Deck 23: A New Deal for Americans, 1931-1939

Question 1

Which of the following dramatically increased the popularity of Adolf Hitler in Germany?

A)the global economic crisis
B)the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
C)Italy's invasion of Ethiopia
D)the Russian revolution

Answer 1

A

Question 2

How did president Herbert Hoover assess the state of the economy in December 1931?

A)All that Americans had to fear was fear itself.
B)The fundamentals of the economy were sound.
C)The nation was ripe for reform and bold experiments.
D)The only way out was liquidation of all assets, and of labor.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The majority of the 15 million chronically unemployed Americans during the winter of 1930 to 1933 were

A)white urban males.
B)women.
C)African-Americans.
D)Latinos.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The purpose of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation created by Congress in 1932 was to

A)locate loans abroad.
B)lend money to struggling banks and companies
C)begin the process of nationalizing major industries.
D)finance major public works to employ idle Americans.

Question 5

What order did Herbert Hoover give to General Douglas MacArthur regarding the bonus marchers that were camping out in the capital?

A)clear the city of revolutionaries
B)take down the camps, but avoid violence
C)negotiate a peaceful withdrawal of the camp
D)appeal to the veterans' sense of duty to have them disband the camp

Question 6

What happened to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1921?

A)His wife found out about his extramarital affair with his secretary.
B)He lost his campaign for governor of New York.
C)He suffered a crippling attack of polio.
D)He was the victim of a failed assassination attempt in Chicago.

Question 7

Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential election by winning what share of the popular vote?

A)48 percent
B)52 percent
C)58 percent
D)69 percent

Question 8

Which of the following statements best describes the New Dealers that surrounded President Roosevelt after his inauguration?

A)Nearly all of them were trained at European universities and felt disdain for regular Americans.
B)The vast majority of them were old friends of Roosevelt from his time in Albany.
C)While they generally believed in the need to mitigate the excesses of the industrial order, they often disagreed on the details of policy.
D)Almost all of them would later become socialists, and a good number eventually emigrated to the Soviet Union.

Question 9

Why did ordinary Americans trust banks with their valuable cash for the first time in months on Monday, March 13, 1933?

A)Roosevelt's inauguration had given them hope and inspired them to trust the economy once more.
B)Congress had passed the Emergency Banking Act in a special session called by Roosevelt.
C)Foreign banks had stepped in and floated an enormous loan to bolster American banks.
D)Roosevelt had taken the United States off the gold standard over the weekend, securing the currency and restoring consumer faith.

Question 10

Why did critics worry about regarding the formation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933?

A)They felt it might resemble the Hitler youth indoctrination camps in Germany.
B)They feared that the young men in the CCC might not get paid a fair wage.
C)They considered the environmental work of the CCC part of the New Deal propaganda.
D)With young men working in the forest, American businesses in the cities might lack workers.

Question 11

Between 1933 and 1940 the American economy grew at an average annual rate of

A)1 to 1.5 percent.
B)2 to 4 percent.
C)5 to 6 percent.
D)8 to 10 percent.

Question 12

Which of the following best describes political trends on the fringes in the United States in the 1930s?

A)Several small fascist movements developed, but none gained national traction.
B)The Communist Party expanded from about 100,000 members to 3 million.
C)The New Deal proved to be a powerful disincentive to populist challengers.
D)Conservative opposition to the New Deal was virtually absent during the 1930s.

Question 13

On whom did Louisiana Democratic Senator Huey Long blame the Great Depression?

A)immigrants
B)blacks
C)the rich
D)unions

Question 14

During the 1930s, the biggest labor action in the United States since 1919 was

A)the strike of textile workers in New England and the South.
B)the sit-in of autoworkers in Flint Michigan.
C)the walkout of miners in Alabama coal mines.
D)the general strike of San Francisco unions in the summer of 1934.

Question 15

During the congressional elections of November 1934,

A)liberal Democrats increased their numbers in the House and Senate.
B)Republicans were able to recover their control of the Senate.
C)New Deal Democrats suffered a serious defeat.
D)conservative Democrats took over the majority of House seats.

Question 16

Why did Harry Hopkins believe in the Works Progress Administration?

A)The United States needed the new infrastructure that the WPA built.
B)The WPA was going to be the birthplace of new private businesses.
C)He believed that work relief would prevent social unrest.
D)With the work of the WPA, the United States could remain competitive with Britain and Germany.

Question 17

How did business owners respond to the proposed Social Security act in 1935?

A)They denounced any government involvement in worker-employee relations.
B)They welcomed the proposal as a solution for a social crisis.
C)They worried that American workers might not want to pay their share of Social Security.
D)They suggested instead a privatized Social Security system.

