Deck 22: A New ERA, 1920-1930

Question 1

Rudolph Valentino's first job was as a

A)taxidermist.
B)taxi dancer.
C)taxi driver.
D)tax collector.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

The early radios of the 1920s were sold as

A)portable headsets.
B)assembly kits.
C)car accessories.
D)luxury items.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Why did traditionally minded critics disapprove of open access to radio airwaves?

A)They thought radio was too commercial.
B)They feared that it would create too much static.
C)They worried that open access might foster immorality.
D)They were concerned that it would open the path for foreign broadcasts.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Between the early 1920s and 1927 vehicle registrations increased in the United States from 3 million to

A)4.5 million.
B)6.7 million
C)8.25 million.
D)15.75 million.

Question 5

Which of the following suburbs grew at its fastest pace through the 1920s?

A)Levittown
B)Grosse Pointe
C)Beverly Hills
D)Brooklyn

Question 6

Which group of immigrants did anti-immigration activists condemn in particular in the early 1920s?

A)Germans
B)Austrians
C)Polish Jews
D)Mexicans

Question 7

Which of the following is true about the National Origins Act?

A)It established the Naturalization and Immigration Service.
B)It created the border patrol.
C)It blocked the issue of all visas for entry into the United States.
D)It lifted the immigration ban on Chinese.

Question 8

How many Mexicans resided in the United States by 1930?

A)500,000
B)1.4 million
C)4 million
D)10 million

Question 9

During the 1920s , what problem did Mexican immigrants share with other immigrant communities of the past and since?

A)They could never escape the color of their skin.
B)They would not learn English for the first two generations.
C)They were banned from buying property.
D)They faced divisions between those born in the US and those born in Mexico.

Question 10

What undermined the credibility of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s?

A)They did not admit women.
B)Their leader was found guilty of sexual assault and fraud.
C)They admitted African-Americans.
D)They focused on issues other than race.

Question 11

Why did African Americans continue their massive migration from the southern countryside into northern cities during the 1920s?

A)Northern cities proved to be particularly welcoming to African-American newcomers.
B)White Southerners were pushing blacks out of the South because of racial prejudice.
C)They needed to escape the horrific conditions of Jim Crow.
D)War industries continued to demand a skilled labor force

Question 12

What triggered the riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma in May of 1921?

A)A food shortage triggered panic amongst consumers.
B)Opposing fans started battling each other after a baseball game.
C)A black teenager was accused of assaulting a white woman.
D)A local protest against prohibition got out of hand.

Question 13

Critics mocked the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey, for his

A)humble demeanor.
B)lack of charisma.
C)intellectualism.
D)grandiose plans and Napoleonic attire.

Question 14

What was special about the 1927 film The Jazz Singer?

A)For the first time in history a movie featured Jazz.
B)It showed the first interracial romance in the history of American movies.
C)It came with sound and included extended dialogue.
D)It was Rudolph Valentino's last movie.

Question 15

Which of the following best assesses the reasons for the popularity of Charles Lindbergh and his nonstop flight from New York to Paris?

A)After several years of economic depression, Americans were happy to unite behind a significant American accomplishment.
B)Americans had long been in an aviation rivalry with France and were happy to see the United States triumph.
C)Americans united in pride over the combination of technical prowess and individual derring-do that was evident in Lindbergh's flight.
D)Americans were eager to get on board and fly across the Atlantic for a European vacation.

Question 16

Which of the following best signified the flapper of the 1920s?

A)sporting a curvy figure
B)wearing a long dress
C)having long wavy hair
D)smoking a cigarette

Question 17

As a result of an expanding youth culture during the 1920s, Americans developed new

A)technologies for advertising.
B)ways of dating.
C)fashions for men.
D)foods and diets.

Question 18

During the 1920s, Protestant denominations split into two groups, often called "modernists," and

A)"traditionalists."
B)"conservatives."
C)"fundamentalists."
D)"fanatics."

Question 19

Why did the state of Tennessee indict high school teacher John Scopes in 1925?

A)He had given alcohol to minors.
B)He had molested young boys in the locker room.
C)He had secretly sold marijuana to students.
D)He had taught the theory of evolution.

Question 20

Why did American tourists begin to flock to Cuba in the 1920s?

