Modern American History
Exam Answer Key
Course Introduction
Modern American History explores the social, political, economic, and cultural developments in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. This course examines key events and themes such as industrialization, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, and recent transformations in American society. Through analysis of primary sources, historical interpretations, and contemporary relevance, students gain a deeper understanding of how historical forces have shaped modern America and its role in the global community.
Recommended Textbook
American Pageant Volume 2 16th Edition by David
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20 Chapters
2630 Verified Questions
2630 Flashcards
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Page 2
M. Kennedy
Chapter 1: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Radical Reconstruction state governments in the South
A) were uniformly incompetent and and accomplished little in the way of social reforms or economic development.
B) passed much desirable legislation and badly needed reforms such as establishing adequate public schools and launching public works.
C) were significantlymore corrupt than Northern state governments.
D) had all of their social and economic reforms repealed by the all-white "redeemer governments" in the South
E) None of these choices are correct.
Answer: B
Q2) As a politician, Andrew Johnson developed a reputation as a(n)
A) supporter of the planter aristocrats.
B) opponent of slavery.
C) inspiring and calmly eloquent speaker.
D) champion of the poor whites.
E) secret Confederate sympathizer.
Answer: D
Q3) Hiram Revels
Answer: Answers will vary.
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Page 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) The example of New York's Boss Tweed illustrated
A) the typical lack of ethics of the Gilded Age, which also pervaded government in the form of bribery, graft, and fraudulent elections.
B) the concern of urban political bosses with representing the best political and economic interests of their urban constitutients.
C) the high value on honesty and ethics put on governing during this age.
D) the inability of the press and the legal establishment to take down a notoriously venal political figure after a lifetime of managing a politically corrupt machine.
E) the effectiveness of the federal government in ferreting out urban political corruption at an early stage in its development.
Answer: A
Q2) Farmers' Alliance
Answer: Answers will vary.
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4
Chapter 3: Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900
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157 Verified Questions
157 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Women were drawn into industry by
A) the promise of wages on par with those of men.
B) inventions like the typewriter and telephone switchboard.
C) economic downturns, which hit rural families hardest.
D) the lure of city life.
E) All of these choices are correct.
Answer: B
Q2) One group barred from membership in the Knights of Labor was
A) African Americans.
B) "nonproducers" such asliquor dealers, professionalgamblers, lawyers, bankers, and stockbrokers.
C) women.
D) immigrants.
E) unskilled workers.
Answer: B
Q3) consumer goods
Answer: Answers will vary.
Q4) 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) In the decades after the Civil War, college education for women
A) became more difficult to obtain.
B) was confined to women's colleges.
C) became much more common.
D) resulted in the passage of the Hatch Act.
E) blossomed especially in the South.
Q2) Booker T. Washington
Q3) The success of the public schools in the post-Civil War era is best evidenced by
A) the large numbers of students graduating from them.
B) the decline of the popularity of parochial and religiously affiliated schools among the New Immigrants.
C) the falling illiteracy rate to just over 10 percent by 1900.
D) the large numbers of average Americans going on to attend college.
E) the movement of men into the teaching profession.
Q4) Hull House
Q5) Stephen Crane
Q6) Walter Rauschenbusch
Q7) Which post-Civil War writers best reflected the social concerns of the new urban age? Which writers reflected a nostalgic interest in the American or European past? Which tendency do you admire most, and why?
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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) The Populist party's presidential candidate in 1892 was
A) James B. Weaver.
B) William Jennings Bryan.
C) Mary Elizabeth Lease.
D) Adlai Stevenson.
E) William "Coin" Harvey.
Q2) Among the following, the least likely to migrate to the cattle and farming frontier were
A) eastern city dwellers.
B) eastern farmers.
C) recent immigrants.
D) blacks.
E) midwestern farmers.
Q3) Write your definition of radical. Then use this definition to argue that the farmers' response to their problems in the 1880s and 1890s was or was not radical.
Q4) Dingley Tariff bill
Q5) What do you think was the major technological innovation that influenced life on the Great Plains frontier? Why?