Question 18

How did the Republican challenger to Roosevelt in the election of 1936, Alfred Landon, characterize the New Deal?

A)a pitiful example of timid politics
B)an attack on freedom and threat to the American way of life
C)a good start that Republicans needed to finish
D)a political program in the interests of bankers and big businesses

Question 19

Which of the following countries was pushed towards fascist dictatorship as a result of the depression?

A)Canada
B)France
C)Argentina
D)Switzerland

Question 20

The first modern passenger plane, the D-3, was introduced to passengers in

A)1917.
B)1927.
C)1937.
D)1947.

Question 21

Why would the daytime melodramas on 1930s radio called soap operas?

A)They tended to be squeaky clean.
B)Their plots were fake and artificial.
C)The characters in the shows were always exuberant and bubbly.
D)The sponsors of these programs tend to be the makers of household goods.

Question 22

Who most upset Nazi Germany in 1936?

A)Jesse Owens
B)Neville Chamberlain
C)Benito Mussolini
D)the liberty league

Question 23

Which newsweekly was particularly popular in the Midwest during the 1930s?

A)Reader's Digest
B)The New Yorker
C)Saturday Evening Post
D)The Nation

Question 24

Which of the following best characterizes the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt?

A)She had a formal position in the federal government as adviser to her husband.
B)Having grown up in a working-class environment, she was a seasoned activist.
C)She transformed the role of First Lady from hostess to social crusader.
D)While she had sympathy for the unions, she did not get along with feminists.

Question 25

Why did neither the members of Congress nor the Roosevelt administration push to revise the restrictive National Origins Act of 1924?

A)Anti-foreign sentiment still lingered in the population.
B)They did not want to spoil successful economic recovery.
C)Because of the world depression, there were no immigrants to whom it applied.
D)It was immigrant groups themselves that lobbied Congress to "keep the door shut."

Question 26

Who was the informal head of the group of African-Americans working in the federal government during the New Deal?

A)Marian Anderson
B)Mary McLeod Bethune
C)Ida B Wells
D)Fannie Lou Hamer

Question 27

How did New Deal agricultural policies affect landless farmworkers?

A)They ensured that a majority of them became land owners.
B)They convinced them to find most of the employment in industry.
C)They did little to help landless farmworkers.
D)New Deal policies often singled out farmworkers as culprits.

Question 28

How did the New Deal shape the environment of the American West?

A)It contributed to deforestation.
B)It marked an end to oversized public works projects.
C)It virtually created the infrastructure of the National Park system.
D)The New Deal had no significant impact.

Question 29

Several of the most conservative Supreme Court justices that presided during the New Deal saw themselves as guardians of

A)civil rights.
B)property rights.
C)democracy.
D)the federal treasury.

Question 30

What triggered the recession of 1938?

A)a reduction in consumer purchasing power
B)the excessive deficit of the federal government
C)the high tax burdens for businesses
D)the financial crisis in Europe

Question 31

What did the Republican governor of Kansas Alfred M Landon suggest was necessary in the depths of the depression to stop the nation's downward drift?

A)a democratic revolution
B)socialism
C)the hand of a dictator
D)a divine miracle

Question 32

Prior to John Maynard Keynes, how did most economists explain economic depressions?

A)a normal part of the business cycle
B)the product of a trade deficit
C)the result of government intervention
D)the outcome of excessive consumption

Question 33

What share of the nation's 25,000 banks failed between 1929 and 1933?

A)5 percent
B)10 percent
C)15 percent
D)20 percent

Question 34

How did young people respond to the great depression?

A)They did what they always did, go out and find a job.
B)The deferred marriage and lived with their parents.
C)They joined the military.
D)They became members of radical organizations.

Question 35

What was the advice of president Herbert Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, for dealing with the economic crisis?

A)Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers
B)invest in education, invest in infrastructure, invest in energy
C)expand free trade, promote free trade, recover with free trade
D)raise wages, raise prices, raise revenues

Question 36

Early on in his political career, Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the importance of

A)journalists.
B)judges.
C)bankers.
D)community organizers.

Question 37

How did Franklin Delano Roosevelt characterize the unemployed?

A)tragic losers
B)victims of complex and impersonal forces
C)easy slackers
D)unnecessary surplus

Question 38

Who of the following members of Franklin D. Roosevelt's brain trust was NOT an academic lawyer or economist from Columbia University?

A)Harry Hopkins
B)Adolph Berle
C)Rexford Tugwell
D)Raymond Merle

Question 39

What did President Franklin D Roosevelt promise the American people in his inaugural speech?