A)They were looking for the perfect beach vacation.
B)They were patronizing casinos and brothels there.
C)They cherished the local music scene.
D)There were eager to have an "international" experience.

Question 21

By 1928, prohibition had become

A)an intensely partisan issue.
B)an obvious failure.
C)a success story for moralists.
D)an international embarrassment.

Question 22

Republican president Warren G Harding is best described as

A)a friendly and handsome man.
B)an expert on tariff policy.
C)a frugal and frigid Puritan.
D)a flamboyant internationalist.

Question 23

How had Calvin Coolidge won his place on the 1920 Republican ticket?

A)He had gained a reputation as a passionate and engaging orator.
B)As governor, he had broken the strike of the Boston police force in 1919.
C)He had led American hunger relief efforts in Belgium during World War I.
D)He was the only Jewish American to have earned a medal of honor in the war.

Question 24

Why did Calvin Coolidge veto the McNary-Haugen Acts of 1927 and 1928?

A)He considered them unwarranted government interference in the economy.
B)He felt that they were too weak to really help farmers in their crisis.
C)He was beholden to an international lobby of commodity traders.
D)Coolidge was a merciless partisan, and would not pass a law made by Democrats.

Question 25

What was the final result of the international conference on naval disarmament from 1921 to 1922?

A)It established the United States as the principal naval power in the Pacific.
B)It broke up the German Navy and redistributed it to France and Britain.
C)It triggered an unprecedented arms race between Japan and China.
D)It maintained the territorial status quo in East Asia and limited the size of navies.

Question 26

The United States Marines continued their occupation of which nation throughout the 1920s?

A)The Dominican Republic
B)Haiti
C)Germany
D)Panama

Question 27

When did president Herbert Hoover proclaim that the United States had reached a higher degree of comfort and security than had existed before in the history of the world?

A)March 1919
B)March 1925
C)March 1929
D)March 1930

Question 28

What made it possible for American companies to issue shares that had no underlying value?

A)Clever traders circumvented SEC regulations.
B)Customers knew the shares worthless but believed they could sell them for more.
C)There was minimal government regulation of the securities market.
D)American companies had to come up with their own cooked-up shares to maintain a foothold in the international market.

Question 29

How did the distribution of income change in the United States during the 1920s?

A)The income of the wealthiest 1% doubled.
B)The income of the bottom third rose 60%.
C)The income of the upper 50% stagnated.
D)The income of the lower 50% stagnated.

Question 30

How many banks failed during 1930 in the United States?

A)16
B)160
C)800
D)1600

Question 31

What made the movie actor Rudolph Valentino stand out?

A)his height
B)his dark complexion
C)his deep tenor
D)his long blonde hair

Question 32

In the decade after World War I the spread of new technologies

A)increased American engagement with the world.
B)made international relations safer and more predictable.
C)made the world a more dangerous place.
D)decreased the extent to which Americans had to deal with the world around them.

Question 33

The first countrywide network of radio stations was

A)ABC.
B)CBS.
C)PBS.
D)NBC.

Question 34

Which of the following best describes the business approach of Alfred P Sloan, chairman of GM, that boosted sales in the 1920s and lured customers into buying more cars?

A)planned obsolescence
B)quality control
C)cutthroat prices
D)perfect customer service

Question 35

What did teens and young adults of the 1920s appreciate most about the car?

A)Its speed was exciting.
B)It served as a mobile bedroom.
C)The car radio provided entertainment.
D)It allowed for trips with friends.

Question 36

Which product advertisement did American radio stations most likely not broadcast in the 1920s?

A)refrigerators
B)beer
C)cigarettes
D)makeup

Question 37

Which important international political event most shaped the American attitude towards immigration in the 1920s?

A)the Irish uprising against Great Britain
B)the Russian revolution
C)the Armenian genocide
D)the fall of the Ottoman Empire

Question 38

Who led the movement that questioned the judge's fairness in the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti?

A)Franklin D. Roosevelt
B)Felix Frankfurter
C)Louis Brandeis
D)Marcus Garvey

Question 39

How did the Mexican government respond in the 1920s to the increasing emigration of its citizens to the United States?

