America in the 20th Century Exam Review
Course Introduction
This course offers a comprehensive overview of the political, social, cultural, and economic developments that shaped the United States during the twentieth century. Students will explore major events such as the two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the rise of modern American society. Through the analysis of primary sources, historical scholarship, and key turning points, participants will gain insight into the factors that influenced American identity and its role on the global stage. The course encourages critical thinking about how these movements, conflicts, and transformations continue to impact contemporary America.
Recommended Textbook
American Pageant Volume 2 16th Edition by
David M. Kennedy
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20 Chapters
2630 Verified Questions
2630 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/1045
Page 2
Chapter 1: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20711
Sample Questions
Q1) Radical congressional Reconstruction of the South finally ended when
A) the South accepted the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
B) the last federal troops were removed in 1877 and a "solid" Democratic South became politically institutionalized.
C) President Johnson was not reelected in 1868.
D) the Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Milligan that military tribunals could not try civilians.
E) blacks showed they could defend their civil rights adequately in state courts and legislatures without federal congressional and military intervention.
Answer: B
Q2) Hiram Revels
Answer: Answers will vary.
Q3) The Black Codes provided for all of the following except
A) a ban on jury service by blacks.
B) a restriction against black migration from the South.
C) a bar on blacks from renting land.
D) punishment of blacks for idleness.
E) fines for blacks who jumped labor contracts.
Answer: B
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Page 3
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
147 Verified Questions
147 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20712
Sample Questions
Q1) Was Grover Cleveland's gold deal with J.P. Morgan justified? Why or why not?
Answer: The gold deal between Grover Cleveland and J.P. Morgan was not justified. The deal, known as the "Morgan-Gold Agreement," involved the sale of $65 million in gold to stabilize the value of the dollar. However, the deal was seen as a bailout for J.P. Morgan and other wealthy investors who were heavily invested in gold, and it was criticized for favoring the interests of the wealthy over the general public.
Furthermore, the deal was seen as an abuse of executive power, as Cleveland bypassed Congress and made the agreement unilaterally. This raised concerns about the influence of big business on government decision-making.
Overall, the gold deal with J.P. Morgan was not justified as it favored the wealthy and was seen as an abuse of power. It ultimately did not address the underlying economic issues and only served to benefit a select few.
Q2) Farmers' Alliance
Answer: Answers will vary.
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Chapter 3: Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900
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157 Verified Questions
157 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20713
Sample Questions
Q1) Match each labor organization below with the correct description.
A.National Labor Union
B.Knights of Labor
C.American Federation of Labor
1)The "one big union" that championed producer cooperatives and industrial arbitration
2)A social-reform union killed by the depression of the 1870s
3)An association of unions pursuing higher wages, shorter working hours, and better working conditions
A) A-3, B-1, C-2
B) A-3, B-2, C-1
C) A-1, B-2, C-3
D) A-1, B-3, C-2
E) A-2, B-1, C-3
Answer: E
Q2) trust
Answer: Answers will vary.
Q3) consumer goods
Answer: Answers will vary.
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Chapter 4: America Moves to the City, 1865-1900
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154 Verified Questions
154 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20714
Sample Questions
Q1) Charles W. Eliot
Q2) Howard University
Q3) Black leader, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois
A) demanded complete equality for African Americans.
B) established an industrial school at Tuskegee, Alabama.
C) supported the goals of Booker T. Washington.
D) maintained his American citizenship and residence in the United States throughout his life, despite his profound anger and disappointment with the absence of black economic and social equality in the country.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q4) single tax
Q5) In the 1890s, white collar positions for women as secretaries, department store clerks, and telephone operators were largely reserved for A) Jews.
B) Irish-Americans.
C) African Americans.
D) the college-educated.
E) native-born Americans.
Q6) James Naismith
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1865-1896
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161 Verified Questions
161 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) fourth party system
Q2) The Populists' political program called for
A) a graduated income tax.
B) government ownership of the railroads, telephones, and telegraphs.
C) protective tariffs.
D) free and unlimited coinage of silver in the ratio of 16 to 1.
E) loans to farmers based on crops stored in government warehouses.
Q3) With agricultural production rising dramatically in the post-Civil War years
A) more farmers could purchase land.
B) tenant farming spread rapidly throughout the Midwest and South.
C) bankruptcies declined.
D) western farmers prospered, while southern farmers had grave troubles selling their cotton.
E) the government began buying surplus cash crops in order to sustain farmers' economic welfare.
Q4) Was the reservation system inherently flawed from the beginning, or might it have worked if the federal government had enabled the Indians to keep more and better land and had treated them more fairly?