Q6) Cheyenne
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Chapter 6: Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909
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161 Verified Questions
161 Flashcards
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Q1) In his book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, the Reverend Josiah Strong advocated American expansion to A) maintain the international balance of power. B) open up new markets for industrial goods.
C) spread American religion and values to backward nations.
D) ease labor violence at home.
E) demonstrate and maintain white racial superiority.
Q2) George Dewey
Q3) Great Rapprochement
Q4) Portsmouth Conference
Q5) The end of the Cuban War came after the last substantial Spanish fleet was destroyed at the Battle of A) Havana.
B) Santiago.
C) Guantanamo.
D) Samoa.
E) Manila Bay.
Q6) It has been argued that "the error in Roosevelt's Panama policy lay not in the goals he sought but in the means he chose to achieve them." Do you agree? Why or why not?
Page 8
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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) General Federation of Women's Clubs
Q2) initiative
Q3) According to progressives, the cure for all of American democracy's ills was
A) technical and scientific expertise.
B) a third political party.
C) socialism.
D) a more conservative government.
E) more democracy.
Q4) Do you think that Theodore Roosevelt's claim that Taft had abandoned his policies was entirely fair? Why or why not?
Q5) conservation
Q6) Teddy Roosevelt believed that large corporate trusts
A) had to all be busted up if the American economy were to thrive.
B) were essential to American national power and economic growth.
C) should only be broken up if their profits were excessive and had become too large through combination and integration.
D) were candidates for being broken up only if they acted as monopolies against the public interest.
E) should be balanced by strong labor unions.
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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) Bernard Baruch
Q2) Committee on Public Information
Q3) Which term best characterizes Woodrow Wilson's fundamental approach to American foreign policy?
A) Imperialistic
B) Moralistic
C) Realistic
D) Balance-of-power
E) Isolationist
Q4) In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the first ____ elected to the presidency since the Civil War.
A) person born in the South
B) Democrat
C) lawyer
D) non-Civil War veteran
E) Methodist
Q5) Critically evaluate Woodrow Wilson's personal qualities as they affected his conduct of foreign policy. How did his strong belief in promoting morality and democracy in other countries emerge from his own view of the world?
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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) Lindbergh Law
Q2) Do you think that the 1920s should be most noted as a decade of anxiety and intolerance or a decade of revolutionarycultural innovation, excess, and liberation? What were the deepest political, economic, and social forces shaping American culture in this period? How did theses influential forces also shape how particular groups of Americans viewed themselves and their respective places in American society?
Q3) 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.
Q4) In the mid-1920s the Ku Klux Klan gained considerable power by attacking
A) big business.
B) Catholics and Jews.
C) foreigners.
D) the federal government.
E) adultery and birth control.
Q5) Frederick W. Taylor
Q6) Langston Hughes
Q7) Babbitt
Q8) "melting pot"
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) At the 1921-1922 Washington Conference, the major signatories (the United States, Japan, Great Britain, France, and Italy) agreed to the terms of the Five Power Naval Treaty which
A) limited the size of their naval forces.
B) fortifed their Far East possessions.
C) preserved the status quo in the Pacific.
D) abandoned the Open Door policy in China.
E) prevented Japanese expansion in Asia.
Q2) Which of the following was not a consequence of the American policy of raising tariffs sky-high in the 1920s?
A) European nations raised their own tariffs.
B) The postwar chaos in Europe was prolonged.
C) International economic distress deepened.
D) American foreign trade declined.
E) The American economy slipped into recession.
Q3) McNary-Haugen Bill
Q4) Calvin Coolidge
Q5) Charles Evans Hughes
Q6) Muscle Shoals Bill
Q7) Kellogg-Briand Pact
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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) As a result of the 1937 Roosevelt recession
A) Roosevelt cut income taxes as part of a supply-side economics experiment.
B) Social Security taxes were reduced.
C) Republicans gained control of the Senate in 1938.
D) Roosevelt adopted Keynesian (planned deficit spending) economics.
E) much of the early New Deal was repealed.
