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

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Bob La Follette's signature issue in the 1928 election?

2. What promise did Upton Sinclair make to his supporters during his run for governor of California?

3. How old was Ed Paulson when he took to the road?

4. How did Frank Czerwonka's mother make money during the Depression?

5. How does E.D. Nixon's campaign to unionize the sleeping car porters end?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What connection is made between fear and the Depression in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?

3. How did hobos get by during the Depression?

4. Why is Jerome Zerbe's interview oddly disturbing?

5. Who is Bob La Follette?

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

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

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

9. What does Phyllis Mortimer do when her family falls on hard times in the 1930's?

10. What resources for the transient did Ed Paulson discover during the Depression?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Great Depression was a time during which the most basic and reliable of systems in the United States failed. Though full-on revolution never broke out in America, dissident movements cropped up regularly. Write an essay about three such movements. What issue or injustice gave rise to this spontaneous act of dissidence? How did the movement grow in strength? What happened that finally put an end to the movement?

Part 1) The Bonus March.

Part 2) The opening night of The Cradle Will Rock.

Part 3) The farmers of Iowa stopping corn deliveries.

Essay Topic 2

The Great Depression was a period of time during which large organized movements sought to restructure American society. In a three part essay, discuss how several organized groups went about attempting the recreation of a country:

Part 1) What hole in the union movement did the CIO fill in the 1930's? What tactics did the unions use in the rust belt in order to organize industrial workers? What opposition did they face? How much success did the CIO achieve over the course of the Depression? How did its relationship with the AFL change in this time?

Part 2) How did the American Communist movement surge in popularity during the Hoover years, and how did events in Europe destroy much of its credibility? To what extent did Roosevelt's New Deal destroy its ability to accomplish its goals in the 1930's? What members did it lose after Roosevelt built his coalition?

Part 3) How were both the Catholic Worker and the Wobblies different from the unions and the Communists? What was each group's guiding philosophy? Did either one form a coalition during the Depression? What happened to them after the Depression?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the young people who are interviewed about the Depression in Hard Times. What information do most of them have about the facts of the 1930's? What current events - those of 1970 - concern these interviewees? How are the concerns of the 1930's connected to the present issues? Discuss how the more politically-active interviewees view the consumerist spirit that was born out of the Depression.

(see the answer keys)

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