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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. Where does the sit in of Three Strikes take place?

2. How did Phyllis Mortimer's brother feel about her working in the 1930's?

3. What promise did Upton Sinclair make to his supporters during his run for governor of California?

4. How did Dr. Lewis Andreas help strikers in Chicago in 1937?

5. Where did Arthur Robinson keep thousands of dollars during the bank holiday?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How did blues and alcohol play a defining role in Terkel's college years?

3. How did the Bonus March end?

4. How did William Benton make his fortune?

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

6. How did Mrs. Winston Roberts of Chicago survive the Depression?

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

8. Why is Jerome Zerbe's interview oddly disturbing?

9. What does Phyllis Mortimer do when her family falls on hard times in the 1930's?

10. What does Peggy Terry have to say about race and the Depression?

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

Among the strangest interviews in the book are those dedicated to the plight of farmers in the Midwest, in particular the sections regarding reactions to the price of corn. Write an essay about how the fluctuating price of corn led to massive wastes of foodstuffs. What did farmers do in an attempt to boost the price of corn? What other products did they turn to when the price of corn plummeted to absurdly low levels? What absurd and, later, sensible solutions did the United States government offer?

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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