A)It established a network of consulates in the Southwest to encourage return migration.
B)It beefed up its border patrol and tried to prevent people from moving north.
C)It commissioned the ambassador in Washington DC to lobby for fair wages for Mexican farmworkers.
D)It began to institute land reform at home to provide peasants with an incentive to stay in Mexico.

Question 40

The Ku Klux Klan of the reconstruction era resurfaced in the 1920s with a message that was decidedly

A)secular.
B)libertarian.
C)moderate.
D)anti-immigrant.

Question 41

How many members did the Ku Klux Klan have in 1925?

A)500,000
B)1 million
C)3 million
D)5 million

Question 42

Why did Pullman railway porters organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925?

A)They had become frustrated with exclusion from white unions.
B)They were tired with the emphasis on civil rights and the lack of focus on working rights.
C)They resented Pullman's effort to replace them with black porters as strikebreakers.
D)Until 1924, they had enjoyed the protection of the government because of the wartime nationalization of railroads.

Question 43

In the 1920s the New York neighborhood of Harlem became a hotbed of which new political movement?

A)Pan-Africanism
B)Pan-Arabism
C)Zionism
D)Irish nationalism

Question 44

As the chair of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey went so far as to create

A)a national anthem.
B)a black Constitution.
C)a Pan-African currency.
D)a separate black army.

Question 45

The new technologies of radio and the movies helped fortify people's ideas of the United States as

A)a land of bullies.
B)an industrial sweatshop.
C)a country of bigots.
D)a huge and rich land.

Question 46

After hitting 60 home runs during the Yankees dominant 1927 season, who earned the nickname "Sultan of Swat?"

A)Bobby Jones
B)Jack Dempsey
C)Babe Ruth
D)Lou Gehrig

Question 47

Why did many American writers and artists flee to France in the 1920s?

A)The anti-radical Justice Department was harassing left-leaning writers.
B)Many of them had been blacklisted by Hollywood during the red scare.
C)They hoped to live a more authentic existence there.
D)They had to escape the oppression of prohibition.

Question 48

What about H.L. Mencken did college students particularly like?

A)his male bravado
B)his love for glitz and glamour
C)his irreverence
D)his wartime memories

Question 49

The sale of which consumer good exploded in the 1920s?

A)cosmetics
B)televisions
C)icicles
D)bras

Question 50

Which of the following did the fundamentalists of the 1920s condemn in particular?

A)racism
B)violence
C)big business
D)Hollywood

Question 51

What was the outcome of the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925?

A)The court dismissed the case against the high school teacher on technical grounds.
B)Scopes got two years in prison for teaching evolution though he was not released for more than five years.
C)The case ended with a hung jury and the resignation of the judge.
D)The court found Scopes guilty, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision.

Question 52

Who of the following groups was most likely to support prohibition?

A)Northern Democrats
B)Republicans
C)Catholics
D)Jews

Question 53

After the tumultuous progressive era and World War I, Americans sought a return to

A)socially conscientious politics.
B)an active government.
C)placidity in politics.
D)civil rights reform.

Question 54

How did Republican President Warren G Harding disappoint his supporters?

A)He appointed Andrew Mellon as secretary of the treasury.
B)He made Charles Evans Hughes secretary of state.
C)He commuted the sentence of Eugene Debs.
D)He announced the end of prohibition.

Question 55

As secretary of the treasury, Andrew Mellon encouraged Congress to

A)spend on public works projects.
B)run the deficit in times of economic crisis.
C)tax the rich.
D)maintain high tariffs to protect domestic manufacturers.

Question 56

At their 1924 national convention, the Democratic Party split between

A)southerners and northeasterners.
B)fiscal conservatives and New Dealers.
C)whites and African-Americans.
D)rich and poor.

Question 57

Which of the following best describes the principles underlying the politics of Calvin Coolidge's Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover?

A)unbridled cutthroat competition
B)welfare capitalism and voluntary cooperation
C)environmental and consumer-friendly regulation
D)minimum wages and maximum hours

Question 58

How did the international community respond to the Kellogg Briand Pact?

A)Most nations signed on to the agreement but remained skeptical.
B)The world was enthusiastic about this protection against future wars.
C)The nations of Africa and Asia felt threatened by this new alliance.
D)Many European nations feared that the pact required too much military and financial commitment.

