View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why would hobos put marks on people's houses with chalk?

2. What inversion of racial relationships happened regarding Robin Langston's father during the Depression?

3. In Hard Travelin', Peggy Terry says that America teaches people that poverty is what?

4. Why was the Michigan governor Frank Murphy branded weak-willed regarding the sit-in strike?

5. What dubious art did Jerome Zerbe develop in the 1930's?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do interviewees who were young in the 1930's realize something bad happened in the country?

2. How did the "southern belle" Diane Morgan become socially conscious in the 1930's?

3. How did blues and alcohol play a defining role in Terkel's college years?

4. How did Yip Harburg find his way to making music?

5. How did the Bonus March end?

6. How does Terkel explain his purposes in writing Hard Times?

7. During the Depression, what did Terkel do instead of becoming a lawyer?

8. How was Dr. Lewis Andreas converted to union support in 1937?

9. How was Robin Langston's family affected by the Depression?

10. Who is Bob La Follette?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the Appalachian mining communities' attempts to unionize. How was this group of workers facing Depression-style injustice before the Depression started? What type of power did companies wield in Appalachia, and how did they enforce this power? Discuss how normal tension between management and would-be unionizing broke into full war in the 1930's? What was the result?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the far left in America. What were its expectations when the stock market collapsed in 1929? Did it expect that the American capitalist system was completely defunct? How did events in Europe throughout the 1930's affect the coalition of far left groups in the United States? What occurred politically and economically in America that rendered the left toothless by the time World War II started?

Essay Topic 3

The Franklin Roosevelt administration was a hothouse of young minds and genius fiscal conservatives. Write an essay about the crucible of ideas that this administration fostered. What initial ideas came out of this group, and how were they killed out of the gate? What politicking occurred within the administration, in terms of currying favor with the President? What actions did FDR take that alienated huge swaths of his supporters?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 987 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample