Deck 23: The Twenties

Question 1

A major reason modern corporations were successful in the 1920s was __________.

A) their willingness to diversify
B) the availability of imported parts
C) their commitment to producing a single product
D) their success in forcing all workers to join unions

Answer 1

their willingness to diversify

Question 2

Suburban living during the 1920s was possible because of __________.

A) land grants to construction companies
B) government-subsidized mortgages
C) the movement of factories out of the cities
D) the growth of the automobile industry and mass transit

Answer 2

the growth of the automobile industry and mass transit

Question 3

Farm income declined dramatically during the 1920s because of __________.

A) decreased production
B) a decade-long drought
C) changes in the American diet
D) a worldwide surplus of agricultural goods

Answer 3

a worldwide surplus of agricultural goods

Question 4

General Motors' creation of expensive Cadillacs and more affordable Chevrolets was a way to compete with the Ford Motor Company by __________.

A) organizing into separate divisions, each appealing to a different market segment
B) simplifying all its models
C) using only one basic color
D) dropping the price of its cars

Question 5

In the 1920s, chain stores such as A&P based their appeal on offering __________.

A) unique products in each market
B) clean, modern stores with consistent products and prices
C) local ownership of each store
D) a chance for customers to bargain over prices

Question 6

One reason the coal industry declined in the 1920s was __________.

A) that oil and natural gas became the dominant energy sources
B) a dramatic shortage of coal
C) that industry required less energy to produce products
D) that government-built dams provided cheap hydroelectric power

Question 7

The movie The Jazz Singer revolutionized the film industry by __________.

A) introducing sound
B) being produced in color
C) introducing cartoon animation
D) featuring African American actors for the first time

Question 8

By far the most popular mass audience sport in the 1920s was __________.

A) Major League Baseball
B) college football
C) amateur golf
D) boxing

Question 9

Advertising in the 1920s was strongly influenced by the success of what World War I‒era agency?

A) the Committee on Public Information
B) the War Industries Board
C) the National War Labor Board
D) the U.S. Food Administration

Question 10

Henry Ford introduced the $5 wage for an eight-hour day __________.

A) to reduce labor turnover and boost workers' spending power
B) under pressure from AFL leader William Green
C) because of his benevolent concern for workers' welfare
D) to beat GM's $4 wage

Question 11

Despite its promise, welfare capitalism was only partially successful because __________.

A) new immigrants refused to participate
B) workers remained economically insecure and at the mercy of employers
C) unions could offer better benefits than open shop businesses
D) high taxes ate up most of workers' wage gains

Question 12

As president, Harding would be best described as __________.

A) honest, hardworking, and effective
B) a weak man easily taken advantage of by the "Ohio gang"
C) personally involved in the scandals of his administration
D) progressive and forward looking

Question 13

Large employers implemented welfare capitalism to __________.

A) undermine unions
B) meet government standards
C) fulfill their strong social conscience
D) keep workers employed

Question 14

Why did the American economy change from a producer-durable-goods to a consumer-durable-goods economy in the early twentieth century?

A) mass production
B) labor shortages
C) high wages
D) lack of raw materials

Question 15

Under the studio system, companies making movies __________.

A) depended on Wall Street investors for financing
B) downplayed the role of "stars"
C) controlled production, distribution, and exhibition
D) concentrated on making short, cheap films

Question 16

Hollywood films in the 1920s would be best described as __________.

A) an accurate portrayal of the age
B) a divisive force in American society
C) portraying a dream world to which most Americans could only aspire
D) serious and searching examinations of contemporary problems

Question 17

To counter growing calls for government censorship, the movie industry resorted to __________.

A) self-censorship
B) demanding their right of free speech
C) ignoring their critics
D) moving production to Canada

Question 18

A horizontal, decentralized, low-density city sprawling miles from its downtown and totally dependent on automobiles and roads is best exemplified by __________.

A) Grosse Pointe, Michigan
B) Houston, Texas
C) Elmwood Park, Illinois
D) New York City

Question 19

Whether shopping at A&P, watching the movies, listening to radio, or reading a newspaper, consumers in the 1920s were exposed to more things that __________.

A) challenged them intellectually
B) reflected local or regional qualities
C) set them apart from the new immigrant
D) were produced for a national market

Question 20

In 1913, it took 13 hours to produce one automobile. By 1925, Henry Ford's new plants were producing one car every __________.

A) 10 seconds
B) hour
C) 90 minutes
D) two hours

Question 21

As a result of U.S. economic dominance in Latin America, __________.

A) democracy was hampered in the region
B) living standards were raised for Latin Americans
C) the income distribution in Latin America was evened out
D) Latin American nations were able to diversify their economies

Question 22

The Roaring Twenties "flapper" represented __________.

A) a small group of young, white, middle-class females
B) broad new cultural patterns affecting most Americans
C) Afro-American influence on mass culture
D) an unrealistic Hollywood image that reflected few real American women

Question 23

"Eugenics" is __________.

A) pseudo-scientific racism
B) a post‒laissez faire economic theory
C) a belief that all people are equally capable of progress
D) an early form of psychiatry

Question 24

Anti-American feelings in postwar Europe were fueled by __________.

A) U.S. insistence that at least part of the European debts be repaid
B) American occupation of Europe
C) American corporations buying European businesses at fire-sale prices
D) American isolationist tendencies

Question 25

Which author, best known for writing the social satire Babbitt, became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature?

A) Sinclair Lewis
B) Ernest Hemingway
C) F. Scott Fitzgerald
D) Sherwood Anderson

Question 26

People who supported the Klan in the 1920s were likely to be __________.

A) city dwellers
B) believers in Darwinian evolution
C) religious fundamentalists
D) scientific modernists

Question 27

Some white women were attracted to the KKK because __________.

A) the Klan offered family and community tradition
B) the Klan offered them a measure of political power
C) white women were strong supporters of Christianity
D) it gave them opportunities for illicit sex

Question 28

In the 1925 Scopes trial, the real issue at stake was __________.

A) modern science versus fundamentalism
B) enforcement of Jim Crow laws
C) government restriction of free speech
D) laws making Klan membership illegal

Question 29

Hoover had a strong commitment to the principle of __________.

A) government control of business
B) American individualism
C) government assistance to individuals
D) deferring to labor leaders

Question 30

After 1924, Japanese and Asian Indians were excluded from U.S. citizenship because __________.

A) business leaders feared competition from Asians
B) the Supreme Court held that they were impossible to assimilate
C) Japan and India refused to allow their citizens to emigrate
D) their nations had fought against the United States in World War I

Question 31

Changes in 1920s morality probably reflected __________.

A) government programs forbidding sex education
B) a convergence in male and female sexual attitudes and habits
C) widespread legalization of prostitution
D) greater mainstream acceptance of homosexuality

Question 32

A call for postwar immigration restrictions resulted from __________.

A) racism directed at immigrants from eastern and southern Europe
B) dislike of northern and western Europeans
C) feelings that the U.S. population had reached its maximum capacity
D) fear that new immigrants would use up too much of the existing farm land

Question 33

What organization attempted to bring economic, social, and racial equality to Mexican Americans?

A) Congress of Racial Equality
B) Urban League
C) Council for Hispanic Rights
D) League of United Latin American Citizens

Question 34

The 1920s fundamentalist movement was strongest __________.

A) in the South and Midwest
B) among recent immigrants
C) in large East Coast cities
D) among those who embraced modern science

Question 35

President Hoover's goal of establishing a favorable climate for business and actively assisting the business community was addressed through the creation of __________.

A) the Department of Commerce
B) national trade union associations
C) an "associative state"
D) the Justice Department's Antitrust Division

Question 36

As a result of mass distribution of phonograph records, __________.