A)to carry on as before
B)to hope for the best
C)to proceed carefully
D)to experiment boldly

Question 40

What concerned most bankers and traditional economists about New Deal policies?

A)their potential for causing deflation
B)Their failure to consider "the forgotten man"
C)the potential of New Deal policies to anger foreign nations
D)the possibility of inflation

Question 41

How did the Securities Act of 1933 tame the wild speculation that had taken place in Wall Street?

A)It declared risky financial assets illegal.
B)It required stock -issuing companies to provide accurate information.
C)it imposed a tax on every stock exchange.
D)It made the traders on the floor federal employees.

Question 42

What did the Public Works Administration spend its money on?

A)large public works projects like dams and highways
B)reforestation camps in the American West
C)a wide array of projects that involved artists and writers
D)the construction of a power plant in the Tennessee Valley

Question 43

Between 1933 and 1940 the income of farmers

A)doubled.
B)remained stagnant.
C)declined even further.
D)all but vanished.

Question 44

Why did New Dealers believe in unions?

A)They were socialist at heart.
B)Most of them had grown up in unions and enjoyed the camaraderie.
C)They thought this was the best way to keep illegal immigrants out of the American economy.
D)They hoped that unions would provide a countervailing power to the concentrated influence of big corporations.

Question 45

What was the goal of Dr. Frances Townsend?

A)a nationwide old age pension plan
B)nationwide health insurance
C)a government-funded unemployment insurance
D)the expansion of free higher education

Question 46

Which of the following was a particular target of the Liberty League?

A)Henry Ford
B)Eleanor Roosevelt
C)Adolf Hitler
D)Alfred P. Sloan

Question 47

How did Franklin D Roosevelt try to promote his "good neighbor policy" towards Latin America?

A)He invited all the ambassadors of the Latin American nations to a state dinner.
B)He toured the Caribbean with the famous White Fleet.
C)He sent Marines as goodwill ambassadors to small nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
D)He visited several Latin American capitals on an extended sea voyage.

Question 48

What did the Farm Security Administration do in the New Deal?

A)This new agency assisted about 20,000 tenant farmers to purchase their land.
B)It taught southern cotton sharecroppers how to produce higher yields on their limited acreage.
C)It offered free seminars to Western farmers on intense cultivation.
D)It offered the farmers of the Oklahoma Panhandle individual and home protection against dust storms.

Question 49

Between 1935 in 1942 the total number of Americans that worked for the WPA at some point was

A)500,000
B)1 million
C)3 million
D)8.5 million

Question 50

Why did the Social Security Act not include a modest national health insurance plan?

A)Roosevelt and his brain trust had not thought it necessary.
B)African-American community leaders had opposed the measure as excessive coddling.
C)The American Medical Association complained loudly about "socialized medicine."
D)During the 1930s, the cost of healthcare were not significant enough to warrant health insurance.

Question 51

How many American workers were unemployed by 1932?

A)10 percent
B)20 percent
C)6 percent
D)41 percent

Question 52

What did New Dealers think of the gold standard?

A)They considered it essential to economic recovery.
B)They were committed to returning to the gold standard.
C)They considered it an economic straight jacket.
D)They understood it as the financial tool of fascist regimes.

Question 53

Which of the following movies of the 1930s celebrated the FBI?

A)The Public Enemy
B)Scarface
C)G-Men
D)Little Caesar

Question 54

During the 1930s, who was the most admired woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt?

A)Jane Addams
B)Frances Perkins
C)Gertrude Berg
D)Mary MacLeod Bethune

Question 55

How did conservatives react to the Federal Theater Project of the New Deal?

A)They were delighted at such preservation of culture.
B)They complained limited that the funds were too limited.
C)They denounced the program as left-wing propaganda.
D)They used the Federal Theatre Project to promote the Republican Party.

Question 56

What traditional view did most New Deal unemployment and relief programs adopt?

A)that of the male head of household as breadwinner
B)that of the African-American as a rural peon
C)that of the Mexicans as illegal immigrants
D)that of women as subjects with no voting rights

Question 57

How did Franklin Delano Roosevelt contribute to the defense of civil rights during the 1930s?

A)He pushed a federal anti-lynching bill through Congress.
B)He created the first civil rights commission.
C)He openly challenged the practice of segregation.
D)He appointed many federal judges who sympathized with minority aspirations.

Question 58

What qualified John Collier to become the head of the new Bureau of Indian Affairs?

A)He was a seasoned veteran of the war against Prairie Indians.
B)He had taught in the Carlisle School for Indians during the progressive era.
C)He was a social worker familiar with both immigrants communities and southwestern life.
D)He was Native American himself.

