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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. Where does the sit in of Three Strikes take place?

2. What product did Benton manage after the Depression?

3. What happened to one of Daisy Singer's favorite parks during the Depression?

4. Where did Blackie Gold spend his childhood?

5. How did Phyllis Mortimer's brother feel about her working in the 1930's?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. How did the effects of the Crash become apparent in Terkel's parents' business?

4. How did the jazz community take care of its own in the Depression?

5. How did the Bonus March end?

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

7. Who is Bob La Follette?

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

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

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

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

During the Depression, the United States government offered amenities to its people that were unheard of in the past: farmland, housing, camps for the indigent. Write an essay about the public reaction to these amenities. How did each of them prove a model of cooperation? To what extent did people view them as a stepping stone to private ownership? Which of these amenities are still in existence? Why did some disappear and others degrade over time?

Essay Topic 3

Among the strangest interviews in the book are those dedicated to the plight of farmers in the Midwest, in particular the sections regarding reactions to the price of corn. Write an essay about how the fluctuating price of corn led to massive wastes of foodstuffs. What did farmers do in an attempt to boost the price of corn? What other products did they turn to when the price of corn plummeted to absurdly low levels? What absurd and, later, sensible solutions did the United States government offer?

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