A) most Americans stopped listening to the radio
B) American jazz music became popular worldwide
C) the American cultural community became more exclusive
D) the American market was dominated by European artists

Question 37

The Sheppard-Towner Act, which created the first federally funded health care program, was repealed after opposition from the __________.

A) National Woman Suffrage Association
B) American Federation of Labor
C) National Woman's Party
D) American Medical Association

Question 38

The National American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party disagreed over __________.

A) which group gave more protection to immigrants
B) methods for achieving full suffrage
C) which group had a greater social conscience
D) labor laws to protect women

Question 39

The most divisive issue in the international economy after World War I was __________.

A) Russian confiscation of Western properties
B) loans owed to Europe by the United States
C) loans owed to Germany by France and England
D) war debts and reparations

Question 40

Katherine Bement Davis's 1929 study revealed that most middle-class women __________.

A) described sexual relations in negative terms
B) were likely to have premarital sex
C) disapproved of homosexuality
D) used contraceptives and described sex in positive terms

Question 41

What virtue championed by the progressives was also championed by American business in the 1920s?

A) openness
B) efficiency
C) self-promotion
D) tolerance

Question 42

What importance should we attach to the new Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s? What larger social and cultural trends were reflected in the Klan's popularity?

Question 43

How did General Motors (GM) innovate in the automobile industry so that it could compete strongly with the Ford Motor Company?

A) GM organized into separate divisions, each of which appealed to a different market segment.
B) GM became the first Ford competitor to convert its factories from steam to electricity.
C) GM standardized its automobile production by only making black-colored cars.
D) GM introduced a $5.00 wage scale and eight-hour working day for its employees, which made for greater automobile production.

Question 44

Marcus Garvey was a champion of __________.

A) black economic self-determination
B) black cultural assimilation
C) the ideas of Booker T. Washington
D) racial integration

Question 45

Why did the feminist movement fragment after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, and how did new groups in the movement respond to women's changed status?

Question 46

Calvin Coolidge believed in the __________.

A) importance of government regulation
B) goals of diversity, tolerance, and social justice
C) rights of the working man
D) least amount of government possible

Question 47

During the 1920s in the United States, large corporations began to employ a new strategy toward labor, known as __________.

A) welfare capitalism
B) anti-unionism
C) the American plan
D) the associative state

Question 48

Why did the agricultural sector, especially in the South, lag behind other areas of the 1920s economy?

Question 49

Analyze the flapper of the 1920s. What real trends did the flapper reflect? In what ways was the flapper a fiction?

Question 50

Who established the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was headquartered in Harlem?

A) Langston Hughes
B) Marcus Garvey
C) Alain Locke
D) Paul Robeson

Question 51

The new Mexican immigration of the 1920s appeared __________ than previous waves.

A) more permanent
B) less significant
C) to include more professionals
D) to include more women

Question 52

In 1920, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reorganized itself as the __________.

A) the Women's Trade Union League
B) the Women's Bureau
C) National Woman's Party
D) League of Women Voters

Question 53

The tabloids' most popular new feature was the __________.

A) gossip column
B) sports page
C) help wanted ads
D) editorial page

Question 54

How did consumer-based industries change the everyday lives of Americans?

A) Canning, chemicals, synthetics, and plastics allowed for new mass-marketed products that were available to millions of Americans.
B) By paying higher wages to their workers, they made it possible for more Americans to afford the goods they produced.
C) By committing themselves to thorough self-regulation, they assured the safety of American consumers.
D) By relying on American raw materials only, they helped boost American agriculture and mining industries.

Question 55

How did major corporations such as Du Pont and General Electric transform themselves economically after the end of World War I?

A) They began to diversify what they produced to gain more of the consumer market.
B) They limited their competition so that smaller businesses had a chance for economic success.
C) They lengthened their employees' working day to 12 hours so that more products could be manufactured.
D) They enlarged their workforce by agreeing to support the closed shop, where employees were required to join an existing union.

