Deck 23: The Great Depression Key

Question 1

After 1929,in the face of the worsening global economic crisis,the United States

A) forgave the debts owed by European nations to America.
B) demanded immediate payment of all debts owed by European nations to America.
C) forgave the debts owed by former allies during the War, and reduced the debts of other nations.
D) refused to alter the payment schedule of debts owed by European nations to America.
E) reduced the debts owed by European nations to America.

Answer 1

refused to alter the payment schedule of debts owed by European nations to America.

Question 2

The long-time censor of Hollywood films in the 1920s and 1930s was

A) Frank Capra.
B) King Vidor.
C) James Agee.
D) Will Hays.
E) Pare Lorentz.

Answer 2

Will Hays.

Question 3

In the late 1920s,the European demand for agricultural and manufacturing goods from the United States was

A) steady.
B) rising.
C) declining.
D) chronically unstable.
E) essentially nonexistent.

Answer 3

declining.

Question 4

During the Great Depression in the rural United States,

A) the farm economy could not keep up with consumer demand.
B) one-third of all farmers lost their land.
C) farmers enjoyed several unusually fertile growing seasons.
D) farm income dropped by twenty-five percent.
E) economic conditions were slightly better than in industrial cities.

Question 5

During the 1930s,southern rural blacks who moved to northern urban areas

A) None of these answers is correct.
B) could easily find domestic service jobs that no whites wanted.
C) faced blatant discrimination, much as they had in the South.
D) generally experienced conditions that were in most respects little better than in the South.
E) joined the NAACP in large numbers.

Question 6

In the 1930s,all of the following films offered social commentary on the United States and the Great Depression,EXCEPT

A) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
B) Our Daily Bread.
C) The Grapes of Wrath.
D) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
E) It Happened One Night.

Question 7

Beginning in February 1928 and lasting through most of 1929,the American stock market

A) saw the number of shares traded daily soar.
B) slowly declined in value.
C) saw the average price of stocks rise slightly.
D) rapidly lost value.
E) saw brokerage firms restrict credit to those buying stocks.

Question 8

The severity of the Depression increased in 1931 when the Federal Reserve Board

A) weakened the value of the dollar.
B) raised interest rates.
C) closed all financially-ailing banks.
D) declared bankruptcy.
E) expanded the money supply.

Question 9

In the 1930s,the largest Japanese American and Chinese American populations were found in

A) Arizona.
B) Hawaii.
C) California.
D) Oregon.
E) Washington.

Question 10

The economic pressures caused by the Great Depression

A) weakened the notion that a woman's proper place was in the home.
B) led the federal government to make it illegal for married women to work outside the home.
C) affected service and clerical positions held by women more than they affected jobs in heavy industry.
D) saw men move into jobs traditionally held by professional women.
E) forced most women out of the labor force.

Question 11

In 1932,the unemployment rate in Toledo,Ohio,was one of the worst in the nation,at

A) 80 percent.
B) 95 percent.
C) 40 percent.
D) 70 percent.
E) 60 percent.

Question 12

In response to the Great Depression,many Mexican Americans

A) successfully organized agricultural unions.
B) left the United States entirely.
C) migrated into rural areas, where work was more available.
D) moved into California.
E) migrated to the South.

Question 13

During the Great Depression,Asian Americans

A) who were college educated generally weathered the crisis fairly well.
B) were limited by law to low-paying jobs such as salesclerks and food servers.
C) had trouble competing for jobs with poor white migrants from the Midwest.
D) were generally able, unlike African Americans, to keep from losing their jobs to white Americans.
E) found it easier to move into mainstream professions.

Question 14

All the following factors contributed to the Great Depression EXCEPT

A) weak consumer demand.
B) a lack of diversification in the United States economy.
C) conservative banking policies that restricted the availability of loans.
D) a maldistribution of purchasing power.
E) an unstable European economy.

