the election
B) As a symbol of the traditional values of the heartland—Americanism, family, the
Bible, chastity, and temperance
C) As a symbol of all they feared—Catholicism, immigration, cities, and liberal
attitudes
D) With concern that he did not have the experience for the White House

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39. What earned Herbert Hoover the nickname “the Great Humanitarian”?
A) His managing efforts to feed civilian victims of the fighting during World War I
B) His service as secretary of commerce under the Coolidge administration
C) His reform agenda as president and his response to the Great Depression
D) His commitment to individual self-reliance, industrial self-management, and
limited government

40. When Herbert Hoover took office in 1929, he brought to the presidency
A) modern ideas about how businesses should operate.
B) decades of experience in elected office.
C) few credentials to lead a prosperous nation.
D) strong opposition to progressive ideals.

41. Which of the following characterized the U.S. economy when Hoover moved into the
White House in 1929?
A) There was a huge disparity in wealth between rich and poor.
B) The country had low tariffs and a strong balance of trade with foreign nations.
C) The gap between rich and poor was narrowing.
D) Consumers were reluctant to rely on credit to fund purchases.

42. Among the first signs of economic distress in the United States in the mid-1920s was
A) a reluctance to buy stocks on margin.
B) the tremendous increase in the number of labor strikes.
C) a decrease in the rate of unemployment.
D) a slowdown in new construction and in automobile sales.

43. What was the fundamental cause of the Great Depression in the United States?
A) The stock market crash in the fall of 1929
B) Problems in the American and international economies
C) Herbert Hoover's election to the U.S. presidency
D) Massive fraud in the New York and Chicago stock exchanges

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44. What did President Hoover do to offer a solution to the human problems of the
depression in 1929?
A) He instituted a voluntary recovery plan, protective tariffs, and some government
intervention, including public works projects and small federal loans to states.
B) He created a federal aid modeled after the dole in England that would provide basic
food, clothing, and shelter to the unemployed.
C) He provided federal loans to private citizens who could prove that they had not
participated in speculation.
D) He decided to let the depression run its course without significant government aid
for either businesses or individuals.

45. What was the purpose of the President Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation,
created in 1932?
A) Assisting the millions of Americans who had lost their jobs
B) Aiding rural black southerners who had been in an agricultural depression for years
C) Lending money to endangered American banks, insurance companies, and
railroads
D) Shoring up faltering West Coast shippers plying the Pacific trade

46. Which groups were hardest hit by the Great Depression?

A) East and West coast bankers and other business people
B) Union members and other industrial workers in the Northeast
C) Western miners and cattle ranchers
D) The unemployed, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers

47. How did the Great Depression affect the American family in the 1930s?
A) It caused an increase in the number of marriages among young adults whose
parents could no longer support them.
B) It sparked an increase in the birthrate among middle- and upper-class whites.
C) It created resentment among men, who lost their jobs more often than women did.
D) It led to the stabilization of the birthrate, which had been increasing since the turn
of the century.

48. By the early 1930s, unemployed workers were responding to the Great Depression by
A) becoming increasingly passive and despondent, assuming that they were not
worthy of jobs.
B) seeking to improve their job qualifications by enrolling in vocational training
programs.
C) becoming increasingly outraged and turning toward militant forms of protest.
D) turning on one another with violence as the competition for scarce jobs became
even steeper.

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 49. How did the Hoover administration respond to the World War I veterans who asked for
the immediate payment of their pension or bonus?
A) It ordered the U.S. army to forcibly evict them from their camp on the edge of
Washington, D.C.
B) It welcomed them to Washington, thanked them for their service, and sent them
home with government checks.
C) It organized a ceremony to reiterate the government's gratitude for their service and
award medals.
D) It provided a hearty meal on the White House lawn but refused to pay the bonuses
early.

50. Which group sponsored a team of lawyers to defend the nine young black men in
Scottsboro, Alabama, who were arrested on trumped-up rape charges in 1931?
A) The Republican party
B) The Communist party
C) The NAACP
D) The League of Women Voters

Answer each question with three or four sentences.

51. In what ways did Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge attempt to achieve
Harding's call for a return to normalcy in America?

