History 371H

Devine

Fall 2014

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

FINAL EXAMINATION [Tuesday, December 16^th 10:15 am – 12:15 pm]

The final will cover all lectures and readings since the midterm.

The final will have the same format as the midterm. ALL questions will be drawn directly from the review questions listed below.

In Part I (70%), you will answer 7 of 10 short essay questions. Provide as much specific information as you can – SHOW why something is true, don’t just assert it. A one or two sentence answer is insufficient if you wish to receive full credit.

In Part II (30%), you will answer 1 of 3 long essay questions. Be sure you state your answer to the question at the very beginning – this is your thesis. Then, using specific examples, spend the rest of the essay demonstrating that your thesis is true. Don’t write in generalities or assertions – give specific facts that support your case.

PLEASE BRING AN UNMARKED GREEN BOOK AND A PEN WITH YOU TO CLASS.

1. Why did Gone with the Wind, a film ostensibly about the Civil War and Reconstruction resonate so strongly with Depression era audiences?

2. Why is it more accurate to say Americans responded to the Depression more with trauma and fear than with revolutionary fervor?

3. What steps did President Roosevelt take to restore public confidence in the U.S. banking system?

4. What did the New Deal do to put home ownership within reach of more Americans?

5. What were the New Deal’s major non-economic achievements?

6. Why did Franklin Roosevelt believe that public works projects – building post offices, bridges, and dams – would help to stimulate the economy? Why did he prefer such projects to direct cash payments to those in need?

7. Why were farmers suffering during the 1930s? How did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal propose to help them?

8. How did Roosevelt’s programs intended to help farmers end up hurting consumers and even some farmers?

9. Explain the origins of World War II in Europe. How and why did the conflict begin? What were the key events that led to the official beginning of the war on September 1, 1939?

10. During the late 1930s, why did the British and French choose to “appease” Hitler rather than confront him? How did they justify this decision?

11. Identify the two biggest mistakes that Hitler made during World War II and explain why these mistakes were so costly.

12. Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor? In hindsight, why did this prove a costly mistake?

13. Why did the Soviet Union want the British and the Americans to open a “second front” against the Germans in Western Europe? Why did the British and the Americans delay doing so until 1944?

14. The 1950s were characterized by the “Four A”s – anxiety, anticommunism, affluence, and alienation. Explain how each “A” led logically to the next one.

15. Why were many Americans anxious after the end of World War II?

16. Identify two international events and two events within the United States and explain why they caused the vast majority of Americans to become anti-communist during the 1950s.

17. Why did the “red scare” of the 1950s make American society more conformist?

18. How did American family life, gender roles, and religion distinguish the United States from the Soviet Union?

19. Why were so many Americans ardently anticommunist during the 1950s? Why did they tend to focus their anticommunism inward (at their fellow citizens) rather than demand that their government directly confront the Soviets?

20. What factors helped to make America a wealthy (affluent) nation during the 1950s?

21. Why did the construction of a national network of highways during the 1950s help further the development of franchise businesses like McDonalds and Holiday Inn?

22. What provisions were in the GI Bill? Why did it help to expand the middle class after World War II?

23. How was the alienation that African Americans experienced during the 1950s different from the alienation that young, white suburban kids experienced?

24. How did some artists, writers, and musicians during the 1950s express their alienation from mainstream American society? What particular aspects of mainstream society did they find so alienating?

25. Why was Betsy and Tom Rath’s marriage so strained after Tom returned from the war? Why did they find it difficult to communicate honestly with each other?

26. How does Betsy Rath change as a character over the course of Sloan Wilson’s novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit? How does she help her husband avoid turning into just another “man in a gray flannel suit”?

27. How does Tom and Betsy Rath’s struggle for affluence lead to alienation?

28. To what extent does Betsy conform to the stereotype of the 1950s housewife? To what extent does she challenge preconceptions about the dutiful and doting wife that we associate with the 1950s?

29. Tom, Ogden, and Hopkins represent three types of men working in corporate America during the 1950s. What traits seem to differentiate them? How does each think about or approach his career?

30. For what two reasons has the early 1960s been called a “promising time”? How did John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address capture both definitions of “promising”?

31. Why did the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?

32. How was the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved without either side firing a missile at the other?

33. What is the significance of the Tet Offensive? Why did it mark a turning point in the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam war?

34. Why did the Tet Offensive reveal that President Johnson had not been entirely honest with the American people when informing them about the situation in South Vietnam?

35. Who was Eugene McCarthy and why did he play a significant role in the presidential election of 1968? [Do not confuse Eugene McCarthy with Joseph McCarthy, the leader of the anticommunist crusade during the early 1950s.]

36. In 1968, why did many Americans believe Robert F. Kennedy would make a good president?

37. Why did the Chicago police (and a majority of Americans) dislike the young anti-war protesters?

38. How did Whitey Bulger exploit the residents of Southie by appealing to the very values that many residents believed made their neighborhood special?

39. Why does simply dismissing the residents of Southie as “racists” not give us a complete picture of the people in this neighborhood?

40. What is the difference between a “market economy” and a “market society”? Why is the latter potentially damaging to the social fabric of a nation?