Modern American History
Test Questions
Course Introduction
Modern American History explores the major political, social, economic, and cultural developments in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. The course examines significant events such as industrialization, the Progressive Era, both World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, and contemporary issues shaping the nation. Students analyze primary and secondary sources, assess the impact of landmark legislation and Supreme Court rulings, and consider the evolving role of the United States in the global context. Through discussions and research, participants gain insight into how historical forces continue to influence American society today.
Recommended Textbook
American Pageant Volume 2 16th Edition by
David M. Kennedy
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20 Chapters
2630 Verified Questions
2630 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 prompted Congress to seek passage of A) the Thirteenth Amendment.
B) an extension of the Freedmen's Bureau.
C) an act to overturn the Black Codes.
D) the Fourteenth Amendment.
E) articles of impeachment against Johnson.
Answer: D
Q2) Among the legacies of the Reconstruction effort were
A) a national commitment to civil rights for all races in America.
B) establishment of economic and political guarantees for southern blacks.
C) a long-term eclipse of Republican party strength in southern states.
D) a drastic redistribution of wealth and radical economic reforms in the South.
E) a sense of resentment and grievance among white southerners.
Answer: C, E
Q3) Hiram Revels
Answer: Answers will vary.
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3
Chapter 2: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869-1896
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147 Verified Questions
147 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) President Ulysses S. Grant was reelected in 1872 because
A) the Democrats and Liberal Republicans could not decide on a single candidate.
B) he promised reforms in the political system.
C) he was the only candidate who enjoyed support in both the North and South.
D) the Democrats and Liberal Republicans chose the politically and personally eccentric and dubiously sound editor Horace Greeley as their candidate.
E) of the massive support of black voters in the Reconstruction South.
Answer: D
Q2) In the presidential election of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant
A) transformed his personal popularity into a large majority in the popular vote.
B) owed his victory to the votes of former slaves.
C) gained his victory by winning the votes of the majority of whites.
D) won a clear majority of electoral votes in the Electoral College, but narrowly lost the popular vote in the country.
E) All of these choices are correct.
Answer: B
Q3) 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
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Sample Questions
Q1) Match each railroad company below with the correct entrepreneur.
A.James J. Hill
B.Cornelius Vanderbilt
C.Leland Stanford
1)Central Pacific
2)New York Central
3)Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
4)Great Northern
A) A-4, B-2, C-1
B) A-3, B-4, C-2
C) A-2, B-1, C-3
D) A-4, B-3, C-1
E) A-1, B-3, C-4
Answer: A
Q2) consumer goods
Answer: Answers will vary.
Q3) trust
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
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Sample Questions
Q1) talented tenth
Q2) Jack London
Q3) In the course of the late nineteenth century
A) the birthrate increased.
B) the divorce rate fell.
C) family size gradually declined.
D) people tended to marry at an earlier age.
E) children were seen as a greater economic asset.
Q4) The major factor in drawing country people off the farms and into the big cities was the
A) consecutive years of drought in the Midwest and West in the post-Civil War era.
B) availability of industrial jobs.
C) compact nature of those large communities.
D) advent of new housing structures known as dumbbell tenements.
E) lure of cultural excitement.
Q5) new morality
Q6) Henry Adams
Q7) natural selection
Q8) Chautauqua movement
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Chapter 5: The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 1865-1896
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161 Verified Questions
161 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Oliver H. Kelley
Q2) Jacob S. Coxey
Q3) Dingley Tariff bill
Q4) John Peter Altgeld
Q5) One major problem with the Homestead Act was that
A) the government continued to try to maximize its revenue from public lands.
B) 160 acres were inadequate for productive farming on the rain-scarce Great Plains.
C) midwestern farmers had to give up raising livestock because of stiff competition with the West.
D) most homesteaders knew little or nothing about farming in the West.
E) it took several years to earn a profit from farming a homestead.
Q6) Ghost Dance
Q7) For farm men and women, Grangers were a godsend because
A) they required members to pitch in and help each other during harvest season.
B) the picnics, concerts and lectures they offered helped ease their isolation.
C) their secret rituals kept out people they didn't like.
D) they sold farming supplies at a deep discount.
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E) they formed their own banks and credit unions that farmers could utilize to finance their operations.
