Sample Final: Spring 97

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

Final Exam Materials

The following is a sample final exam given during the Spring 1997 semester.

Spring 1998 Final Exam Identifications and Essay Questions
Suggested Identifications

Marshall Plan
Domino Theory
Brown v Board of Education
Keynesian Economics
Court packing Plan
Rosa Parks
Containment
Taft-Hartley
Black Power movement
Watergate
Scopes Trial
Settlement House Movement
Doc Burton
McCarthyism
GI Bill
Rosie the Riveter
John L. Lewis
Thurgood Marshall
Manhattan Project
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sacco and Vanzetti
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Tet Offensive
The New Ku Klux Klan
Levittowns
National Industrial Recovery Act
National Organization of Women
Central High School--Little Rock, Arkansas, 1954
Teapot Dome
Neutrality Acts (1935, 36,37)
Interstate Highway Act
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Elijah Muhammed
Japanese Internment
Environmental Protection Act (1970)
Huey P. "Kingfish" Long
Brains Trust
Camelot
John Dos Passos
Beats
Essay Questions for the Final Examination
Note: The final exam will require you to answer two essay questions: one that covers the post-midterm weeks (Part I) and the other from the entire course (Part II). The actual test probably won't contain all six questions, so make sure you study this sheet throughly.
Part I
Questions (post-midterm weeks)

1. Since the Great Depression, the United States has experienced two reform programs: Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s. Compare and contrast the goals and results of these programs, being sure you include specific reform masures enacted under them. Explain how and why the federal gorvement took an increasingly active role in the economy and social structure of the United States in these two decades.

2. Historians and contemporaries often have described the 1920s and 1950s as the golden years of "affluence" and "prosperity." Compare and discuss the nature of the two "prosperous" societies. What gave rise to the economy of the two decades, and how did the booming economy shape the social and cultural dynamics of the times? What were the features and phenomena that distinguished the '50s from the '20s? In your essay, be sure to discuss the economy, mass culture, and politics/ideology of the two decades.

3. Since the end of WWII, the Cold War has shaped the history of the U.S. and the world. What was the Cold War? Why and when did it start? How did it affect U.S. foreign AND domestic policy from the end of the Second World War to detente?

1. Some historians have argued that the great increase in size and power of the federal government
since the Civil War is one of the dominant themes of American history. Trace the growth of the federal government since 1865, paying particular attention to its evolving involvement in world affairs and the domestic economy.

2. Some historians have referred to the modern Civil Rights Movement as the "Second Reconstruction." Do you think the comparison between the first era of reconstruction (post-Civil War years to the early twentieth century) and the so-called second era of reconstruction (WWII to the 1970s) is accurate? Compare and contrast the attempts to create and safeguard African American civil rights in these two periods. Your answer should consider government policies, African American strategies, and white responses.

3. Richard Polenberg argues that class and ethnicity have played important roles in shaping the lives of most Americans. Drawing from The Jungle, In Dubious Battle, and One Nation Divisible as well as other course materials, trace the nature and consequences of class and ethnic divisions in America since the end of the Civil War. Be sure to define carefully what you mean by "class" and "ethnicity."