Question 15

In the 1930s,Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People

A) claimed community togetherness was the best way to combat hard times.
B) taught that individual initiative could help people to restore themselves financially.
C) gave financial advice and offered tips for going to a job interview.
D) asserted that a strong faith in Christianity would best help one through hard times.
E) argued the best way to end the Depression was to have working-class men and women run for office.

Question 16

The "Dust Bowl" in the 1930s

A) experienced years of heavy rainfall.
B) stretched from Kansas to California.
C) was created by grasshoppers.
D) was created by the national economic collapse.
E) was a product of changing environmental conditions.

Question 17

During the 1930s,regarding radio,

A) most programs were increasingly prerecorded.
B) listening was often a community experience.
C) radio sets were basically unusable in rural areas without electricity.
D) around half of all American homes owned a radio.
E) the largest proportion of programming was devoted to news.

Question 18

In the 1931 Scottsboro court case,

A) a Georgia jury convicted all of the black youths.
B) the Supreme Court reaffirmed the death penalty convictions.
C) black teenagers were accused of rape by two white women.
D) All these answers are correct.
E) eight of the convicted youths were executed for crimes they did not commit.

Question 19

As a result of the Great Depression,social values in the United States

A) saw Americans embrace nearly any idea that was new or nontraditional.
B) saw the idea of individual initiative fall into disrepute.
C) saw most Americans turn against the traditional "success ethic."
D) saw a majority of Americans question the future of democracy.
E) seemed to change relatively little.

Question 20

During the Great Depression,

A) the birth rate increased.
B) the divorce rate declined.
C) both the marriage rate and the birth rate increased.
D) All these answers are correct.
E) the marriage rate increased.

Question 21

The Hoover administration addressed the economic situation of American farmers with the

A) Agricultural Adjustment Act.
B) Farm Security Administration.
C) Agricultural Marketing Act.
D) Rural Electrification Administration.
E) Soil Conservation Act.

Question 22

The federal government's response to the "Bonus Army" included

A) both the use of six tanks to rout the veterans from Washington, and the injuring of over 100 marchers.
B) All these answers are correct.
C) General Jack Pershing exceeding his orders to remove the veterans.
D) the use of six tanks to rout the veterans from Washington.
E) the injuring of over 100 marchers.

Question 23

As the depression deepened,President Herbert Hoover

A) stopped worrying about trying to balance the budget.
B) began to experiment with untried economic principles.
C) called for a reduction in taxes.
D) encouraged businessmen to reduce their industrial production.
E) grew less willing to increase federal spending.

Question 24

During the 1930s,the American Communist Party

A) supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
B) None of these answers is correct.
C) excluded most minorities from its ranks.
D) distanced itself from the Soviet Union.
E) both distanced itself from the Soviet Union and excluded most minorities from its ranks.

Question 25

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade is associated with

A) the "bonus marchers."
B) the Spanish Civil War.
C) veterans of World War I.
D) the radical right.
E) the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Question 26

During the 1930s,American literature

A) adopted a more pessimistic, although no less radical, approach to society in the later 1930s.
B) faced censorship laws that suppressed criticisms of American politics and culture.
C) offered a greater degree of social commentary than did either radio or movies.
D) saw most popular books and magazines focus on the Great Depression.
E) saw photographic magazines lose much of their readership due to the high cost of each issue.

Question 27

President Herbert Hoover responded to the onset of the Great Depression by

A) urging a program of voluntary cooperation from business leaders.
B) calling for a system of social security to alleviate individual suffering.
C) calling for a tax increase to prevent a federal deficit.
D) shutting down the bank system until confidence in it could be restored.
E) proposing a series of economic reform programs.

Question 28

During the 1930s,the most important group within the Popular Front was

A) Americans for Democratic Action.
B) the Communist Party.
C) the Progressive Party.
D) the Socialist Party.
E) the Federation of Labor.

