Description
There are four sections in this exam, with 3 or 4 questions each. Yo
Description
There are four sections in this exam, with 3 or 4 questions each. You are required to answer only one question in each section. Be sure to include as much information as possible to support your answer. Each answer should be 3-5 paragraphs in length. Be sure to cite your sources. It is required that you show context, and not hunt and peck for answers but show the context.
Question 1 (25 points)
Explain our discussion regarding Reconstruction and offer specifics about it.
2. Why was it so difficult to resolve such issues as the spoils system, the tariff, and bimetallism, which consumed congressional energies in the late nineteenth century? Think about our silver standard discussion.
3. How did the move westward impact different groups and transportation?
Question 2 (25 points)
1. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of progressivism.
2. In what ways were mobilization and the effort, in World War I, a fulfillment of the progressive legacy? In what ways did the war deny the basic tenets of progressivism?
3. How did popular culture—whether in the form of best-selling novels, games, films, or radio programs—reflect and respond to the ravages of the Great Depression?
4. Compare and contrast the Depression experiences of Mexican- and African-Americans. In your opinion, which group fared better?
Question 3 (25 points)
1. Describe the major war aims of the Allied Powers.
2. How did the war change the attitudes of women and minorities toward their status in American society?
3. Many historians feel that Harry Truman as much as Joe McCarthy gave force to the postwar “Red Scare.” Explain why you agree or disagree.
4. Compare the quality of life in the suburbs with the quality of life either on farms or in cities.
Question 4 (25 points)
1. Compare the achievements and shortcomings of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
2. Defend or attack the use of civil disobedience as a strategy in the civil rights movement, using Martin Luther King’s early career as an example of the technique.
3. Both Indians and Hispanics were hardly “monolithic” ethnic groups in American life. Explain how that led to a variety of responses to the activist currents of the 1960s and 1970s, among both Hispanics and Indians.