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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. According to the author in the Introduction, “Fifty-six years after the first earth was turned beside City Creek, the Mormons had” how many “acres under full or partial irrigation in several states”?

2. What western city does the author describe “with exotic palms and golf-course lawns and a five-hundred-foot fountain and an artificial surf” in the Introduction?

3. When was the Reclamation Act established?

4. According to the author in Chapter Three, regarding the Bureau of Reclamation, “The most auspicious event in its entire history was the election to the presidency in 1932 of a freewheeling, free-spending” what?

5. Who was to the man to “discover a malleable yellow rock in the tail race of Sutter’s Mill on the American River above Sacramento” in the 1800s,” according to the author in Chapter One?

Short Essay Questions

1. How have historians traditionally spent their focus in regard to the American West?

2. What genre is Cadillac Desert? What does Marc Reisner reveal through his approach in the book?

3. What are the historical foci of Marc Reisner in writing Cadillac Desert?

4. When did the perception of the American West as a desert begin to change? Who helped initiate this change?

5. What reaction did the public and lawmakers have to the advice of John Wesley Powell regarding settlement in the West? What was the result?

6. What publication does the author describe which was written by John Wesley Powell?

7. Who won in the struggles over the Colorado River, according to the author in Chapter Four?

8. How does the author describe the American West in Chapter One?

9. Who was General John Wesley Powell? How does the author describe him?

10. How does the author of Cadillac Desert describe the bureaucratic changes during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the impact of damming in the American South. Why did the South construct as many dams as it did? How do these dams differ from those in California and the West? What has been their impact on the environment?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harold Ickes. What programs did Roosevelt initiate to resuscitate the economy in America during and after the Depression?What perception does the author have of F.D.R.? What were the positives and negatives of his Administration?

Essay Topic 3

Describe and discuss the Reclamation Act and its impact on the environment of the American West. When was the Act introduced? Who supported it? Why?

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