- 1. Give NINE features of the booming US economy in the 1920s.
- • Consumer boom
• Innovation in production methods
• Synthetics
• Upsurge in car ownership
• Consumer durables/electrical goods
• Communications revolution
• Entertainment industry
• Stock market
• Skyscrapers, highways and urban development.
- 2. Give TEN reasons for the economic boom of the 1920s.
- • Population growth
• Abundant raw materials
• Tariffs protected American industry from competition
• Government government relaxed regulations and reduced taxes
• Opportunities of New Technology (e.g. electrical goods, radio, movies, nylon)
• Techniques of production
• Cycle of prosperity
• Advertising
• Sales methods
• Hire Purchase
- 3. Give TWO methods of production which allowed mass-production
- • Ford’s Assembly line method
• Frederick Taylor’s time and motion
- 4. What is it called when the government relaxes regulations and reduces taxes?
- 5. What are the four stages of the cycle of prosperity?
- • More sales → increased production → more workers/higher wages → more spending
- 6. List SEVEN kinds of people who prospered during the boom of the 1920s
- • Big business, bankers, corporations, cartels & monopolies
• Upper middle classes
• Stock Investors
• Young and rich
• Factory workers
• Entertainment and Leisure
• Women
- 7. How was the ‘benefit’ for women a two-edged sword?
- • They were able to move into jobs and have morel independence … but they were still expected to do all the housework
- 8. List SIX classes of people who did not benefit from the boom of the 1920s
- • Farming
• Low wage earners
• Old Industries (coal, textiles)
• Poor Black Americans
• Native Americans
• Unemployed
- 9. List some of the inequalities facing Black Americans in the 1920s
- • 1 million black farm workers lost their jobs in the 1920s.
• Black workers in the towns in the north were the lowest paid; the only work available to them were low-paying, menial jobs.
• New York's black Harlem district was a severely overcrowded and segregated community, with more than 250,000 citizens crammed into an area 50 blocks long and eight blocks wide.
• In 1928, there was one hospital bed for every 139 white people, and one for every 1,941 black people.
• Life expectancy in 1929 was 59 for white people, 47 for black people.
- 10. List SIX ways women’s situation improved in the 1920s
- • Voting (19th Amendment) and public engagement
• Opportunities from Education
• Inventions and household appliances
• Contraception
• Employment
• Societal changes
- 11. Describe some of the ways the ‘flappers’ broke convention
- • They dumped the old restrictive fashions, corsets etc. in favour of short skirts, short hair, and the flat-chested 'garconne' look. Many of them wore men's clothing.
• They smoked, drank, used make-up, played tennis, and danced wildly in jazz clubs.
• Some were openly lesbian, others were sexually active.
- 12. List FOUR ways women’s rights were not improved in the 1920s
- • Discrimination (esp. in the workplace)
• Under-representation in Politics
• Marriage and Reproductive Rights (contraception not legal until 1970)
• Backlash (e.g. Anti-Flirt Association)
- 13. What and when was the first ‘talkie’?
- • The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson (1927)
- 14. When did three-colour technicolour films begin to be shown?
- 15. What and when was the first jazz record?
- • Dixieland Jazz Band (1917)
- 16. Name two dances of the 1920s
- • Charleston, Black Bottom Stomp
- 17. List SIX ways Prohibition seemed a failure
- • Drinking continued
• Available in speakeasies
• Made criminals of ordinary people
• Adverse effects from such as 'Jackass brandy' and 'Soda Pop Moon'
• Gangsterism flourished running the illegal trade
• Ended in 1933 with the 21st Amendment
- 18. List THREE successes of prohibition
- • Amount of alcohol destroyed was 50 million litres in 1929 alone.
• Legacy: consumption of alcohol did not reach pre-1914 levels until 1971.
• Eliot Ness and the Untouchables became famous.
- 19. List THREE features of Organised Crime in the late 1920s:
- • They ran the speakeasies, and bootlegging.
• They also ran protection rackets, prostitution and drug-running.
• They bribed trade union leaders, police, lawyers, judges and even Senators.
- 20. Name and date (clue) the most famous ‘turf war’ incident4
- • St Valentine's Day Massacre, 14 February 1929
- 21. List SIX reasons Americans feared immigration
- • Trade Unions feared for jobs
• Racism, nativism and eugenics
• Isolationism after the trauma of AAI
• 'Alien menace' – fear of Bolshevism, anarchism, the Mafia/Tong/Purple Gang
• 'Different' immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia
• 'Swamped' (13 million 1900-14)
- 22. What was the 'one-drop rule'?
- • In 1924 the state of Virginia passed a Racial Integrity Act which set the 'one-drop rule': a person with even one drop of non-white ancestry was classified as ‘colored’ or non-white.
- 23. What THREE immigratio laws were passed and what did each say:
- • 1917: Immigration Law: immigrants had to prove they could read English, banned all immigration from Asia, and charged an immigration fee of $8.
• 1921: Emergency Quota Act: immigration from 'the eastern hemisphere' could not be more than 3% of the number already in America in 1910, with a max of 357,000.
• 1924: Reed-Johnson Act: quota reduce to 2%, max to 154,000
- 24. List SIX aspects of the experience of immigrants
- • Medical and financial tests on Arrival
• Reduced Work Opportunities
• Conditions of housing and medical care
• ‘Americanisation’ by the Federal Bureaus of Naturalization and Education
• Discrimination (e.g. Naturalization Act)
• Everyday discrimination led some immigrants to join trade unions and get involved in local politics and advocacy
- 25. List FIVE reasons there was a ‘Red Scare’ in 1919-21
- • Anti-immigrant sentiment, Nativism and Isolationism
• Labour Unrest
• Anarchist Bombings
• Russian Revolution and International Communism
• Media sensationalism
- 26. Name NINE features of the Red Scare
- • FBI surveillance
• Palmer Raids
• Treason laws (1917 Espionage Act/ 1918 Sedition Act of 1918)
• Deportations
• High-profile Trials
• Immigration Laws and Quotas
• Americanisation measures
• Employers used the Red Scare to justify anti-union activities and to fire ‘troublemakers’
• Civil Liberties Union founded in 1920 to challenge the violations of civil liberties
- 27. Name THREE high profile trials during the Red Scare:
- • Centralia Massacre Trial
• the Sacco and Vanzetti case
• Bridgman Trials
- 28. List some of the injustices of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial
- • 107 witnesses testified that they were elsewhere at the time; those witnesses were not believed because they were Italian
• Ballistics evidence had been tampered with
• no direct evidence connecting either of the men to the crime
• In 1925 a man awaiting trial for murder confessed to the shooting but Judge Thayer denied a retrial
- 29. List SEVEN features of racism in America in the 1920s:
- • Supremacism and routine racism was EMBEDDED throughout American society
• Hostility to Immigrants and the 'Red Scare'
• American Government refused to pass laws banning lynchings or giving Black Americans the vote/ the Supreme Court judgement (Corrigan v. Buckley) upheld racial covenants in housing/ many unions barred non-white workers from joining.
• Jim Crow Laws enforce segregation, band miscegenation and denied Black Americans equality of education, civil rights or the vote
• Ku Klux Klan
• Lynchings
• Even in the North, Black Americans ended up with the low-paid menial jobs, and faced racist riots (eg Chicago 1919)
- 30. List some features of the KKK
- • Formed to maintain WASPs supremacy
• Had 5 million members by 1925
• Wore white sheets and hoods, and marched with burning crosses
• Spoke with each other in a secret language which they called 'Klonversations'.
• Some were poor whites but most were educated, middle-class white Americans
• At the local level, they campaigned for better schools and local improvements.
• They intimidated, attacked, tortured and killed Black Americans, but also Jews and Catholics and 'immoral' people such as alcoholics
- 31. List NINE reasons the KKK grew so rapidly in the mid 1920s
- • WASP racism and nativism
• WWI disillusionment
• Economic Instability caused by immigration
• Social community of the Klaverns
• Opposition to modernism and cultural change
• Media and theatricality
• Enforcement of prohibition and morality
• Anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish Protestant prejudice
• Support for local political issues
- 32. List FIVE ways the 1920s were a time of flowering for the African-American community
- • Role models such as Jessie Owens, Jackie Robinson and Josephine Baker
• Harlem Renaissance
• Identity: the New Negro and ‘Black is Beautiful’
• NAACP
• One-and-a-half million Black Americans migrated from the south to the north; some formed a new Black middle class, and were educated at university
- 33. Give FOUR causes of he Great Crash of 1929
- • Wall Street Overheated
• Insider trading & corruption
• Speculation ‘on margin’
• Panic selling, esp. on Tues 29 October
- 34. Give TEN possible causes of the Great Depression
- • International trade collapsed
• Maldistribution of Wealth
• Bank failures
• Underlying economic weaknesses
• Staying on the Gold Standard
• Great Crash (broke the banks)
• Expectations – the Cycle of Depression
• Reduced Demand (Keynes)
• Economic policies of 'the Fed' (Friedman/ Bernanke)
• Debt-deflation (Fisher)
- 35. Give some statistics which prove the depth of the Great Depression
- • Exports fell from $10billion to $3bn
• Industrial production had fallen by 40%
• Wages had fallen by 60%
• More than 7,000 banks had gone bankrupt
• There were 11.5 million unemployed in 1932 – a quarter of the workforce
• The Construction industry declined by 75% 1929-32.
• At the peak of the depression, 17,000 families evicted each week for not being able to pay their rent/ 1,000 mortgages foreclosed a day.
• A quarter of all farms were foreclosed, 1920-39.
• There were 2 million Americans ‘on the road’, a quarter of them under the age of 21.
• In 1934, 110 people starved to death.
• In 1932, 23,000 people committed suicide.
- 36. List EIGHT categories of people who suffered particularly in the Great Depression
- • African Americans pushed out for whites
• Women were “the first orphans in the storm”
• Farmers, esp. tenants farmers & sharecroppers
• Unemployed
• Lost everything in the Crash
• Mine workers
• Union Activists
- 37. List EIGHT ways that people coped in the Great Depression
- • Mutual Support
• Activism – unions, marches, rent actions
• Moving Out as 'hoboes', 'tramps', 'bums' and 'yeags',
• Scrimping
• Relaxing (leisure & entrtainment)
• Farm Strike and Penny Auctions
• African Americans – 'Don't Buy Where You Can't Work' campaign in Harlem
• Bonus Army built a Hooverville in Washington
- 38. Name EIGHT groups who prospered through the Great Depression
- • Successful investors
• Efficient companies
• Large Corporations
• Finance— banking/insurance/pawnshops
• Modern sectors such as electrical goods, chemicals
• Advertising
• Domestic essentials (Procter & Gamble)
• Entertainment Industry
- 39. List FIVE failures of President Hoover:
- • He believed in ‘rugged individualism’ and ‘laissez faire’
• He believed that charity, and supporting failing businesses, was not the government’s job
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930)
• ‘Bonus Army’
• Mexican Repatriation Programme, 1929(-37).
- 40. List SEVEN good things Hoover did to address the Great Depression
- • The Davis-Bacon Act (1931) encouraged firms to maintain high wages
• A Committee for Unemployment Relief (1931)
• The Emergency Relief Act (1932) provided unemployment pay
• $4 billion for public works (including the Hoover Dam).
• The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) gave loans to businesses and states.
• The Norris-La Guardia Act (1932) banned yellow dog contracts
• The Glass-Steagall Act (1933) kept domestic creditors money safe if a bank’s investments went bad.