52. To what extent did the United States retreat into isolationism after World War I?

53. Describe the factors most responsible for Henry Ford's success.

54. What were some of the unintended consequences and costs of Prohibition?

55. What was the Harlem Renaissance? Did it have any effect on the prejudice of white
society?

56. Why did working-class Americans of the 1920s identify with sports figures like Babe
Ruth and Jack Dempsey?

Page 10
 57. What was the attitude of most Americans toward immigration when Warren Harding
took office? How did the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti illustrate that public sentiment?

58. What did Americans who joined the Ku Klux Klan and those who wanted to prosecute
John Scopes have in common?

59. Explain how President Hoover's personal and political philosophies kept the
government from doing more in the Great Depression.

60. Describe how the Great Depression affected ordinary Americans.

Answer each of the following questions with an essay. Be sure to include specific examples that
support your thesis and conclusions.

61. The invention and mass production of the automobile was one of the most important
events of twentieth-century America. Explain how the automobile both improved the
quality of life for Americans and led to new tensions and uncertainties.

62. In what ways did the New Woman and the New Negro reflect the dazzle and despair of
the Roaring Twenties?

63. The wealth and modern culture associated with the Roaring Twenties did not affect all
Americans equally. How did urban and rural Americans experience these changes, and
how did they respond to them?

64. Discuss the causes of the Great Depression. What role did the stock market crash in
October 1929 play in the depression's onset?

65. By 1932, America's economic problems had become a dangerous social crisis. Explain
why this statement is true by describing the economic conditions of the time and their
effects on society.

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Use the following to answer questions 66-77:

Select the word or phrase from the Terms section that best matches the definition or example
provided in the Definitions section. Some terms may be used more than once; others may not be
used at all.

Terms
a. Bonus Marchers
b. Five-Power Naval Treaty of 1922
c. Johnson-Reed Act
d. Ku Klux Klan
e. New Negro
f. new woman
g. prohibition
h. Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
i. Scopes trial
j. Scottsboro Boys
k. Teapot Dome
l. welfare capitalism

66. World War I veterans who gathered in Washington, D.C., in 1932 to lobby for
immediate payment of the pension promised them in 1924. Believing the pensions
would bankrupt the government, President Herbert Hoover sent the U.S. Army to evict
the veterans from the city.

67. Secret society that first thwarted black freedom after the Civil War but was reborn in
1915 to fight against perceived threats posed by blacks, immigrants, radicals, feminists,
Catholics, and Jews. The new society spread well beyond the South in the 1920s.

68. The ban on the manufacture and sale of alcohol that went into effect in January 1920
with the Eighteenth Amendment. The ban proved almost impossible to enforce. By the
end of the 1920s, most Americans wished it to end, and it was finally repealed in 1933.

69. Alternative image of womanhood that came into the American mainstream in the 1920s.
The mass media frequently portrayed young, college-educated women who drank,
smoked, and wore skimpy dresses. These women also challenged American convictions
about separate spheres for women and men and the sexual double standard.

Page 12
70. 1925 trial of a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who violated his state's ban on
teaching evolution. The trial created a nationwide media frenzy and came to be seen as a
showdown between urban and rural values.

71. Pact that committed Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and the United States to a proportional
reduction of naval forces, producing the world's greatest success in disarmament up to
that time. Republicans orchestrated its development at the 1921 Washington
Disarmament Conference.

72. Nine African American youths who were arrested for the alleged rape of two white
women in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931. After an all-white jury sentenced the young
men to death, the Communist party took action that saved them from the electric chair.

73. Term referring to African Americans who challenged American racial hierarchy through
the arts.

74. Federal agency established by Herbert Hoover in 1932 to help American industry by
lending government funds to endangered banks and corporations, which Hoover hoped
would benefit people at the bottom through trickle-down economics. In practice, this
provided little help to the poor.

75. Nickname for scandal in which Interior Secretary Albert Fall accepted $400,000 in
bribes for leasing oil reserves on public land in Wyoming. It was part of a larger pattern
of corruption that marred Warren G. Harding's presidency.

76. Industrial programs for workers that became popular in the 1920s. Some businesses
improved safety and sanitation inside factories and instituted paid vacations and pension
plans. It encouraged loyalty to companies rather than independent labor unions.