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Chapter 6: Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909
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161 Verified Questions
161 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many Americans became concerned about the increasing foreign intervention in China because they
A) feared that American missions would be jeopardized and Chinese markets closed to non-Europeans.
B) feared the United States would be drawn into a war with Japan over political and economic influence over China.
C) feared German military domination of China.
D) believed that such intervention undermined Chinese sovereignty.
E) disliked the superior racial attitudes displayed by the Europeans toward the Chinese.
Q2) 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.
Q3) "yellow peril"
Q4) Valeriano Weyler
Q5) McKinley Tariff
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Chapter 7: Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt, 1901-1912
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142 Verified Questions
142 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Woodrow Wilson'sNew Freedom program in the election of 1912 included the A) banking reform.
B) tariff reductions.
C) fragmentation of big industrial combines through vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws.
D) promotion of small business and entrepreneurship.
E) All of these choices are correct.
Q2) Female progressives often justified their reformist political activities on the basis of
A) the need to assert female power against male oppression.
B) America's need to catch up with more progressive European nations.
C) women's need for more opportunities to work outside the home to support their families.
D) the harsh treatment of working women by employers.
E) their being essentially an extension of women's traditional roles as wives and mothers.
Q3) Would you label Theodore Roosevelt a radical, liberal, moderate, or conservative? Justify your choice.
Q4) Ray Stannard Baker
Q5) Eugene V. Debs
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Wilsonian Progressivism in Peace and War,
1913-1920
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144 Verified Questions
144 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Senator Henry Cabot Lodge effectively stalled consideration of the Treaty of Versailles by the full Senate
A) by holding extended Senate hearings on the treaty, which permitted its various opponents to air their opposition to ratification.
B) by engaging in parliamentary procedural maneuvers such as reading the entire treaty aloud on the Senate floor.
C) by loading the treaty down with numerous crippling amendments or reservations opposed by Wilson and many Democrats in the Senate.
D) by mobilizing liberal intellectual and internationalist opinion against the treaty.
E) All of these choices are correct.
Q2) Lusitania
Q3) In the Sussex pledge, Germany promised
A) not to sink passenger ships.
B) to maintain the territorial integrity of France.
C) to halt its naval blockade of Britain.
D) to halt all submarine warfare.
E) not to sink passenger ships without warning.
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Page 10
Chapter 9: American Life in the Roaring Twenties
1920 1929
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145 Verified Questions
145 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Edith Wharton
Q2) The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was a reaction against
A) capitalism.
B) new immigration laws passed in 1924.
C) the nativist movements that had their origins in the 1850s.
D) race riots.
E) the forces of diversity and modernity that were transforming American culture.
Q3) Claude McKay
Q4) The post-World War I Ku Klux Klan advocated all of the following except A) immigration restrictions against "non-native" Americans.
B) anti-Semitism.
C) opposition to prohibition.
D) repression of pacifists.
E) anti-Catholicism.
Q5) Babbitt
Q6) Ku Klux Klan
Q7) John Dewey
Q8) Willa Cather
Q9) National Woman's party Page 11
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Chapter 10: The Politics of Boom and Bust 1920 1932
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) John W. Davis
Q2) The economic mood in the United States just before the stock market crashed in 1929 could best be described as
A) anxious.
B) supremely confident and optimistic.
C) pessimistic.
D) fearful.
E) deeply ambivalent.
Q3) The causes of the Great Depression included
A) agricultural overproduction and debt.
B) unequal distribution of wealth
C) overextension of credit and an absence of any significant government regulation of financial markets.
D) anemic foreign trade.
E) economic troubles in Europe.
Q4) Four-Power Treaty
Q5) Henry L. Stimson
Q6) Fordney-McCumber Tariff
Q7) Kellogg-Briand Pact
Q8) Bonus Army
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Chapter 11: The Great Depression and the New Deal
1933 1939
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118 Verified Questions
118 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Social Security Act
Q2) Mary McLeod Bethune
Q3) Roosevelt supported the repeal of prohibition because
A) he thought it was unconstitutional.
B) he believed the problem of drunkenness could be solved by restricting alcohol content to 3.2 percent by weight.
C) he thought that it afforded the opportunity to raise needed federal revenue and provide jobs.