Question 56

What is welfare capitalism, and why was it embraced by new corporations in the 1920s?

Question 57

By the early 1920s, many eastern states __________.

A) no longer even tried to enforce prohibition
B) had eradicated alcohol consumption
C) were actively engaged in the importation of alcohol
D) had passed laws making the consumption of alcohol legal

Question 58

Whose interests did the National Woman's Party largely represent?

A) working-class women
B) professional and business women
C) the wealthiest women
D) young women

Question 59

The original Klan had been formed in the Reconstruction South as __________.

A) a veteran's aid organization
B) a religious organization
C) an instrument of white racial terror
D) a political alternative to the Democratic Party

Question 60

Which industry helped transform the city of Houston from a railroad town into a busy metropolis?

A) oil refining
B) meatpacking
C) textiles
D) mining

Question 61

Which statement best describes the relationship between American business and the Republican presidential administrations of the 1920s?

A) The federal government and American business developed a new and closer relationship in which American businessmen had to deal with minimal government regulation.
B) Restrictive actions taken by the federal government suppressed the growth of American business, both domestically and internationally.
C) The government allowed strong domestic business development but sharply curtailed foreign investments made by American businesses.
D) The government required large businesses and corporations to pay higher taxes to boost the American economy.

Question 62

Which sectors of American industry suffered during the 1920s?

A) coal mines and textiles
B) oil and gas, and automobiles
C) chemicals and plastics
D) consumer goods and electronics

Question 63

Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon tried to promote general economic growth by __________.

A) cutting taxes on income and corporate profits
B) increasing public spending
C) increasing the inheritance tax
D) setting minimum-wage rates

Question 64

Why did the new Ku Klux Klan target members of the Roman Catholic Church?

A) Klan members claimed that Catholics' allegiance to the Pope made them unfit for citizenship.
B) Klan members believed that Catholics had killed Jesus Christ.
C) Klan members were often lapsed Catholics.
D) Many African Americans in the South were Catholics.

Question 65

How did the war experience change the attitude of young African American men in Harlem in the early 1920s?

A) They brought home a militant spirit and maturity that gave them the confidence to express their beliefs and sentiments.
B) The horrors they had witnessed in the war convinced them of the importance of compromise to avoid violent conflict.
C) Their exchanges with Parisian artists introduced them to high culture for the first time in their lives, making them eager to copy it back home.
D) Their mutual service with white Americans gave them a more nuanced vision of the racial conflict that was brewing back home.

Question 66

Which of the following was true of professional baseball in the 1920s?

A) Banned from Major League Baseball, African Americans created their own leagues such as the National Negro League.
B) Baseball was the first American sports industry where white and black athletes played together in integrated leagues.
C) African American baseball players were even more popular celebrities with white fans than the white players who played in the Major League, including Babe Ruth.
D) African American players were restricted to segregated leagues and forbidden from competing with white players, even in unofficial exhibition games.

Question 67

Why did the National Woman's Party under the leadership of Alice Paul oppose protective legislation for women during the 1920s?

A) The NWP claimed that such laws reinforced sex stereotypes.
B) The NWP wanted a constitutional amendment, not piecemeal legislation.
C) The NWP did not think such laws went far enough.
D) The NWP insisted that complete racial equality had to come first.

Question 68

Which statement best summarizes the historical significance of the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Act?

A) It established the first federally funded health care program.
B) The narrow margin by which it passed highlighted the enormous gender gap in the American electorate.
C) It demonstrated the legislators' recognition that not all women were mothers.
D) It provided federal funding for birth control and abortions for the first time.

Question 69

Which statement best synthesizes the historical significance of the rise of modern advertising in the 1920s?

A) It promoted a therapeutic ethic, suggesting that consumption could contribute to physical and emotional well-being.
B) It informed Americans about the new range of products available to them and the benefits they could hope to obtain from them.
C) Advertising prompted the creation of modern radio networks that would soon crowd out small niche-market competitors.
D) Advertising created the mass markets that allowed for economies of scale through which consumer goods became much cheaper for Americans.