77. 1924 law that severely restricted immigration to the United States to no more than
161,000 persons a year with quotas for each European nation. The racist restrictions
were designed to stanch the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and
Asia.

Page 13
Answer Key
1. B
2. D
3. A
4. C
5. B
6. A
7. D
8. B
9. D
10. D
11. C
12. C
13. D
14. C
15. A
16. B
17. D
18. A
19. A
20. B
21. D
22. C
23. B
24. D
25. D
26. D
27. C
28. B
29. D
30. C
31. C
32. B
33. B
34. D
35. A
36. D
37. B
38. C
39. A
40. A
41. A
42. D
43. B
44. A

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45. C
46. D
47. C
48. C
49. A
50. B
51. Answer will ideally include:

Harding's Actions: Harding responded to the high unemployment and personal

bankruptcy rates of 1920 by supporting private business through a high tariff,
dismantling wartime regulation of private industry, and agricultural price supports.

Coolidge's Policies: Coolidge continued these policies by reducing taxes for

corporations and wealthy Americans and, consequently, government revenue.
52. Answer would ideally include:

War Debt Collection: An isolationist mood swept across the nation in the years
following World War I, but the United States didn't sever its ties with the rest of the
world. American business leaders held foreign investments, and the U.S. government
earnestly endeavored to collect on war debts.

Disarmament Treaties: In addition, the United States signed a number of treaties in the
1920s. The Washington Disarmament Conference met in 1921, and delegates from the
United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy signed the Five-Power Naval Treaty,
which limited tonnage and construction of warships. In 1928, the United States, along
with nearly fifty other nations, signed the Kellogg-Briand pact, which demanded all who
signed to renounce war and settle international disputes peacefully.
53. Answer would ideally include:

Mass Production: To improve efficiency, Ford reduced assembly-line work to the

simplest, most repetitive tasks. Changes on the assembly line and in management, along
with technological advances, boosted overall efficiency and allowed productivity to
grow much faster than average wages, resulting in huge profits for Ford.

High Wages: Ford also paid his workers relatively high wages to encourage loyalty to
the company and discourage traditional labor unions, and to allow them to buy the cars
they produced.
54. Answer would ideally include:

Increased Crime and Illegal Activities: Prohibition, which was supposed to eliminate
crime, actually increased it by driving ordinary citizens to participate in bootlegging or
patronize speakeasies, which turned them into lawbreakers. Eventually, Prohibition led
to even more serious crime, as notorious figures like Al Capone took over the liquor
trade and engaged in violence, including killing members of rival mobs, as they
competed for the liquor market.

Page 15
 Sexual Integration of Drinking Culture: Speakeasies—illegal nightclubs with dance
floors—became a common feature of the urban landscape during Prohibition and were
patronized by women and men together. This sexual integration of the formerly all-male
drinking culture changed American social life forever.
55. Answer would ideally include:

Harlem Renaissance: As thousands of blacks migrated to the North and settled in cities,
Harlem, a neighborhood in uptown Manhattan, attracted a large black population that
included artists, sculptors, novelists, musicians, and poets. These people set out to create
a distinctive African American culture that drew on their identities as Africans and
Americans. The Harlem Renaissance produced great writing, art, and music.

White Prejudice: Despite such vibrancy, Harlem for most whites remained a separate
black ghetto known only for its lively nightlife. The vigor of the Harlem Renaissance
left a powerful legacy for black Americans, but the creative burst did little in the short
run to dissolve the prejudice of white society.
56. Answer would ideally include:

1920s Role Models: Working-class sports figures such as Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey
were seen as stand-ins for the average American, who felt increasingly confined by
bureaucracy and machine-made culture. These workingman's heroes embodied sports as
a way to break out of the ordinariness of everyday life with energy and a trace of
rebelliousness.
57. Answer would ideally include:

Prejudice against Immigrants: By the early 1920s the war against Germany and its
allies had expanded nativist and antiradical sentiment in the United States, and many
Americans feared further large-scale immigration. Some suggested that immigrants
from undesirable countries were unable to assimilate and were smothering the nation.
Union leaders feared that millions of poor immigrants would undercut their efforts to
organize American workers. Rural, God-fearing Protestants were upset that most
immigrants were Catholic, Jewish, or atheist.

