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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. With what assertion does David Kennedy say he disagrees regarding Roosevelt?

2. What was Huey Long's central message in his nationally broadcast speeches?

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

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

5. What does Edward Burgess say he never saw in Chicago in the 1930's?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Neil Schaffner's theatre troupe have to change their business model after the Crash 1929?

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

3. How did Ray Wax's life disillusion him to the idea of strive-and-succeed?

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

5. How does Alf Landon recall his 1936 campaign against Roosevelt in the book?

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

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

8. Describe Harry Hartman's experiences repossessing belongings in the Depression.

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

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 young people who are interviewed about the Depression in Hard Times. What information do most of them have about the facts of the 1930's? What current events - those of 1970 - concern these interviewees? How are the concerns of the 1930's connected to the present issues? Discuss how the more politically-active interviewees view the consumerist spirit that was born out of the Depression.

Essay Topic 2

The Great Depression was a period of time during which large organized movements sought to restructure American society. In a three part essay, discuss how several organized groups went about attempting the recreation of a country:

Part 1) What hole in the union movement did the CIO fill in the 1930's? What tactics did the unions use in the rust belt in order to organize industrial workers? What opposition did they face? How much success did the CIO achieve over the course of the Depression? How did its relationship with the AFL change in this time?

Part 2) How did the American Communist movement surge in popularity during the Hoover years, and how did events in Europe destroy much of its credibility? To what extent did Roosevelt's New Deal destroy its ability to accomplish its goals in the 1930's? What members did it lose after Roosevelt built his coalition?

Part 3) How were both the Catholic Worker and the Wobblies different from the unions and the Communists? What was each group's guiding philosophy? Did either one form a coalition during the Depression? What happened to them after the Depression?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the Horatio Alger narrative and how the Great Depression forced individuals to reassess the legitimacy of it. Which interviewees in the text subscribed to the strive-and-succeed philosophy of Alger? Did any of them succeed? Of those who failed, what elements in the 1930's work environment proved incompatible with the rags-to-riches mythology? What did these people discover as a new philosophy?

(see the answer keys)

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