Deck 24: The New ERA 1920-1929

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the story of Sister Aimee and the imaginary Smiths to make the point that

A) Catholics, like other marginal groups, were becoming more culturally influential in the urbanized mass culture of the 1920s.
B) transformations of the New Era mixed ambivalently with traditional beliefs and practices.
C) in the Jazz Age, truth was often stranger than fiction.
D) modern methods and values had taken over the minds of Americans by the 1920s.

Answer 1

transformations of the New Era mixed ambivalently with traditional beliefs and practices.

Question 2

One of the most important economic transformations in the years after World War I was

A) the shift from industry's reliance on railroads to reliance on the automobile.
B) the shift in production from heavy industry to consumer goods and services.
C) the move from the Northeast and Midwest to the West Coast as the country's industrial heartland.
D) a change from a more cooperative to a more adversarial relationship between government and business.

Answer 2

the shift in production from heavy industry to consumer goods and services.

Question 3

Henry Ford's great contribution to modern industrial culture was

A) the invention of the gasoline engine.
B) his sensitivity to the needs of the modern worker.
C) his commitment to standardization and assembly-line mass production.
D) his canny use of product diversification to appeal to a wide range of individual tastes.

Answer 3

his commitment to standardization and assembly-line mass production.

Question 4

The roaring economy of the "Roaring Twenties"involved

A) a productivity revolution based on labor.
B) a consumer-goods revolution.
C) a revolution in thinking, in which advertising was censored.
D) a revolution in labor relations, marked by new growth in the size and influence of labor unions.

Question 5

The expansion and consolidation of industry between 1920 and 1930 meant that

A) the government was increasingly controlled by a few extremely rich "captains of industry."
B) individual stockholders had more and more say in company management.
C) bureaucratic management became divorced from stockholder ownership.
D) more and more antitrust actions were initiated by the government.

Question 6

The automobile was to the 1920s what the railroad had been to the nineteenth century, in that

A) it was both a powerful catalyst to economic growth and a symbol for the age.
B) the government regulated it strictly.
C) Americans made heroes out of automakers like Ford and Sloan, as they had the railroad builders.
D) automobile production relied on earlier forms of corporate strategies.

Question 7

Which of the following was NOT a feature of the modern corporation in the 1920s?

A) Ownership was spread among thousands of stockholders.
B) Bureaucratized organizations created a new elite of salaried managers.
C) Corporate power existed in the hands of stockholders rather than in company management.
D) A new wave of mergers further consolidated industry into a series of oligopolies.

Question 8

For labor unions, the 1920s was a decade of

A) unprecedented membership growth.
B) holding on, retaining but not increasing membership or influence.
C) retooling to become eager partners with business in a cooperative welfare capitalism.
D) serious decline in membership.

Question 9

To encourage consumption, demand for goods was stimulated by

A) advertising.
B) the creation of consumer profiles.
C) a new abundance of money.
D) increased business competition.

Question 10

Which of the following influenced the sense of meaninglessness and alienation that was characteristic of writers and intellectuals in the 1920s?

A) the experience of World War I
B) Victorian liberalism
C) an anti-nihilist philosophy
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 11

The outpouring of literature and art by the "New Negro"of the 1920s became known as the

A) Civil Rights movement.
B) Southern Revival.
C) Harlem Renaissance.
D) Black Resurrection.

Question 12

Examples of the "defenders of the faith"of traditional America against modern urban culture in the 1920s include all EXCEPT

A) prohibition, which reduced both drinking and respect for the law.
B) hostility to radicalism, which gave the label "Red Scare Decade" to the 1920s.
C) the rejuvenation of the Ku Klux Klan, which crusaded against both blacks and foreigners.
D) Protestant fundamentalism, which persisted despite the humiliation of the Scopes trial.

Question 13

In the early part of the twentieth century, immigration from Mexico jumped due to

A) recruiting by the AFL in a campaign to increase its membership.
B) recruiting by American farmers in need of farm workers.
C) increasing poverty.
D) a new labor force from Europe.

Question 14

What piece of federal legislation in the 1920s was a significant shift from a historic American practice?

A) tariff reduction
B) immigration restriction
C) Prohibition repeal
D) antitrust enforcement

Question 15

The National Origins Act fixed immigration patterns for four decades; it

A) greatly increased immigration from eastern Europe.
B) allowed for increased immigration from Asia, particularly well-educated Japanese.
C) put strict quotas on the number of immigrants to be allowed into the U.S. every year.
D) authorized discrimination against American citizens who had a particular national origin.

Question 16

Which statement about the National Origins Act of 1924 is NOT true?

A) It reflected a resurgent nativism.
B) It completely cut off foreign immigration.
C) It gave preference to northern and western Europeans.
D) It set immigration policy for the next 40 years, reversing the three-century-old practice of virtually open immigration.