Q2) In 1935, President Roosevelt set up the Resettlement Administration to
A) help farmers migrate from Oklahoma to California.
B) place unemployed industrial workers in areas where their labor was needed.
C) move Indians from land that could be farmed by victims of the Dust Bowl.
D) find jobs for farmers in industry.
E) help farmers who were victims of the Dust Bowl move to better land.
Q3) Brain Trust
Q4) The group that had experienced the worst suffering as a result of the Great Depression was
A) women who worked outside the home.
B) financial professionals connected to Wall Street.
C) African Americans.
D) skilled factory workers.
E) recent immigrants.
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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) Most Americans believed in 1940-1941 that war, if it came, would come in the Atlantic with Hitler's Germany. Instead, it came in the Pacific with Japan. Why were Americans so surprised by the Japanese attack?
Q2) To what extent did American diplomacy and economic policy during the 1930s and up to the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941provoke war with Japan? What might the United States have done to delay or even prevent war with Japan? Why wasn't that done?
Q3) After the Greer was fired upon, the Kearny crippled, and the Reuben James sunk in the fall of 1941
A) Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act.
B) the U.S. Navy stopped escorting merchant vessels carrying lend-lease shipments.
C) Congress prohibited the arming of U.S. merchant vessels.
D) Congress forbade United States ships to enter combat zones.
E) Congress voted to weaken substantially the terms of the Neutrality Act of 1939 to permit armed merchant ship to deliver munitions to Britain.
Q4) Charles Lindbergh
Q5) Johnson Debt Default Act
Q6) totalitarianism
Page 15
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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) V-E (Victory in Europe) Day
Q2) Once at war, America's first great challenge was to
A) pass a conscription law.
B) maintain public support and patriotism for the war effort.
C) extend aid to the Soviet Union.
D) develop atomic weapons.
E) retool its industry for all-out war production.
Q3) Potsdam Conference
Q4) Douglas MacArthur
Q5) Roosevelt's and Churchill's insistence on the absolute and "unconditional surrender" of Germany
A) guaranteed that Germany would have to be totally reconstructed after the war. B) had no effect on the strategic calculations made in the war planning efforts of the Allies.
C) was largely unacceptable to the Soviets, who hoped to encourage a communist revolution inside Germany.
D) may have prevented a "separate peace" between Hitler and Stalin.
E) encouraged anti-Hitler resisters in Germany to try to overthrow the Nazis.
Q6) second front
Q7) Casablanca Conference
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Chapter 14: The Cold War Begins 1945-1952
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154 Verified Questions
154 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill)
Q2) The continued growth of the suburbs led to
A) increased school integration.
B) better entertainment opportunities in the cities.
C) an increase in urban poverty.
D) a decrease in urban crime.
E) more efficient transportation.
Q3) Douglas MacArthur
Q4) Normally, divisions or a split in a major political party spells certain defeat for its presidential candidate. President Harry Truman was able to overcome a three-way Democratic split in 1948, What explains his surprising underdog victory? Would Truman have won against any Republicanopponent besides Thomas Dewey?
Q5) President Truman's action upon hearing of the invasion of South Korea illustrated his commitment to a foreign policy of A) appeasement.
B) liberation.
C) détente.
D) rollback.
E) containment.
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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) Oral Roberts
Q2) Jack Kerouac
Q3) Cuban missile crisis
Q4) Nikita Khrushchev
Q5) Do you think that you would have liked "Ike" in the 1950s? Why or why not? Which of his personal qualities, domestic programs, and foreign-policy decisions do you find most admirable? For what may he be criticized? Why?
Q6) Critically evaluate President Eisenhower's response to the fall of Dienbienphu, the Hungarian revolt, the Suez Crisis, and Castro's revolution in Cuba.
Q7) How did the Beat Generation represent a stark example of dissent and rebellion amid the literary culture of the 1950s? What was its long-term impact on the cultural tastes and development of the post-World War II "baby boom" generation?