Public Sentiment and Sacco and Vanzetti: The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchist
immigrants from Italy who were charged with murder and sentenced to death by a judge
who called them anarchist bastards, demonstrated the intensity and general level of
acceptance of anti-immigrant and antiradical prejudice.
58. Answer would ideally include:

Rural Americans: Many rural Americans did not enjoy the same improvements in
standards of living as those Americans who benefited from the booming 1920s, and they
perceived that their political and cultural influence was waning as the population
became more concentrated in urban areas. Rural Americans compensated for these
declines by claiming that they were the racially and morally pure core of the nation.
Opposition to immigration and Roman Catholics, support of Prohibition and the
reactionary Ku Klux Klan, and evangelical fervor on display in the Scopes trial all

Page 16
 registered the discomfort of some Americans with changes accelerated in the 1920s.
59. Answer would ideally include:

Hoover's Lack of Success: Hoover had come into office still committed to progressive
ideals and enjoying great personal support, but his commitment to a limited federal
government, self-regulation by industry, and self-reliance crippled his response to the
calamity of the Great Depression. His attempt to broker a deal between industry and
labor collapsed when industry reneged and began laying off workers. His belief in the
importance of individual self-reliance made him refuse to create federal aid for the
needy, because he believed it would destroy their moral fiber. His primary response to
the devastation was to try to shore up banking and industry at the top with the
expectation that this would trickle down to American workers suffering below. In
practice, the lack of federal assistance left local aid agencies overwhelmed, and
Americans starving and desperate.
60. Answer would ideally include:

Life during the Depression: Americans facing widespread unemployment and poverty
wandered the country seeking work. They crowded together and scrounged for food.
Some blamed immigrants for taking American jobs. Women went into the workforce in
greater numbers, in part to compensate for men laid off from industrial employment.
Americans responded by deriding the ineffectual president and questioning the order of
society. Farmers and workers demonstrated to protest actions by the federal government
and industrialists like Ford. For some, criminals like bank robbers became heroes,
punishing the real thieves—bankers. For others, socialists who had seemed dangerous
ten years earlier now seemed to offer some hope in the midst of hardship by giving
strong support to striking unions. Many others found an escape in popular
entertainment, especially in the movies.
61. Answer would ideally include:

Impact on the Economy: The manufacture of automobiles became the largest industry in
the nation and brought into existence a host of supporting businesses, including filling
stations and motels. These changes created millions of new jobs for workers and also
contributed to a wider assortment of available consumption options. Consumer culture
gave people the sense that their quality of life was improving, even as it led them to
measure their personal worth in terms of material possessions and to the loss of
confidence in their ability to play an effective role in civic affairs.

Impact on Workers: Ford's success depended in significant part on the refinement of

assembly lines. This approach to manufacture facilitated much greater efficiency in
American industry but demanded fewer skills and made work more monotonous. Yet
Ford also paid his workers a living wage that allowed them to take part in the consumer
culture and to buy the cars they produced. Workers in other industries who earned less
money were led to buy on credit so that they, too, could acquire material goods.

Impact on Geography: The automobile influenced the distribution of population within

the nation, giving rise to highways, the expansion of suburbs, and so on. These changes

Page 17
 benefited people with cars who could take advantage of the freedom they provided and
the access to a greater variety of housing options, for example, but they were also a
source of tension for those who did not earn enough money to take part in this new
lifestyle.
62. Answer would ideally include:

The New Woman: In the 1920s, women exercised their new voting rights, although
entrenched male domination of parties and longstanding voting manipulation practices
limited their political influence. Women entered the workforce in greater numbers and
exercised the freedom to spend their income on all kinds of consumer goods. Popular
culture facilitated the circulation of new ideas about the possibility of women's equality
with men—in earning, political life, and sexual liberty—but also created more stringent
and consumer-based standards of beauty and the sexual double standard.

The New Negro: Facing continued racial discrimination and economic hardship, African
Americans organized politically to demand change through organizations such as the
NAACP. Marcus Garvey also attracted many followers to his Back to Africa
Movement. Other African Americans experimented with new cultural forms and, in the
process, challenged white discrimination and racism.
63. Answer would ideally include:

Economic and Geographic Inequality: The booming economy of the 1920s brought
improved standards of living to a minority of Americans; almost two-thirds of the U.S.
population in the 1920s still made do with small incomes that provided only the barest
essentials. A large percentage of rural Americans subsisted on these small incomes, and
most did not benefit from the technological innovations of electricity, indoor plumbing,
or gas.

