Sample Final: Fall 96

Stanley K. Schultz, Professor of History
William P. Tishler, Producer
Shane Hamilton, Web Editor

Final Exam Review Materials

Below is a sample final examination, given during the Fall 1996 semester.

Identifications
"Conspicuous consumption"
The Man Nobody Knows (1925) Bruce Barton
"The American Way"
Red Scare - A. Mitchell Palmer
Invisible Empire
Scopes Trial ("Monkey Trial")
"The Hundred Days"
Keynesian Economics
NIRA 1933
The Corporate State
Neutrality Acts 1935-37
"Military-Industrial Complex"
The "Fair Deal"
Taft-Hartley Act - 1947
Containment
Truman Doctrine
McCarthyism - Second Red Scare
Automation
"Dynamic Conservatism"
"New Frontier"
"New Economics"
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas - 1954
Civil Rights Act of 1964
"Black Power" - Stokely Carmichael
"War on Poverty" - Economic Opportunity Act 1964
"The Great Society"
"Fabulous Eighty-Ninth"
Domino Theory
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - 1964
War Powers Act - 1973
"The Social Issue"
The "New Majority"
Detente
Watergate

1. "At its birth, the United States rejected monarchy, but in the twentieth century, the executive branch of government has evolved into what many call an 'imperial presidency.' Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. Presidents have gradually increased their powers over domestic and foreign affairs."
Assess the accuracy of this statement. Consider and compare specific policy initiatives and changes in government structure under at least three different twentieth-century Presidents.

2. To many Americans who have lived through the twentieth century, both the 1920s and the 1950s seem to be remembered as the golden years characterized by booming economy and consumer culture. When President Eisenhower took office in 1953, some people also thought that American society would once again return to "Normalcy" as it had done in the 1920s.
Are these two decades really so similar to each other? Can you find any differences? Answer these questions by making a comparison in the following aspects: economy, social mobility, culture, and politics.

3. Trace the evolution of federal government social welfare policies from the days of the Great Depression through the "Great Society." Discuss any significant changes that may have occurred over time either in the fundamental attitudes about whom society should help or in the kinds of social programs proposed.

1. "Between 1865 and the late 1960s, African-Americans made very little progress towards becoming full citizens in American society. In fact, the harsh social, political, and economic realities of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries left most blacks little better off than they had been before emancipation." Assess the validity of this statement. In your answer, make sure you discuss how Reconstruction, the "New South," the Great Migration, and the Civil Rights movement of the
1950s and 1960s shaped race relations in the United States.

2. Some historians have argued that domestic ideology and interests are the guiding force behind United States foreign policy. Assess this position by discussing United States foreign and domestic affairs in at least three different time periods covered by this course.

3. Twenty-five years from now an American history textbook will state: "In 1865 the United States was an underdeveloped nation in comparison to the nations of Western Europe. A century later, the United States was the most advanced nation in the world." Based on your knowledge, discuss the major reasons for this remarkable change this textbook most likely will emphasize. In your essay you may consider any mix of economic, political, demographic, social, and cultural factors you regard as important.