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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. Which of the following is not a periodical mentioned by Terkel in the Introduction?

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

3. What unorthodox job did Phyllis Mortimer take when her family fell short of money in the 1930's?

4. What food can Dorothe Bernstein not stand because of her days in an orphanage?

5. What industry did Jose Yglesia attempt to unionize?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Doc Graham's attitude toward Franklin Roosevelt?

2. What was the purpose of the Bonus March?

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

4. How did hobos get by during the Depression?

5. What did Arthur Robinson experience after the Wall Street Crash of 1929?

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

7. Who is Bob La Follette?

8. Why was psychoanalysis largely ineffective in the Depression?

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

10. How did William Benton make his fortune?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The 1930's, as a result of the abject poverty and of Prohibition, became an era of romanticized criminality. Write an essay on the popularity of illegal behavior at this time. What was the nature of the industry dedicated to circumventing Prohibition laws? Why were figures like John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly folk heroes for robbing the banks? To what extent were they enacting public disgust with failed institutions?

Essay Topic 2

Studs Terkel's Hard Times is an oral history, meaning that it relies entirely on the conflagration of differing ideas. By including voices that speak from different experiences of the Depression, Terkel makes the debate the central focus of the history. Write an essay on this debate in three parts:

Part 1) The topic of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's success as a president is among the most controversial in the book. What are the arguments for his saving the United States? What are the arguments against such an assertion? How do these arguments reveal the dueling ideologies in America both in the 1930's and in 1970?

Part 2) Terkel interviews individuals who suffered greatly in the Depression and those who did not, including some who actually prospered in the desperation. How do the two groups' perceptions of the 1930's differ? What facts existed to support both a horrific and a majestic impression of the Depression years?

Part 3) Terkel interviews not only those who lived through the Depression but also their children and grandchildren. How does he juxtapose the worldviews of those who survived the poverty with those who did not? How do the younger generations see the Depression? Can they understand the residual effects it left with those who survived?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the tactic used by union supporters in the 1930's Rust Belt. How did they effectively shut down plants, stopping the introduction of scabs and limiting the union-busting? What kind of press did these strikes get, and how was Governor Frank Murphy of Michigan leveled by these events? What effect did the passage of the Wagner Act have on the ability of workers to unionize?

(see the answer keys)

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