Question 29

During the 1930s,the left in the United States

A) All these answers are correct.
B) both experienced intense government hostility and saw a widening of the ideological range of mainstream art and politics.
C) saw a widening of the ideological range of mainstream art and politics.
D) found broad acceptance among both the working class and intellectuals.
E) experienced intense government hostility.

Question 30

The Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930

A) gave incentives to Europeans to sell their goods in the United States.
B) None of these answers is correct.
C) was designed to stimulate U.S. exports.
D) both gave incentives to Europeans to sell their goods in the U.S., and was designed to stimulate U.S. exports.
E) increased tariffs on industrial products, but left farm products' rates unchanged.

Question 31

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A) was created to provide federal loans to troubled banks and businesses.
B) was created in the first year of Herbert Hoover's administration.
C) included a $1.5 billion public works budget.
D) All these answers are correct.
E) included a $1.5 billion public works budget, and was created to provide federal loans to troubled banks and businesses.

Question 32

As Herbert Hoover began his presidency,he

A) feared a depression.
B) called for voluntary guidelines to stabilize the stock market.
C) renounced his earlier policy of associationalism.
D) considered the country's economic future bright.
E) assumed the economy might suffer a mild recession.

Question 33

In 1932,the Reconstruction Finance Corporation

A) lent funds only to financial institutions with sufficient collateral.
B) was created by Congress over President Herbert Hoover's veto.
C) spent most of its money trying to prop up unstable local banks.
D) was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
E) focused most of its spending on large urban cities in the Northeast.

Question 34

The 1930s films of director Frank Capra typically displayed

A) a harsh critique of the heartlessness of capitalism.
B) praise for the "rugged individualism" of American business.
C) the grasping materialism of most Americans.
D) a populist admiration for ordinary Americans.
E) the cultural backwardness of small towns in America.

Question 35

In 1932,the Farmers' Holiday Association

A) began and spread throughout the South.
B) was essentially a farmers' strike.
C) led to more public money being sent to rural areas.
D) argued that farmers should also reap the benefits of welfare capitalism.
E) called on farmers to leave their lands unplanted.

Question 36

After Democrats won control of Congress in the 1930 elections,President Herbert Hoover

A) refused to support a more vigorous public spending program for relief.
B) told reporters that his economic recovery policies had not been successful.
C) deferred to their economic agenda of relief and public spending programs.
D) criticized voters for abandoning the economic principles of the Republican Party.
E) urged the new Congress to construct "Hoovervilles" to shelter the unemployed.

Question 37

During the 1930s,the Southern Tenant Farmers Union

A) sought to organize the rural poor across racial lines.
B) All these answers are correct.
C) concerned the federal government as a powerful force of rural radicalism.
D) both sought to organize the rural poor across racial lines, and concerned the federal government as a powerful force of rural radicalism.
E) was formed by the American Communist Party.

Question 38

In the 1930s,all the following books offered criticism of American society EXCEPT

A) Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen.
B) U.S.A. by John Dos Passos.
C) Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West.
D) Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell.
E) The Disinherited by Jack Conroy.

Question 39

In 1939,after the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany,the American Communist Party

A) disbanded.
B) broke from the Soviet Union.
C) formed an American Nazi Party.
D) lost a significant portion of its membership.
E) reduced its criticism of the United States.

Question 40

All of the following statements regarding the 1932 "Bonus Army" are true EXCEPT that

A)more than 20,000 American veterans camped out in Washington,D.C.
B)Hoover called some marchers' behavior evidence of uncontrolled violence and radicalism.
C)the United States Army,led by General Douglas MacArthur,forced the veterans to flee in terror.
D)the "Army" demanded Congress create relief programs for World War I veterans.
E)Congress refused to formally consider the demands of the "Army."

Question 41

The last of the Scottsboro defendants was not freed until 1950.

Question 42

Despite hard economic times in the United States,few Hispanics left for Mexico during the Great Depression.