- 41. List some ways in which Hoover’s 1932 Presidential campaign was a disaster
- • To pay for his anti-recession programme, he raised income tax
• People blamed Hoover for the Depression
• Attacking the Bonus Army
• The Black vote switched to FDR
• He was a poor public speaker
• Boos, eggs, ‘Hang Hoover’ banners and assassination attempts
- 42. List some ways in which Hoover’s 1932 Presidential campaign was good
- • Was a wheelchair-user
• Promised the 3Rs (Relief, Recovery, Reform) and a ‘New Deal’
• 15 speeches a day
• ‘Happy Days are Here Again’
• Blamed the bankers and the rich
• Promised to end Prohibition
- 43. How did the First New Deal re-establish Confidence?
- • Abolished Prohibition:
• Fireside Chats:
• Bank holiday to check that the bans were financially sound
• The Securities and Exchange Commission set rules for the Stock Exchange
- 44. How did the First New Deal re-establish the economy?
- • He did not run deficit budgets, but he borrowed huge amounts to finance the New Deal’s programmes
• The Farm Loan Act and the Bankruptcy Act prevented banks from foreclosing on businesses, and the Home Loan Act and the Home Owners Loan Corporation did the same for ordinary home owners
• The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) paid farmers to take fields out of production; the idea of this was to stop over-production and to drive up prices.
• The NRA (National Recovery Administration) was set up, with a blue eagle symbol for businesses which paid good wages.
• He did NOT 'come off the gold standard' but he made the banks give all the gold to the government and increased the price of gold, which stopped hoarding
- 45. Name FOUR key alphabet agencies
- • CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps):
• FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration):
• WPA (Works Progress Administration):
• TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority):
- 46. List FIVE provision of the Second New Deal
- • Social Security Act (1935) - America's first system of social welfare
• National Labour Relations Act (the Wagner Act 1935) - the right to join a trade union
• Soil Conservation Act (1935) - subsidising farmers.
• National Housing Act (1937):
• Fair Labour Standards Act (1938) – inc. a minimum wage.
- 47. How was the Second New Deal different to the First New Deal?
- • It was much more radical, much more anti-rich
- 48. List FIVE successes of the New Deal
- • Relief measures
• Roads and infrastructure
• Reforms (inc. social security/ minimum wage/ labour relations/ The Indian Reorganization Act)
• Restored faith in democracy/ laid the foundations of a welfare state supporting human rights
• Roosevelt became the people’s hero
- 49. List THREE failures of the New Deal
- • Did not end the Depression
• Damaged or did not help Minority Groups and Immigrants
• Determined Opposition
- 50. Who opposed the New Deal?
- • Businessmen and the rich
• Republicans
• Activists like Huey Long and Francis Townsend said it did not go far enough
• State governments hated the Federal government taking their powers
• The Supreme Court ruled that the NRA and the AAA were illegal
- 51. What were EIGHT economic impacts of WWII?
- • Arsenal of democracy = Cash & Carry and Lend-Lease
• Federal spending grew to $98 billion by 1945
• Technological developments inc. radar, penicillin, the first computers (ENIAC), the jet engine, synthetic rubber, the atomic bomb
• Employment, and a rise in wages
• Regulation and rationing
• Capacity grew as firms switched to military production
• Production grew at 11%pa
• Results included sustained economic growth, the US established itself as a global economic superpower/ military spending continued after the war
- 52. List SIX ways the US government regulated the war economy:
- • Office of War Mobilization (OWM)
• War Production Board (WPB)
• Office of Price Administration (OPA) and ‘General Max’
• War Manpower Commission
• Bracero Programme
• Truce with the Unions
- 53. List some ways African Americans benefited from WWII
- • Black soldiers were trained as officers
• Black servicemen and women returned from the war confident and ready to challenge the discrimination (eg Irene Morgan)
• The ‘Great Migration’ north
• Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)
• In 1944 the Supreme Court ruled that US trade unions had a duty of ‘fair representation’
• ‘Double V’ Campaign
• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded in 1942
- 54. List some ways Women benefited from WWII
- • 350,000 women joined the armed forces
• Women’s Armed Services Integration Act (1948)
• 1940-45 the number of women in work rose from 12-19 million
• ‘Rosie the Riveter’
• Lanham Act (1943)
• National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs (BPW)
• National change in attitude to the idea of women’s abilities in diverse roles
• All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
- 55. List FIVE effects of WWII on the US
- • Rapid economic growth
• Rising standard of living
• Full Employment
• Technological innovation
• Trades Unions
- 56. What film did Warner Brothers release to encourage wartime production?
- 57. Who was the Ohio American who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Americans?
- 58. Which cartoon showed the real side of military life to Americans?
- • Bill Maudlin’s Willie & Joe
- 58. What did young Americans do to Glenn Miller’s 50-piece Army Air Force Band?
- • They jived and jitterbugged
- 60. List SIX positive aspects of the post-WWII economic boom:
- • Affluence
• Suburbs
• Prosperous Middle Class
• Economic Growth
• Consumerism
• Teenagers
- 61. List FIVE ways the post-WWII prosperity was not shared by all
- • Southern States
• African-Americans
• ‘Hillbillies’, Mexican and Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans
• Elderly
• 35% below the poverty line
- 62. List FIVE causes of the post-WWII boom
- • American Dream made people eager to work hard and prosper
• International Trade (inc Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan and GATT0
• Demand (inc $200 billion of war bonds)
• Industrial modernisation
• Jobs, wages and Unions
- 63. What was the name of the preacher who said Rock n Roll was the devil’s music?
- 64. What was the 1962 manifesto of Students for a Democratic Society?
- • The Port Huron Statement, a denunciation of racism, consumerism and the Cold War
- 65. Who coined the phrase: ’the medium is the message’, and what did it mean?
- • Marshall McLuhan. It is the idea that the way the message is conveyed determines the way it affects the listener
- 66. Them was a film about an invasion of ants; but what was its message to the audience?
- 67. List SEVEN causes of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s-60s
- • Segregation and Jim Crow laws
• Economic and Employment Inequality
• Violence and lynchings
• Everyday racial discrimination and humiliation
• Relocation to Northern Cities
• Existing civil rights organizations – NAACP and CORE
• Double V confidence after World War II
- 68. Whose death in 1955 made Americans realise that there was something very wrong in the South?
- • 14-year-old Emmett Till
- 69. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1946?
- • Truman set up the civil rights committee
- 70. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1954?
- 71. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1955?
- • Montgomery bus boycott:
- 72. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1957?
- 73. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1960?
- 74. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1961?
- 75. What TWO key Civil Rights milestones occurred in 1963?
- • Birmingham campaign
• Washington Freedom March – ‘I have a Dream’ speech
- 76. What key Civil Rights milestone occurred in 1964?
- 77. What TWO key Civil Rights milestones occurred in 1965?
- • Voting Rights Act
• Selma March
- 78. What TV programme propelled Malcom X to prominence?
- • The Hate that Hate Produced (1959)
- 79. What TWO key milestones in the struggle for Black Equality occurred in1965?
- • Watts Riots
• Deacons of Defense formed
- 80. What group in the fight for Black Equality were formed in 1966?
- 81. In 1966 Black Power’ radicals took the leadership of both SNCC and CORE; who were they?
- • Stokely Carmichael (SNCC)
• Floyd McKissick (CORE)
- 82. What TWO key milestones in the fight for Black Equality occurred in 1968?
- • Kerner report
• Fair Housing Act
- 83. What TWO key developments in the fight for Black Equality occurred in1969?
- • Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) – ‘Black capitalism’
• Philadelphia Plan – ‘Affirmative action’
- 84. What key Supreme Court case in the fight for Black Equality occurred in 1971
- • Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenberg approved the controversial policies of bussing and compensatory education
- 85. List SIX roots of the Feminist Movement of the 1960s
- • Working women were discriminated against
• Home and Momism remained a societal demand on women
• Over-qualification le to the ‘problem with no name’ (Friedan)
• Activism in the Civil Rights Movement and the SDS
• Media fascination
• Intersectionality with racism, classism, poverty, Third World and international anti-colonial movements
- 86. What key milestone in the fight for Women’s Equality occurred in 1961?
- • Kennedy founded the Commission on the Status of Women
- 87. What key milestone in the fight for Women’s Equality occurred in 1963?
- 88. What key milestone in the fight for Women’s Equality occurred in 1964?
- • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banned workforce discrimination on account of gender
- 89. What key milestone in the fight for Women’s Equality occurred in 1970?
- • Title X of the Family Planning Act gave access to contraceptives as a civil right.
- 90. What THREE key milestones in the fight for Women’s Equality occurred in 1972?
- • Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act prohibited sex discrimination in education.
• The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed by Congress (but not ratified).
• Roe v Wade confirmed a woman’s right to have an abortion (rescinded 2022).
- 91. List the SIX targets of Kennedy’s ‘New Frontier’ programme
- • Economic Growth (1961 Economic stimulus programme)
• Space race (On 12 September 1962, Kennedy vowed to get to the moon)
• Civil Rights and Women's Rights
• Alleviate Poverty/ Housing
• Public Health/ Environment
• Education (eg Special Needs and the Peace Corps)
- 92. What TWO key actions did Kennedy take for Civil Rights?
- • Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (1961)
• Report to the American People on Civil Rights (1963)
- 93. List SEVEN key actions Kennedy took to alleviate poverty
- • Social Security Amendments (1961) extended benefits to an additional 5 million Americans
• Food Stamp programme (1961)
• Area Redevelopment Act (1961) – aid to distressed areas
• Housing Act (1961) – slum clearance
• Social Security Amendments (1961) allowed retirement at 62
• Senior Citizens Housing Act (1962) funded loans for apartment projects for people 62+
- 94. List THREE ways Kennedy helped public health and the environment
- • The Social Security Amendments (1961) improved medical services for disabled children
• A Clean Air Act (1963) set emission standards
• A number of wildlife areas created
- 95. What was Kennedy’s New Frontier programme’s greatest failure?
- • A Medical Health Bill for the Aged (‘ Medicare’) Bill was proposed, but rejected by Congress.
- 96. List the SIX targets Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ programme
- • Economic Growth (1964 Revenue Act tax cuts)
• Space race (Apollo 8 went round the moon in 1968)
• Civil Rights and Women's Rights
• Alleviate Poverty/ Housing
• Public Health/ Environment
• Education
- 97. List FIVE things Johnson did for Minorities’ and Women’s Rights
- • Civil Rights Act (1964)
• Voting Rights Act (1965)
• Fair Housing Act (1968)
• Executive Order 11375 (1967) banned discriminatory hiring on the basis of sex
• Immigration Act (1965) abolished quotas
- 98. List FOUR things Johnson did to alleviate poverty
- • Minimum wage increased to $1.40 an hour
• Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
• Food Stamp Act (1964) expanded the food assistance programme
• Housing and Urban Development Act (1965) and the Model Cities programme
- 99. Name some of the things created by the Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
- • Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)
• Job Corps
• Work Study grants to colleges for students from low-income families
• Adult Education
• Assistance for Needy Children
• Assistance for Migrants
• loans to small businesses
• Health Centres in poor neighbourhoods
• VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)
• Head Start
• Foster Grandparents
• Legal Services for the Poor.
- 100. List FIVE ways Johnson improved Public Health/ Environment/ Consumer Protection
- • Social Security Amendments (1965) created Medicare and Medicaid
• Social Security Amendments (1967) provided funding for family planning
• Wilderness Act (1964)
• Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965)
• Flammable Fabrics Act
- 101. List FOUR ways Johnson improved Education
- • Elementary and Secondary Education Act
• Higher Education Act
• Bilingual Education Act (1968)
• Head Start
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