Q8) Ralph Ellison
Q9) John F. Kennedy
Q10) Ngo Dinh Diem
Q11) Fidel Castro
Q13) Josephine Baker Page 18
Q12) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
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Page 19
Chapter 16: The Stormy Sixties 1963-1973
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168 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) In response to Congress's attempt to stop him from continuing the bombing of Cambodia, President Nixon
A) repeatedly vetoed Congress's bills to halt the attacks.
B) gradually reduced the number of bombing raids.
C) shifted the bombing campaign to Laos.
D) declared that he was stopping the bombing but continued the campaign secretly.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q2) What was the impact of the 1960s cultural rebellions on education, religion, and the family?
Q3) Students for a Democratic Society
Q4) The top-secret Pentagon Papers, leaked and published in 1971
A) revealed President Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal.
B) documented the North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
C) exposed President Nixon's secret bombing war of Cambodia.
D) was the first the American public knew of the Nixon Doctrine.
E) exposed the blunders and deceptions of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in pursuing American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Q5) George McGovern
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Page 20
Chapter 17: Challenges to the Postwar Order 1973-1980
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83 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) James Earl (Jimmy) Carter enjoyed considerable popularity when he won the presidency because
A) his emphasis on honesty contrasted with the corruption of Watergate.
B) he was widely known as skilled in dealing with Congress and Washington.
C) he brought in a team of highly respected and experienced cabinet members and advisers.
D) he was a born-again Southern Baptist.
E) he had a clear plan to solve the energy crisis.
Q2) Many of the neoconservative intellectuals of the 1980s were reacting most strongly against
A) the decline of Protestantism as the major force in American religion.
B) the economic and social reforms of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
C) what they saw as the moral and social excesses of 1960s liberalism.
D) the increasing control of society by technology and technocrats.
E) what they saw as an extremist environmental movement.
Q3) 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?
Q4) Spiro Agnew
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Chapter 18: The Resurgence of Conservatism 1980-1992
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120 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) ____ Jordan
Q2) Ronald Reagan's supply side economic advisers assured him that the combination of budgetary discipline and tax reduction would do all of the following except A) stimulate new investment.
B) deplete overall tax revenues for the federal government.
C) boost productivity.
D) foster dramatic economic growth.
E) reduce the federal budget deficit.
Q3) In the 1980 national elections
A) Edward Kennedy challenged incumbent President Carter for the nomination of the Democratic party.
B) although Ronald Reagan won the presidency, both houses of Congress still had Democratic party majorities.
C) third-party candidate John Anderson won three states and seventeen Electoral College votes.
D) Ronald Reagan won the presidency by the closest margin since the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960.
E) Reagan led Republicans to majorities in both houses of Congress.
Q4) Michael Dukakis
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Chapter 19: America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era,
1992-2000
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among the biggest trends for white collar workers at the start of the twenty-first century was
A) the continued outsourcing of financial service and engineering jobs to other countries.
B) declining salary rates across the board.
C) increased opportunities to relocate internationally.
D) jobs requiring a higher level of education than in the past.
E) work days that have inched up from eight to ten or even twelve hours a day.
Q2) President Clinton's primary political legacy was that he
A) revived the vigorous liberal traditions of the Democratic party.
B) established a firm direction for American foreign policy after the Cold War.
C) consolidated the Reagan-Bush revolution by encouraging reduced expectations of government.
D) restored faith in elected officials if not in big government.
E) turned the Democratic party away from his historic commitments to racial and social justice.
Q3) Ralph Nader
Q4) information age
Q5) Al Gore
Q6) Toni Morrison Page 23
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Page 24
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Sample Questions
Q1) Apple
Q2) 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.
Q3) Violent resistance to the American presence in Iraq escalated when A) the new Iraqi government relied heavily on former Sunni members of Hussein's government.
B) former dictator Saddam Hussein began leading a guerrilla movement.
C) Al Qaeda members captured in Iraq were taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
D) it was revealed that some American soldiers had humiliated Iraqi captives in the Abu Ghraib prison.
E) Americans bombed substantial civilian districts of Baghdad.
Q4) Abu Ghraib
Q5) deleveraging
Q6) Saddam Hussein
Q7) weapons of mass destruction
Page 25
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