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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. At the beginning of The Fine and Lively Arts, Hiram Sherman speaks glowingly of drinking covert gin out of what?

2. Who was the head of the red-baiting committee that investigated New Deal administrators in the 1930's?

3. What accusation was made against Dr. Francis Townsend in his time?

4. In Three o'Clock in the Morning, Wilbur Kane's mother was bitter about the invasion of what?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How did The Cradle Will Rock become a lightning rod of controversy?

2. What does Dr. Martin Bickham discover about the American drive to work through his relief work in the 1930's?

3. In the Depression-era Midwest, how did corn prices lead to corn being burned and pigs being slaughtered?

4. Describe the incident with the Iowa Judge in The Father Is the Man?

5. Who was Martin Dies?

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

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

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

9. What did Hiram Sherman do after The Cradle Will Rock?

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

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 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?

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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