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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. How was public housing viewed differently by the public in the 1930's than it is today?

2. According to Fred Thompson, what did Wobblies constantly have to prove they were not?

3. What does Emma Tiller say in her interview is as important as money?

4. What shocking information did General Smedley Butler report to Congress in the 1930's?

5. What is the name of the sketch programs Neil Schaffner performed in troupes across the country?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Martin Dies?

2. What was Dr. Townsend's contribution to the Depression-era discourse?

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

4. How were the prisons affected by the Depression?

5. According to James Farley, how did Roosevelt alienate members of his own administration?

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

7. How did Jack Kirkland become famous during the Depression?

8. What strange dichotomy exists in Stanley Kell's interview in Honor and Humiliation?

9. What safety concerns pervaded mines in the 1930's?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the far left in America. What were its expectations when the stock market collapsed in 1929? Did it expect that the American capitalist system was completely defunct? How did events in Europe throughout the 1930's affect the coalition of far left groups in the United States? What occurred politically and economically in America that rendered the left toothless by the time World War II started?

Essay Topic 2

During the Depression, the United States government offered amenities to its people that were unheard of in the past: farmland, housing, camps for the indigent. Write an essay about the public reaction to these amenities. How did each of them prove a model of cooperation? To what extent did people view them as a stepping stone to private ownership? Which of these amenities are still in existence? Why did some disappear and others degrade over time?

Essay Topic 3

The Franklin Roosevelt administration was a hothouse of young minds and genius fiscal conservatives. Write an essay about the crucible of ideas that this administration fostered. What initial ideas came out of this group, and how were they killed out of the gate? What politicking occurred within the administration, in terms of currying favor with the President? What actions did FDR take that alienated huge swaths of his supporters?

(see the answer keys)

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