Urban America and the Adoption of New Ideals: The new cultural opportunities of the
1920s—including jazz, movies, and sports—were most visible in cities and attracted
many Americans. New political and economic opportunities, combined with a new ethic
of personal freedom, made it possible for many women to participate fully in the 1920s
consumer culture and to buy the shorter dresses and cosmetics that defined the “New
Woman” of the period. The Harlem Renaissance represented African Americans'
challenge to white cultural hegemony, while developments such as Marcus Garvey's call
for black pride and independence represented new opportunities for political organizing
for African Americans.

Rural America and Resistance to Change: Rural Americans recognized that their
political and cultural influence was threatened by the greater concentration of
population in the country's urban areas. Many resisted these changes by asserting that
they were the racially and morally pure core of the nation. The size and visibility of the
Ku Klux Klan, the popular outcry against immigration and Catholicism, support for
Prohibition, and the fundamentalism that led to the Scopes trial all stand as examples of
some Americans' discomfort with the economic and cultural changes that accelerated in
the 1920s.

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64. Answer would ideally include:

Trade and Foreign Economies: The United States exacerbated European economic
woes following World War I by insisting on the repayment of wartime debts. To enable
foreigners to buy the flood of American goods being produced despite such debt,
American banks extended credit to foreigners, compounding their economic liabilities.

Domestic Economic Problems: Uneven distribution of wealth in the United States left a
majority of Americans living on relatively small incomes, sharply curtailing their ability
to participate in the new levels of consumption needed to keep pace with American
industry's production capacity. The new practice of buying on credit helped shore up the
problem for a time, but it created unsustainable levels of personal debt.

Market Speculation: The booming economy had drawn many Americans into stock
market speculation, including buying stocks on margin. Overvalued stock and
underfinanced purchases led to a stock market crash in October 1929. The crash gave
the severe economic problems of the American economy free expression and caused an
accelerating cycle of financial panic.
65. Answer would ideally include:

Industrial Crisis: By 1932, American industry was nearing rock bottom. Unemployment
was 25 percent, which meant that many workers had very little money. Unemployment
led to decreased consumption, which made industrialists cut production, slash wages,
and lay off more workers. There was no federal support for the poor and jobless, which
meant that people were hungry and discontented. Families were in crisis. To many
people, it looked as though American capitalism was coming to an end.

Agricultural Crisis: Rural poverty became an increasingly acute problem, with

sharecroppers and tenant farmers suffering the most. Poor rural dwellers lived in
increasingly overcrowded conditions, subsisting on deficient diets and suffering from
diseases caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation.

Economic Struggle: Americans facing widespread unemployment and poverty wandered

the country seeking work. They crowded together and scrounged for food. Some blamed
immigrants for taking American jobs. Women went into the workforce in greater
numbers, in part to compensate for men laid off from industrial employment.

Scapegoating: The economic crisis of the early 1930s led to ethnic and racial
scapegoating, directed particularly against Mexican Americans, who were denounced as
dangerous aliens and deported in large numbers.

Families in Crisis: The Depression had a significant impact on the American family.
Young people postponed marriage and produced fewer children. Family dynamics
changed when women kept their jobs and men lost theirs.

Social Disorder: Crime increased during the Depression as people turned to illegal ways

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 of acquiring money and goods. Public tolerance for outlaws also increased, as evidenced
by Woody Guthrie's widely admired tribute to Pretty Boy Floyd.

Radicalized Public: The staggering human toll of the economic collapse and the
government's inadequate response angered and frustrated Americans. Workers
demonstrated and engaged in militant strikes to demand jobs, better contracts, and
higher wages; farmers resisted foreclosures. The apparent failure of capitalism led to a
revival of socialism and enrollment in the Communist party, and to organizing on the
Right as well.
66. A
67. D
68. G
69. F
70. I
71. B
72. J
73. E
74. H
75. K
76. L
77. C

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