Question 43

In the year prior to its crash,the stock market had been soaring upward.

Question 44

It is accurate to state that filmmaker Frank Capra admired the American people and praised the capitalist marketplace.

Question 45

Farm income declined by 60 percent between 1929 and 1932.

Question 46

Although it was a segregated organization,the Southern Tenant Farmers Union sought to improve the lives of all sharecroppers.

Question 47

The staple of radio broadcasting during the 1930s was news.

Question 48

The automobile and construction industries were both experiencing economic declines prior to the stock market crash.

Question 49

The power of censors in the film industry declined as the Depression progressed.

Question 50

In 1932,Franklin Roosevelt's promise of a "new deal" for America included a commitment to

A) spending billions of dollars to assist in economic recovery.
B) providing relief jobs to millions of unemployed Americans.
C) None of these answers is correct.
D) passing legislation establishing a nationwide program of social security.
E) both spending billions of dollars to assist in economic recovery, and providing relief jobs to millions of unemployed Americans.

Question 51

Following the "great crash," the Federal Reserve system lowered interest rates in an effort to revive the American economy.

Question 52

In 1928,Herbert Hoover predicted an end to poverty in America was near.

Question 53

Prior to 1932,Franklin Roosevelt had been all of the following EXCEPT

A) a state legislator.
B) governor of New York.
C) assistant secretary of the navy.
D) vice president of the United States.
E) a Hudson Valley aristocrat.

Question 54

At the end of the 1930s,a higher percentage of black women were employed than were white women.

Question 55

Franklin Roosevelt's victory over Herbert Hoover in 1932

A) saw Roosevelt carry every state.
B) was decided only in the final days of the election.
C) All these answers are correct.
D) was a convincing mandate.
E) was disputed in several states.

Question 56

In 1932,the Supreme Court overturned the convictions of the "Scottsboro boys."

Question 57

In order to ease economic problems in Europe,the U.S.government reduced Europe's debts to America stemming from World War I.

Question 58

Between his election in 1932 and the inauguration in 1933,Franklin Roosevelt

A) established the Works Progress Administration.
B) refused to make any agreements on the economic direction of the country with the outgoing president, Herbert Hoover.
C) made no public statements.
D) promised to maintain a balanced federal budget.
E) declared he would dramatically increase government spending.

Question 59

Those blacks who migrated to northern cities during the Great Depression found conditions little better than in the South.

Question 60

In the 1930s,listening to the radio was often a family or community experience.

Question 61

Prior to 1932,Franklin Roosevelt had never held elective office.

Question 62

Characterize Herbert Hoover's personality during his presidency.How did his personal image with the American public change between 1928 and 1932?

Question 63

Prior to the stock market crash in October 1929,what were the major weaknesses in the economy of the late 1920s?

Question 64

President Hoover did attempt to use federal spending to fight the Great Depression.

Question 65

Both the Agricultural Marketing Act and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff provided significant help to American farmers.

Question 66

Why was Franklin Roosevelt elected president in 1932? What was his campaign platform?

Question 67

Why did the radical left enjoy growing popularity in America during the 1930s? Why did this popularity prove to be largely temporary?

Question 68

How was the American family affected by the Great Depression?

Question 69

Accurately characterize the depth and breadth of the Great Depression.

Question 70

How did the American people-men,women,minorities-generally respond to the Great Depression?

Question 71

What caused the stock market to crash in October 1929? Could this crash have been avoided?

Question 72

Franklin Roosevelt won in a landslide in 1932,but it was not clear what he would do as president.

Question 73

Farm strikes in the Midwest during the Great Depression were initially successful.

Question 74

What did President Hoover offer in the fight against the Great Depression? Why was he ineffective in this fight?

Question 75

What are the major interpretations regarding the causes of the Great Depression? Why is there little historical consensus regarding the causes?

Question 76

What were the popular cultural similarities and differences in the 1930s among radio programs,the movies,and literature?