Question 59

United States Marines introduced all of the following to Haiti, EXCEPT

A)bridges, schools, and power stations.
B)chain gangs.
C)racial segregation.
D)the U.S. dollar.

Question 60

How many Americans invested directly in the stock market in the 1920s?

A)about 5000
B)approximately 200,000
C)one and a half million
D)20 million

Question 61

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. taxi dancer
2. Radio Corporation of America
3. "ad men"
4. Felix Frankfurter
5. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
6. "talkie"
7. "companionate" marriage
8. "wets"
9. Teapot Dome scandal
10. Dawes Plan

Question 62

The Rudolph Valentino movie The Sheik reflected which new trend of the 1920s?

A)changing sexual mores
B)a new foreign policy towards the Middle East
C)new race relations in the United States
D)an amelioration in the generational conflict

Question 63

How did Henry Ford respond to the innovations of Alfred P. Sloan's General Motors brands?

A)He replaced the Model T with Model A.
B)He bought up General Motors.
C)He introduced the Chrysler.
D)He promoted the electric car.

Question 64

Whichbusiness took on a whole new importance in the American economy in the 1920s?

A)litigation
B)railroads
C)advertising
D)specialty crops

Question 65

What triggered the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s?

A)the renewed massive influx of Eastern Europeans after the end of World War I.
B)a rising African-American crime wave in northeastern cities.
C)the militant feminism American women embraced because of their suffrage.
D)the 1915 blockbuster film about Reconstruction, The Birth of a Nation.

Question 66

How did critics respond to the success of college football?

A)They worried that the stadiums of schools like Yale, Ohio State, and Stanford was simply too small for the crowds.
B)They feared that it would distract from the academic mission of higher education.
C)They worried that college football might not turn out to be sufficiently profitable as a business.
D)They embraced the success college of athletics, but were rooting for baseball to eclipse football.

Question 67

What made Sinclair Lewis's Main Street a national bestseller?

A)its loving portrayal of middle-class America
B)its cartoonish mockery of African-American culture
C)it's incisive criticism of middle-class bigotry
D)its unabashed celebration of capitalism

Question 68

Moving to Los Angeles at the end of World War I, Sister Aimee resolved to build what now would be called a

A)monastery.
B)mega-church.
C)sweat lodge.
D)cult.

Question 69

Which of the following is true about the United States in world politics in the 1920s?

A)It retreated from international affairs.
B)It was not a member of the League of Nations.
C)It lost its status as a world power.
D)It became dependent on the leadership of Great Britain.

Question 70

How did Germany respond to the reparations demands of Britain and France?

A)It paid its obligations as best as it could.
B)It considered the bill too high and refused to pay.
C)Thanks to its hyperinflation, Germany was able to pay back its reparations quickly.
D)It successfully called on the United States to negotiate a lower value.

Question 71

Which of the following was most important in increasing American levels of consumption during the 1920s?

A)steadily rising wages
B)constantly falling prices
C)longer work hours
D)consumer credit

Question 72

Explain the emergence of the distinctive Mexican-American identity in the American Southwest during the 1920s.

Question 73

What was new about the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s compared to that of the Reconstruction years?

Question 74

Explain the popularity of Charles Lindbergh.

Question 75

What was at stake in the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925?

Question 76

What accelerated the implosion of the stock market in 1929?

Question 77

Discuss American foreign policy and the nation's relationship to the rest of the world during the 1920s. Was the United States isolationist?

Question 78

How did feminism change from the progressive era to the 1920s? Would you describe these changes as progress? Why, or why not?

Question 79

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. Pittsburgh's KDKA
2. "planned obsolescence"
3. Fordlandia
4. eugenics
5. Pan-Africanism
6. flapper
7. "working girl"
8. trade associations
9. Amos N'Andy
10. stock "on margin"

Question 80

Why did President Woodrow Wilson convince General Electric to reassign patent rights to the Radio Corporation of America?

A)to break up the GE monopoly that cornered the radio and electronics market
B)to counter GE mismanagement had been uncovered in a 1918 scandal
C)to give RCA the assets that would allow it to become a multinational corporation
D)to protect patent rights and maintain American supremacy in radio technology