Question 70

How did the decision reached by the jury in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925 affect the teaching of evolution in American public schools?

A) The struggle over teaching evolution continued as an uneasy stalemate.
B) State laws banning the teaching of evolution were declared unconstitutional and repealed by the Supreme Court.
C) Teaching evolution was banned in every state in the Union.
D) Teachers who continued to instruct Darwinism and the theory of evolution faced arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment.

Question 71

How did the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Ozawa v. United States and United States v. Thind support the anti-immigration movement of the 1920s?

A) The decisions reached by the Court in these cases created the new racial category of "Asian" and codified the principle of racial exclusion in immigration and naturalization laws.
B) The Court's decisions allowed Congress to set quotas on the number of southern and eastern Europeans who could immigrate to the United States each year.
C) The Court made the decision to ban all immigration to the United States from Japan and India.
D) The Court's decisions in these cases gave the federal government the authority to deport foreign-born immigrants who had been influenced by radicalism and Bolshevism.

Question 72

Hoover called his concept of a government that would encourage voluntary cooperation among corporations, workers, farmers, and small-business men __________.

A) the "associative state"
B) the "corporate state"
C) welfare capitalism
D) a "return to normalcy"

Question 73

How did the 1924 National Origins Act limit immigration into the United States?

A) It limited immigration to white Europeans, with quotas for each country of origin.
B) It banned Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants from coming to the United States.
C) It imposed quota systems on Japanese and Chinese migrants.
D) It favored southern and eastern European laborers over northwestern Europeans.

Question 74

How did World War I transform economic relations between the United States and foreign economic markets?

A) The United States emerged from World War I as the strongest economic power in the world when it had previously been the world's leading debtor nation.
B) The United States completely isolated itself from its former European war allies after they demonstrated that they were unable to pay back their massive war debts.
C) The United States refused to assist Germany in making war reparations to Britain and France.
D) The federal government tightly regulated American business investments abroad.

Question 75

The predominant audience of the early movie industry centered in New York City prior to World War I was __________.

A) immigrants and working-class Americans
B) members of the American middle class
C) American teenagers
D) rural Americans

Question 76

How did psychological and social theories of the 1920s interpret the importance of sexuality in the human experience?

A) They stressed that sex was a positive and healthy impulse that should play a central role in the human experience.
B) They acknowledged the importance of sex for procreation but feared that unrestrained fulfillment of desires could cause mental health problems.
C) They advocated the use of contraceptives and birth control because of the large number of young wartime veterans with venereal disease.
D) They suggested that the rhythmically complex dance moves in jazz clubs ought to be considered a form of sex.

Question 77

Who paid for the production of radio programs in 1920s America?

A) advertisers
B) listeners
C) the federal government
D) radio manufacturers

Question 78

How did Dallas dentist Hiram W. Evans transform the Ku Klux Klan when he became the organization's imperial wizard?

A) He hired professional fund-raisers and paid commissions to those who sponsored new members.
B) He rallied southern white supremacists with a national lynching campaign.
C) He renounced the Klan of the 1860s and 1870s.
D) He reached out to racists in the Catholic Church for an ecumenical white power movement.

Question 79

What characterized the "New Negro" of the 1920s?

A) an optimistic faith that encouraged African Americans to develop and celebrate their distinctive culture
B) new interest in expatriation to West Africa
C) a desire to gain greater social acceptance in white society by developing and using products that helped African Americans "pass" for white
D) the rejection of higher education and organized religion

Question 80

Why did Mexicans migrate into the United States in the early twentieth century and the 1920s?

A) Agricultural expansion in the American Southwest brought new employment opportunities.
B) Most migrants left Mexico to escape religious persecution in their home country.
C) They were eager to try their luck as investors in southern cotton plantations.
D) The Mexican government forced hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to leave the country.