Q5) John Wesley Powell
Q6) Fetterman massacre
Page 7
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Page 8
Chapter 6: Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909
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161 Verified Questions
161 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20716
Sample Questions
Q1) Russo-Japanese War
Q2) All of the following became possessions of the United States under the provisions of the Treaty of Paris with Spain except A) Puerto Rico.
B) Guam.
C) the Philippine Islands.
D) Hawaii.
E) Manila.
Q3) Construction of an isthmian canal across Central America was motivated mainly by A) a desire to improve defense by allowing rapid naval movements between two oceans.
B) the Panamanian Revolution.
C) America's growing economic interests in Asia.
D) the British rejection of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.
E) a clash of British and American economic interests in Central America.
Q4) Josiah Strong
Q5) Teller Amendment
Q6) The Influence of Sea Power upon History
Q7) San Francisco school crisis
Q8) Anti-Imperialist League
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Chapter 7: Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt, 1901-1912
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142 Verified Questions
142 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20717
Sample Questions
Q1) the Square Deal
Q2) Richard Ballinger
Q3) William Howard Taft
Q4) trust-busting
Q5) The settlement house and women's club movements were crucial centers of female progressive activity because they
A) provided literary and philosophical perspectives on social questions.
B) broke down the idea that women had special concerns as wives and mothers.
C) introduced many middle-class women to a broader array of urban social problems and civic concerns.
D) were the only organizations of middle-class women that advocated for social reforms and civic concerns for urban problems.
E) became the launching pads for women seeking political office.
Q6) Ballinger-Pinchot affair
Q7) The Theory of the Leisure Class
Q8) Why did feminists, and middle-class women generally, play such a prominent role in the progressive movement? Were feminist and progressive goals essentially identical, or were there areas where the two movements differed?
Q9) Upton Sinclair Page 10
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Chapter 8: Wilsonian Progressivism in Peace and War,
1913-1920
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144 Verified Questions
144 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20718
Sample Questions
Q1) Examples of forceful federal government action to organize the nation for war were
A) the conscription of certain essential wartime workers.
B) rationing of certain foodstuffs for the manufacture of alcoholic beverages.
C) the federal government takeover of the railroads.
D) the federal government's imposition of nationwide daylight savings time.
E) the issuance of production quotas and the allocation of raw materials by the War Industries Board.
Q2) ____ Locate the North Sea.
Q3) When the United States entered the war in April 1917, most Americans did not believe that
A) the navy was obligated to defend freedom of the seas.
B) it would be necessary to continue making loans to the Allies.
C) the United States would have to ship war material to the Allies.
D) mobilization for war would be largely voluntary and forced conscription would soon be required.
E) it would be necessary to send a large American army to Europe for more than a year.
Q4) Central Powers
Q5) Sixteenth Amendment
Page 12
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Chapter 9: American Life in the Roaring Twenties
1920 1929
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145 Verified Questions
145 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20719
Sample Questions
Q1) Among the consequences of prohibition were
A) a growing recognition of the health risks of alcohol consumption.
B) growing cultural conflict between urban immigrants and residents of the South and West.
C) reduced absenteeism in American industry.
D) a vast increase in organized crime and gangsterism.
E) increased respect for law enforcement.
Q2) Fordism
Q3) The prosperity that developed in the 1920s
A) was accompanied by a forebodingcloud of consumer debt.
B) led to a growing level of savings by the American public.
C) enabled labor unions to gain strength.
D) was based on a steady and moderate rate of healthy economic growth that did not rely on excessive consumer spending to sustain the prosperity during this decade.
E) closed the gap between rich and poor.
Q4) "Lost Generation"
Q5) Do you think that the noble experiment of prohibition did more harm than good or vice versa? Explain your view by citing specific consequences of the prohibition amendment.
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Chapter 10: The Politics of Boom and Bust 1920 1932
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20720
Sample Questions
Q1) The 1932 Stimson doctrine
A) reversed the United States' long-standing interventionist policy in Latin America.
B) committed the United States to join the League of Nations' effort to impose economic sanctions against Japan for its invasion of Manchuria.
C) announced the United States' willingness to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy.
D) declared that the United States would not recognize any territorial acquisition achieved by force of arms.
E) declared Japan and Germany rogue states.
Q2) Charles Evans Hughes
Q3) The impact of the Great Depression on American resulted in all of the following except
A) jobless husbands felt guilt and shame for their families' hardships.
B) thousands of banks collapsed, taking with them people's life savings.
C) breadlines and soup kitchens emerged to feed the hungry.
D) thousands of people lost their homes to foreclosure.
E) salaries for those who held on to their jobs rose slightly.
Q4) Herbert Hoover
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Page 14
Chapter 11: The Great Depression and the New Deal
1933 1939
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118 Verified Questions
118 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20721
Sample Questions
Q1) Franklin D. Roosevelt
Q2) Prominent female social scientists of the 1930s, like Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, brought widespread contributions to the field of A) economics.
B) political science.
C) psychology.
D) sociology.
E) anthropology.
Q3) sit-down strike
Q4) Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)
Q5) The early New Deal experiments borrowed rather freely and randomly from A) Marxism, Leninism, and European socialism.
B) the principles of early twentieth-century laissez-faire economists such as Freidrich Hayek.
C) Mussolini's fascism and Hitler's Nazism.
D) U.S. wartime and pre-war agencies and European social reform models.
E) the late nineteenth-century utopian literature of Henry George, Edward Bellamy, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Q6) the "three Rs"
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Chapter 12: Franklin D Roosevelt and the Shadow of War
1933 1941
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104 Verified Questions
104 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20722
Sample Questions
Q1) Johnson Debt Default Act
Q2) "phony war"
Q3) On the eve of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, a majority of Americans
A) were beginning to question the increased aid given to Britain.
B) while still wanting to keep America from formally entering the war, supported providing generous military assistance to Britain to prevent it from falling to Nazi Germany and favored Roosevelt's series of embargoes on Japan-bound supplies and raw materials.
C) enthusiastically embracedthe idea that America would enter the war.
D) did not oppose Japan's conquests in East Asia.
E) were ready to fight Germany but not Japan.
Q4) Arrange the following events in chronological order: (A) fall of France, (B) Atlantic Conference, and (C) Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.
A) B, A, C
B) A, B, C
C) C, B, A
D) A, C, B
E) C, A, B
Q5) Pearl Harbor
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Chapter 13: America in World War II 1941 1945
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106 Verified Questions
106 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20723
Sample Questions
Q1) The real impact of the Italian front on World War II may have been that it
A) delayed the D-Day invasion and allowed the Soviet Union to advance further into Eastern Europe.
B) prevented the rise of fascism or communism in Italy after the war.
C) enabled the Americans to appease both British and Soviet strategic demands.
D) enabled the United States to prevent Austria and Greece from falling into Soviet hands.
E) destroyed the monastery of Monte Cassino and other Italian artistic treasures.
Q2) ABC-1 agreement
Q3) Historians look to the fact that many women wanted to keep work and did after the war as
A) foreshadowing the eventual revolution in women's roles in America.
B) helping to expand the nation's economy.
C) fueling the rise of home-buying across America.
D) facilitating the increasing divorce rate.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q4) Battle of Okinawa
Q5) Winston Churchill
Q6) Casablanca Conference
Page 17
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Chapter 14: The Cold War Begins 1945-1952
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154 Verified Questions
154 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20724
Sample Questions
Q1) As a result of Senator McCarthy's crusade against communist subversion in America
A) the FBI was shown to have had several spies working as communist agents.
B) the United States Army was forced to give dishonorable discharges to more than one hundred officers.
C) the State Department lost a number of Asian specialists who might have counseled a wiser course in Vietnam.
D) Eisenhower nearly lost the Republican presidential nomination in 1956.
E) the United States achieved a stronger settlement in Korea.
Q2) Were Senator Joseph McCarthy's unsubstantiated and ruinous allegations of communist sympathies and activities against liberals, former and current government officials in the State Department and other government bureaucracies, and even members of the U.S. Army a reflection of his personal character or a manifestation of the larger American fears and anxieties about communism and social change in the late 1940s and early 1950s?
Q3) Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung)
Q4) McCarran Internal Security Bill
Q5) Douglas MacArthur
Q6) Benjamin Spock
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Chapter 15: American Zenith 1952-1963
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181 Verified Questions
181 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20725
Sample Questions
Q1) The new militancy and restlessness among many members of the African American community after 1945 was especially generated by
A) the growing moral criticism of segregation by white church leaders.
B) blacks' increasing awareness during and after the war of the gap between American democratic ideals and racial practices.
C) the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, chief legal counsel of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court.
D) Dwight Eisenhower's commitment to civil rights.
E) the agitation of A. Philip Randolph.
Q2) In retrospect, the election of John Kennedy in 1960 is seen as bringing an end to the political consensus and caution of the 1950s. Could this have been predicted from the campaign of 1960? Should Kennedy be seen as a liberal critic of Eisenhower and Nixon, or in some ways a conservative one?
Q3) Federal Highway Act of 1956
Q4) The Affluent Society
Q5) Berlin Wall
Q6) James Meredith
Q7) Norman Mailer
Q8) Freedom Riders
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Chapter 16: The Stormy Sixties 1963-1973
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168 Verified Questions
168 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20726
Sample Questions
Q1) The ____ Amendment ____ the voting age to ____.
A) Twenty-Sixth; raised; twenty-one
B) Twenty-Fourth; lowered; eighteen
C) Twenty-Fifth; raised; nineteen
D) Twenty-Sixth; lowered; eighteen
E) Twenty-Sixth; lowered; sixteen
Q2) How did the Republicans' nomination of the ultraconservative Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 pave the way for Lyndon Johnson's sweeping Great Society legislation?
Q3) Spiro T. Agnew
Q4) Assess America's role in Vietnam in the 1960s. Consider, for example, Diem's assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the policy of gradual escalation, and the bombing campaign.
Q5) As part of the cease-fire agreement in Vietnam in 1973
A) the United States ended the bombing of Cambodia.
B) the United States stopped all economic and military aid to South Vietnam.
C) North Vietnam withdrew all its troops from South Vietnam.
D) North Vietnam guaranteed the political independence and security of South Vietnam.
E) the United States withdrew all its troops from Vietnam.
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Chapter 17: Challenges to the Postwar Order 1973-1980
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83 Verified Questions
83 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20727
Sample Questions
Q1) American Indian activists brought attention to their cause in the 1970s by seizing
A) the Little Big Horn battleground and Mount Rushmore in the sacred Black Hills.
B) Alcatraz Island and Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
C) the major tribal headquarters throughout Oklahoma.
D) salmon fishing grounds in Washington and trout streams in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
E) the Tippecanoe battlefield and Mesa Verde National Park.
Q2) Why was affirmative action such a racial hot button in the 1970s?
Q3) Helsinki accords
Q4) Do you think that President Carter overreacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Why or why not? In what way did that event mark a critical turning point in American foreign policy?
Q5) Menachem Begin
Q6) John Dean III
Q7) Wounded Knee
Q8) Why was the feminist movement the most enduring and successful social movement of the 1970s?
Q9) Twenty-Fifth amendment
Page 21
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Chapter 18: The Resurgence of Conservatism 1980-1992
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20728
Sample Questions
Q1) The Americans With Disabilities Act
A) passed only when Congress overrode President George H. W. Bush's veto.
B) prohibited discrimination against 43 million citizens facing mental or physical challenges.
C) required the government to hire disabled Americans.
D) provided scholarships and student loans to people with physical or mental disabilities.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q2) contras
Q3) The Iran-Contra Affair essentially involved
A) hiring Iranian militants to fight for the Contra cause in Central America.
B) selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and using the profits to illegally fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
C) selling arms to both sides in the Iran-Iraq War.
D) secretly recognizing the Iranian regime while claiming to be boycotting it.
E) using both Iranian and Nicaraguan Contra agents to help free American hostages in Lebanon.
Q4) Was the Persian Gulf War a complete American triumph or only a qualified success? What were its long-term consequences?
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Chapter 19: America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era,
1992-2000
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87 Verified Questions
87 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20729
Sample Questions
Q1) Why have so many attainments in American culture in recent decades come from minorities and immigrants? Is it fair to speak of "minority literature" or "minority art," or is such work simply excellent American art that constitutes part of the American tradition?
Q2) Which of the following was not among the notable ethnic and African writers of the period since the 1980s?
A) Amy Tan
B) Toni Morrison
C) Joy Harjo
D) James Welch
E) Raymond Carver
Q3) Do you agree that America struggled to find a direction for its foreign policy in the post-Cold War years? What principles, if any, do you see operating across the board in such areas as the Balkans, the Middle East, East Africa, and Latin America in the 1990s?
Q4) Cesar Chavez
Q5) Democratic Leadership Council
Q6) "outsourcing"
Q7) Joseph Lieberman
Q8) Cinco de Mayo
Page 23
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88 Verified Questions
88 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20730
Sample Questions
Q1) What was truly "new" about the Obama administration's "New Directions in Foreign Policy"? What foreign policies of the Obama administration constituted a continuation or merely a modification of the Bush administration's foreign policies?
Q2) No Child Left Behind Act
Q3) National Security Agency
Q4) Guantanamo Detention Camp
Q5) What explains the growing income disparity between wealthy and poor since the 1970s? How did liberals and Tea Party conservatives each explain the growing income disparity between the wealthy and poor since the 1970s?
Q6) "axis of evil"
Q7) Donald Rumsfeld
Q8) Compare the greatest challenges that American democracy faced in 1808, 1908, and 2008. Which challenges are essentially the same, and which are radically new?
Q9) traditional media
Q10) What were the essential components of George W. Bush's conservative domestic policies? How were they related to the Bush administration's foreign policy?
Q11) Hurricane Katrina Page 24
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