Question 17

In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan

A) did not really exist as an influential organization, despite media ballyhoo.
B) primarily attracted upper-class single males and females of declining social status.
C) gained strong support in some areas of the North as well as in the South.
D) primarily focused its hatred on the "New Negro."

Question 18

The most celebrated public event of the fundamentalist-modernist conflict was ________, which resulted in ________.

A) the Scopes trial; a guilty verdict and a $100 fine
B) passage of the Eighteenth Amendment; a failed experiment in prohibiting the use of alcohol
C) the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan; restrictions on immigration
D) the election of 1928; the defeat of Catholicism

Question 19

The former presidential candidate who became a leading spokesman against the theory of evolution during the 1920s was

A) Andrew Mellon.
B) William Jennings Bryan.
C) Woodrow Wilson.
D) William McAdoo.

Question 20

Who of the following was NOT a Republican president during the 1920s?

A) Warren G. Harding
B) Calvin Coolidge
C) Charles Evans Hughes
D) Herbert Hoover

Question 21

As secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover practiced "associationalism,"by

A) encouraging the creation of new technology.
B) combining the ideal of individualism with the pursuit of efficiency, organization, and cooperation.
C) advocating laissez-faire policies to avoid government control.
D) urging businesses to act in moral ways.

Question 22

What was an element of U.S. economic diplomacy in the 1920s?

A) reducing the tariff to allow other nations to sell their goods in the U.S.
B) reducing German reparation payments to the victorious Allies in return for helping stabilize the German economy
C) canceling World War I debts owed by European nations to the U.S. in order to make it feasible to reduce German reparations
D) promoting arms sales abroad to bankrupt rival powers

Question 23

In the 1920s, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover believed in

A) the benefits of unrestrained competition.
B) the inefficiency of warm-spirited labor relations.
C) viewing business and government as partners rather than as adversaries.
D) viewing foreign trade as a cause of dependency rather than profitability.

Question 24

At a conference held in Washington in 1921, the Five-Power Agreement involved

A) steps to outlaw war.
B) the creation of a collective security agreement throughout the Western Hemisphere.
C) steps toward naval disarmament.
D) the end of the Open Door.

Question 25

The beginnings of political realignment were already in evidence in the returns of the election of 1928, after which the Republicans

A) lost the southern vote.
B) lost power in the cities.
C) gained strength in the industrial Northeast.
D) gained support among union members.

Question 26

In 1928 what two industries began suffering as demand sagged and should have called attention to defects in the American economy prior to the Great Depression?

A) energy; construction
B) durable goods; steel
C) mining; heavy industry
D) construction; auto manufacturing

Question 27

America's most important boom industry in the 1920s, the ________ industry, stimulated economic growth and changed the landscape of America.

Question 28

Along with Hollywood films, ________ grew dramatically as a popular and influential mass medium in the 1920s, and became a fixture of the American home.

Question 29

As contenders for traditional Christian truth, the ________ came to target the teaching of Darwinian evolution as the worst symptom of modern cultural decay.

Question 30

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was a multilateral agreement that outlawed ________.

Question 31

Urban, Catholic, and "wet,"Al Smith was defeated for ________, but the votes he won signaled an emerging political realignment.

Question 32

What were the "boom industries"of the 1920s, and how did they contribute to economic growth? Discuss two other factors that account for prosperity in the 1920s.

Question 33

In what ways did the automobile serve simultaneously as an economic catalyst, transportation revolution, and cultural symbol in the 1920s? What role did Henry Ford play in these developments?

Question 34

What was welfare capitalism? How did it work? Why did employers use it? What effect did it have on most wage earners during the 1920s? On unionization?

Question 35

What factors led to the rise of mass society and mass culture in the 1920s?

Question 36

Describe the "New Woman"and the "New Negro"of the 1920s. How "new"were they?

Question 37

Discuss three features of American society in the 1920s that alienated some artists and writers.

Question 38

What was "normalcy,"and how normal was it?

Question 39

How and why did American business practices change in the 1920s? What effect did those changes have on the economy?

Question 40

Describe the origins and effects of the consumer culture. Why was it critical to prosperity in the 1920s?

Question 41

How successful were women in achieving independence and equality in the 1920s? How successful were African Americans?

Question 42

How did motion pictures, radio, and mass-circulation newspapers and magazines shape American life in the 1920s? Which of these media was the most important?

Question 43

Consider this statement: "The era of the 1920s witnessed a continual pull between the traditional and the modern."Explain how the following events reflected the pull of either the traditional or the modern-or both: Aimee Semple McPherson, the New Woman, Prohibition, the KKK, fundamentalism, advertising.

Question 44

Describe and evaluate the policies of the Harding and Coolidge administrations. Who was helped and who hurt or ignored? Why?

Question 45

Why was the election of 1928 important?