D) he needed support from the repeal movement to gain reelection.
E) drys: those who opposed alcohol: were an increasingly small segment of the population.
Q4) Had you lived at the time, do you think you would have been pro- or anti-Roosevelt? Why? Cite specific actions of President Roosevelt and the New Dealers to illustrate your position.
Q5) What role did women play in the government and intellectual life of the 1930s? How did the interests and concerns of women in this period differ from those of the 1920s (see Chapter 30, American Life in the "Roaring Twenties," 1920-1929)?
Q6) Roosevelt (New Deal)coalition
Q7) Dust Bowl
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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
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Sample Questions
Q1) Spanish Civil War
Q2) War Refugee Board
Q3) By the mid-1930s, there was strong nationwide agitation for a constitutional amendment to
A) prohibit excessive profits from being made off of arms sales to foreign countries.
B) limit a president to two terms.
C) remove the power to declare from the Congress and grant it to the president.
D) require the president to gain Congressional approval before sending U.S. troops overseas.
E) forbid a declaration of war by Congress unless first approved by a popular referendum.
Q4) "Quarantine Speech"
Q5) Do you think the argument that "one should not change horses in the middle of a stream" is sufficient to justify Franklin Roosevelt's breaking the two-term tradition in 1940? Do you think anyone should be allowed to serve more than two terms in the presidency? Why or why not? Why do you believe Congress passed and the states ratified the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951 limiting a president to being elected to two terms in office?
Q6) Rome-Berlin axis
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Chapter 13: America in World War II 1941 1945
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106 Verified Questions
106 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following was not among the qualities of the American participation in World War II?
A) A group of highly effective military and political leaders
B) An enormously effective effort in producing weapons and supplies
C) A higher percentage of military casualties than any other Allied nation
D) The preservation of the American homeland against invasion or destruction from the air
E) The maintenance and reaffirmation of the strength of American democracy
Q2) The unconditional surrender policy toward Japan was finally modified by
A) assuring the Japanese that there would be no war crimes trials.
B) guaranteeing that defeated Japan would be treated decently by American occupiers.
C) agreeing not to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan.
D) agreeing to let the Japanese keep Emperor Hirohito on his ancestral throne as the nominal emperor.
E) permitting the Japanese to retain a strong army but no real navy.
Q3) Summarize the grand strategy of the Big Three allies in World War II. What aspects of that strategy became controversial? Why?
Q4) ABC-1 agreement
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Page 16
Chapter 14: The Cold War Begins 1945-1952
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154 Verified Questions
154 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Army-McCarthy hearings
Q2) Dean Acheson
Q3) ____ German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
Q4) Assess President Truman's response to the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1950. Do you think that he acted properly with regard to the United Nations, Congress, and his military commanders? Why or why not?
Q5) In 1948, many southern Democrats split from their party to support Governor J. Strom Thurmond because
A) China had fallen to the communists.
B) they opposed American membership in the United Nations.
C) President Truman took a strong stand in favor of civil rights.
D) they found the Republican candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, more sympathetic to their conservative ideology.
E) Truman appointed an ambassador to the Catholic Vatican City.
Q6) ____ North Korea
Q7) How do you assess Harry S Truman as a political leader? What were his greatest successes in foreign and domestic policy? What were his greatest failures?
Q8) ____ Lithuania
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Chapter 15: American Zenith 1952-1963
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181 Verified Questions
181 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Critically evaluate President Eisenhower's response to the fall of Dienbienphu, the Hungarian revolt, the Suez Crisis, and Castro's revolution in Cuba.
Q2) The consequences of the Cuban missile crisis included
A) a nuclear test-ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.
B) a Vienna summit meeting between President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev.
C) the installation of a Moscow-Washington hot line for crisis communication.
D) a massive military arms-building program in the Soviet Union.
E) the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
Q3) Betty Friedan
Q4) President Eisenhower defined the domestic philosophy of his administration as
A) the Fair Deal.
B) the silent majority.
C) dynamic conservatism.
D) two cars in every garage.
E) compassionate conservatism.
Q5) Sweatt v. Painter
Q6) Martin Luther King, Jr.
Q7) National Defense Education Act
Q8) Earl Warren
Q9) Peace Corps
Page 18
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Page 19
Chapter 16: The Stormy Sixties 1963-1973
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168 Verified Questions
168 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Nixon Doctrine
Q2) President Johnson called his package of domestic reform proposals the A) Great Crusade.
B) Fair Deal.
C) New Frontier.
D) Johnson Revolution.
E) Great Society.
Q3) By the late 1960s, Black Power advocates in the North focused their attention primarily on A) housing.
B) school integration.
C) voting rights.
D) black separation.
E) economic demands.
Q4) Charles de Gaulle
Q5) affirmative action
Q6) Medicare and Medicaid
Q7) Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM)
Q8) Henry Kissinger
Q9) Civil Rights Act of 1964
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Page 21
Chapter 17: Challenges to the Postwar Order 1973-1980
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83 Verified Questions
83 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Helsinki accords
Q2) Phyllis Schlafly
Q3) How did the Vietnam War end? Why did it end this way? In what way had the United States "in the technical sense ... not lost the war" but "lost more than a war"?
Q4) The first major trouble to afflict President Carter's foreign policy was the
A) Panamanian seizure of the Panama Canal.
B) collapse of the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.
C) ominous reheating of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
D) taking of American hostages by Afghan revolutionaries.
E) threatened Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Q5) Why was the feminist movement the most enduring and successful social movement of the 1970s?
Q6) Explain why Jimmy Carter began his presidency with such great popularity and why, by the end of his term, he was widely unpopular. To what degree was the loss of popularity his fault and to what degree was it the result of forces beyond his control?
Q7) Camp David agreement
Q8) Leonid Brezhnev
Q9) John Dean III
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Chapter 18: The Resurgence of Conservatism 1980-1992
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why did conservatism gain such strength in the 1980s and 1990s? Where did modern American conservatism come from?
Q2) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "The greatest success of the conservative movement came in reversing the previously liberal direction of the Supreme Court." Explain your answer.
Q3) The explosive Senate hearings that nearly prevented Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from being confirmed involved charges that Thomas was guilty of A) racial discrimination.
B) smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine.
C) plagiarism.
D) sexual harassment.
E) disrespecting civil liberties and the First Amendment.
Q4) In the 1980s, for the first time in the twentieth century
A) income gaps widened between the richest and the poorest Americans.
B) middle-class incomes rose.
C) the poor made economic gains.
D) the economy was uniformly healthy.
E) the majority of Americans were middle class.
Q5) ____ Saudi Arabia
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Chapter 19: America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era,
1992-2000
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87 Verified Questions
87 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In general, the effects of the electronic new media in the early twentieth century were
A) used to reinforce existing political and economic power structures.
B) restricted to those with extensive education and training in their use.
C) of greater benefit to corporations than to ordinary citizens.
D) democratizing for ordinary citizens.
E) complementary to the interests of the traditional mainstream media.
Q2) globalization
Q3) The razor-thin 2000 presidential election was finally settled by A) a vote by states in the House of Representatives.
B) the Florida Supreme Court determining that George W. Bush had won Florida's electoral votes.
C) a complete recount of Florida's votes that gave a majority there to George W. Bush.
D) a federal commission that awarded Florida's electoral votes to George W. Bush.
E) the Supreme Court's ruling ending a recount of Florida's votes and declaring George W. Bush the winner of Florida's electoral votes and, thus, giving an Electoral College majority to George W. Bush.
Q4) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
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Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
88 Verified Questions
88 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The money used to provide Social Security payments to retirees comes from A) the federal income tax.
B) the contributions made by the elderly during their working lives.
C) Social Security taxes paid by current workers.
D) private employers' pension funds.
E) the federal government's investment of Social Security contributions in the stock market.
Q2) Which American challenge do you think will most dominate the first half of the twenty-first century: economic prosperity and justice, the global and local environment, or the threat of international terrorism? What resources does American history provide for meeting what you consider to be the single greatest challenge?
Q3) After ousting Saddam Hussein from power, the U.S. military in Iraq was faced with A) the abuse of American prisoners by the remnants of Hussein's army.
B) a warm reception from the Iraqi people.
C) a confident new democratic Iraq.
D) an invasion of Iraq by militant Arab states.
E) violent resistance from Iraqi insurgents and foreign militants drawn to the country.
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