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. According to Max Shachtman, what international event ended credibility for Communism in the United States?

2. What did the Chicago Worker's Alliance protect against?

3. What controversial action did the Rural Rehabilitation Division undertake in the 1930's?

4. Aaron Barkham informs the reader of what strange practice of certain clans within the Appalachian Ku Klux Klan?

5. Why did Ray Wax flee his parents home?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Edward Burgess's experience of the 1930's?

2. What was the most controversial component of the New Deal?

3. What strange and dangerous episode regarding congressional testimony does C. Wright Patman make?

4. What role did Elsa Ponselle play in the forming of the Teacher's Union?

5. Why does Myrna Loy think she never got to meet Roosevelt in person?

6. How did Neil Schaffner's theatre troupe have to change their business model after the Crash 1929?

7. How does Alf Landon recall his 1936 campaign against Roosevelt in the book?

8. According to Horace Cayton, why did black Americans not join the Communists en masse?

9. How were the prisons affected by the Depression?

10. How does Christopher Lasch explain the possibility of a socialist revolt in the 1930's?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Studs Terkel interviews enough people who lived through the Depression that certain archetypes begin to emerge over the course of the book. Write an essay in which you choose an interview that fits each archetype:

Part 1) Choose an interview from an individual who lost wealth in the Depression and discovered a talent at making money through hard work. Where did this person turn to make money? What did he or she discover about society that this person did not know about before? What is this person's worldview after the Depression?

Part 2) Choose an individual who is disappointed by the fact that the country was not largely radicalized by the Depression. To what cultural-political ideology does this person subscribe? What was his or her personal experience during the 1930's? What hope does this person have for the future of America?

Part 3) Choose an individual who lived in a bubble of comfort in the Depression and was not aware of widespread suffering. What was the nature of the bubble in which this person lived? What is his or her impression of the Depression?

Essay Topic 2

Over the course of Hard Times, Studs Terkel interviews several individuals who held powerful elected positions during the Depression. These men took different positions on the issue of the day, and these positions were best expressed in terms of their support or opposition to FDR. Write an essay about these three figures. What did they think of FDR and the New Deal? How did each attain the power they enjoyed in the 1930's? Was each able to make a definitive mark on the country at this time?

Part 1) C. Wright Patman

Part 2) Stanley Fish

Part 3) Alf Landon

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,120 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample