Hard Times; an Oral History of the Great Depression Test | Final Test - Hard

This set of Lesson Plans consists of approximately 140 pages of tests, essay questions, lessons, and other teaching materials.

Hard Times; an Oral History of the Great Depression Test | Final Test - Hard

This set of Lesson Plans consists of approximately 140 pages of tests, essay questions, lessons, and other teaching materials.
Buy the Hard Times; an Oral History of the Great Depression Lesson Plans
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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. Corn farmers often switched to what agricultural product in the midst of the Depression?

2. What does Edward Burgess discuss buying at the beginning of his interview in Merely Passing Through?

3. According to historian Christopher Lasch, what was never a serious possibility in the Depression?

4. What change to the ticket structure did the Schaffner Players make after the 1929 Crash?

5. What was Dorothea Lange's profession?

Short Essay Questions

1. How much power did coal companies have in the towns they inhabited?

2. Who was Martin Dies?

3. How were the prisons affected by the Depression?

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

5. How did Wilbur Kane experience the Joe Louis fight against Max Schmeling?

6. What humiliation did Ward James face seeking relief in the 1930's?

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

8. According to Elizabeth Wood, how did public housing develop the stigma it has today?

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

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

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

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 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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