Unit 6: Roaring 20s, Great Depression, and New Deal

Questions 1-3 refer to the excerpt below.

"A widely held view of the Republican administrations of the 1920s is that they represented a return to an older order that had existed before Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson became the nation's chief executives. Harding and Coolidge especially are seen as latter-day McKinleys, political mediocrities who peopled their cabinets with routine, conservative party hacks of the kind almost universal in Washington from the end of the Civil War until the early 20th century. In this view, the 1920s politically were an effort to set back the clock."

-David A. Shannon, historian, Between the Wars: America, 1919-1941, 1965

Which of the following groups from the 1920s most likely would have supported the perspective of this excerpt?

• Business and financial leaders.

• Democrats and Republicans who supported Progressive reforms.

• Supporters of reduced government spending and tax cuts.

• Native-born and older Americans with traditional values.

Which of the following from the 1920s mostly clearly challenges the interpretation expressed in the excerpt?

• The disarmament agreement among the great powers to limit warships and aggression.

• The passage of legislation to increase tariff rates and cut income taxes.

• The leasing of public lands to private oil companies.

• The reduction of federal regulations for businesses and the banking system.

Which of the following groups of politicians from between 1865 and 1900 most closely resemble the corrupt politicians during the Harding administration?

• Politicians who failed to protect the freedmen in the South.

• Politicians who took shares of railroad stock in return for government subsidies.

• Politicians who gave government jobs to their political supporters as rewards.

• Politicians who violated the temperance laws and their professed moral beliefs.

Which of the following trends of the 1920s is most clearly portrayed in this advertisement?

• The expansion of auto dealers throughout the country.

• The use of extended payment plans to purchase consumer goods.

• The emergence of General Motors as the largest company.

• The growth of middle-class incomes.

Many historians criticize the economy that developed during the 1920s. Which of the following statements best supports that point of view?

• Consumerism weakened the moral character of the nation.

• The growth of the auto industry badly hurt the railroads.

• Advertising was based on gaining status and popularity.

• The boom was based on speculation and borrowed money.

Which of the following groups faced the most difficult economic conditions during the 1920s?

• Non-unionized workers in older industries.

• Assembly line workers in factories.

• Farmers and many rural areas.

• Businesses that did not accept credit cards.

The problem of birth control has arisen directly from the efforts of the feminine spirit to free itself from bondage .... The basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom. A free race cannot be born of slave mothers. A woman enchained cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.

-Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, 1920

Which of the following developments in the 1920s would most directly support the author's sentiments in the excerpt?

• Liberalized divorce laws.

• Labor-saving household appliances.

• Employment as secretaries, nurses, and teachers.

• New fashions and hair styles.

Which of the following most influenced thinking about sexual behavior during the 1920s?

• Research of Frederick Taylor.

• Writing of the Lost Generation.

• Advertising of consumer products.

• Popularization of Sigmund Freud.

"The farmers are being pauperized by the poverty of industrial populations and the industrial populations are being pauperized by the poverty of the farmers. Neither has the money to buy the product of the other, hence we have overproduction and under consumption at the same time and in the same country. "I have not come here to stir you in a recital of the necessity for relief for our suffering fellow citizens. However, unless something is done for them and

done soon, you will have a revolution on hand ...."There is a feeling among the masses that something is radically wrong

.... they say that this government is a conspiracy against the common people to enrich the already rich."

-Oscar Ameringer, editor of the Oklahoma Daily Leader, testimony to the House Committee on Labor, February, 1932.

Which of the following most directly supports the author's analysis?

• Gross national product fell from $104 billion in 1929 to $56 billion

  in 1932.

• Bank assets fell from $72 billion in 1929 to $51 billion in 1932.

• Farm income fell from $11.4 billion in 1929 to $6.3 billion in 1932.

• Government spending rose from $3.2 billion in 1929 to $4.6 billion

  in 1932.

Which of the following was most directly related to the phrase in the testimony "the necessity for relief for our suffering fellow citizens"?

• Twenty percent of the banks were closed.

• The Dawes Plan was suspended.

• The Federal Farm Board was created.

• Twenty-five percent of the workforce was unemployed.