Question 59

Which region in the nation received more federal development funds per resident than any other region of the country during the 1930s?

A)the South
B)the West
C)the Midwest
D)the Northeast

Question 60

What ultimately restored economic growth after the recession of 1938?

A)the resumption of the gold standard
B)the war with Japan
C)a $5 billion spending program and military orders from Great Britain
D)the dismantling of New Deal agencies by the Supreme Court and the revival of private business

Question 61

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. business cycle
2. Smoot-Hawley Tariff
3. the "forgotten man"
4. NRA "production codes"
5. social insurance
6. Works Progress Administration
7. Gertrude Berg
8. Marian Anderson
9. "shelter belts"
10. John Maynard Keynes

Question 62

During the Great Depression, why did cities and states fire employees and reduce their social service budgets?

A)They believed that economic recovery depended on a surplus in their budget.
B)Their property taxes declined, and they were required by law to balance their budgets.
C)Most of the city workers and recipients of social services were African-Americans, who city leaders did not consider worthy.
D)Mayors and governors of states were ordered to do so by President Hoover.

Question 63

Why did the press never publish an unflattering photograph or description of President Franklin Roosevelt's physical limitations that stemmed from his polio?

A)Roosevelt had paid them not to.
B)The government censored the photographs.
C)Roosevelt had worked hard to woo journalists and win them over.
D)They feared that showing the president in an unflattering light might damage their sales.

Question 64

Why did Franklin D Roosevelt take the United States off the gold standard?

A)He and other New Dealers argued that the gold standard had been a straitjacket making the depression worse for the US.
B)He was hoping that the United States might export itself out of the depression.
C)Roosevelt had wanted to remain on the gold standard, but Republicans in Congress forced him to do so.
D)Maintaining the gold standard during the Hoover years had led to a constant outflow of dollars into foreign currency markets.

Question 65

Which of the following did Congress NOT do during the first hundred days of Roosevelt's first administration?

A)put the unemployed to work
B)nationalized the steel industry
C)regulated the stock market
D)assisted homeowners and farmers in paying mortgages

Question 66

Most listeners of Father Charles Coughlin were

A)socialists.
B)Catholics.
C)Evangelicals.
D)Republicans.

Question 67

Which of the following groups was included in the WPA program?

A)pilots
B)bankers
C)artists
D)illegal immigrants

Question 68

What did the economic strategies of the United States, Japan, and Germany have in common during the 1930s?

A)They reduced tariffs.
B)They stuck to the gold standard.
C)They balance their budgets.
D)They relied on countercyclical deficit spending.

Question 69

The biggest box office draw of the 1930s was

A)child star Shirley Temple.
B)pilot Charles Lindbergh.
C)Movie star Rudolph Valentino.
D)"It" girl Clara Bow.

Question 70

Why did President Franklin D Roosevelt not push the issue of civil rights during the New Deal?

A)He considered it more important to maintain good political relations with southern Democrats.
B)He felt that civil rights reforms would run counter to the ideas of the New Deal.
C)A disciple of Woodrow Wilson, he believed in segregation and was a white supremacist at heart.
D)The African-American community failed to draw the president's attention to the issue.

Question 71

Why did Congress balk at Roosevelt's proposal to expand the number of Supreme Court justices?

A)The number of Supreme Court justices was constitutionally fixed.
B)The additional salaries of these high-level lawyers would have strained the budget even more.
C)Since the Civil War, that number of justices had settled and taken on an aura of inviolability.
D)They feared that with more justices, the Supreme Court was less likely to agree to the verdict in its cases.

Question 72

What were the consequences of the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff?

Question 73

What difference did First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt make in the New Deal?

Question 74

What was the central purpose of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration?

Question 75

How was Social Security supposed to work, according to the original legislation?

Question 76

How did the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes deviate significantly from those of previous economists?

Question 77

What experiences prepared Franklin D. Roosevelt for his leadership in the New Deal? Discuss his lifetime prior to his election, and also the efforts and failures of his predecessor to develop your answer.

Question 78

What types of opposition did the New Deal provoke? What did the critics claim? Do you think they had a point?

Question 79

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. the "dole"
2. fireside chats
3. 21st Amendment
4. Charles Coughlin
5. Good Neighbor Policy
6. Wagner Act
7. Jesse Owens
8. John Collier
9. court packing scheme
10. Fair Labor Standards Act

Question 80

Which of the following was part of Eleanor Roosevelt's biography?

A)service as a nurse in World War I
B)brief career as a movie actress in Hollywood
C)work in a New York City settlement house
D)membership in the women's Ku Klux Klan at her father's request