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CHAPTER 24: TOWARD A MODERN AMERICA: THE 1920s
Multiple Choice
1. What was the main force behind the 1920s economy?
A) the steel industry
B) automobile production
C) agriculture
D) the entertainment industry
2. Subsidies from the __________ helped the aviation industry to thrive.
A) U.S. Post Office
B) Federal Aviation Administration
C) Army
D) Treasury Department
3. DuPont emerged as a powerful corporation in the __________.
A) steel industry
B) chemical industry
C) movie industry
D) housing construction industry
4. What was the purpose of the Federal Radio Commission?
A) to ensure public ownership of the radio airwaves
B) to regulate obscenity on the radio
C) to purchase and manage government-run radio stations
D) to monitor the production and sale of phonograph and home radios
5. Which of the following was a secondary effect of the automobile industry’s growth?
A) boosting the chemical industry
B) boosting the agricultural industry
C) boosting the residential construction industry
D) boosting the entertainment industry
6. The term __________ refers to a situation in which a few large corporations control an industry.
A) monopoly
B) free market
C) monopsony
D) oligopoly
7. A major industrial trend of the 1920s was the __________.
A) emergence of more competition within major industries
B) decline of open shops
C) strengthening of local retailers
D) concentration of wealth in the largest firms of an industry
8. As the nation’s productivity increased __________.
A) wages were not proportionately raised
B) a high percentage of workers experienced a decent standard of living
C) corporate taxes were raised by Republican administrations
D) unemployment dropped significantly
9. Proponents of welfare capitalism believed that __________.
A) the government should provide unemployment insurance
B) corporations could undercut unions by providing certain benefits
C) the ideas of scientific management had to be entirely rejected
D) the national government should be more active in programs of social reform
10. What is a yellow dog contract?
A) a collective bargaining agreement between workers and management
B) a signed promise by the owners to recognize a union
C) a signed promise by the workers not to unionize
D) a contract between industry and the government to outlining fair labor practices
11. What happened when “real wages” failed to keep pace in the period from 1923–1927?
A) corporations decided to raise wages for all workers
B) labor unions were guaranteed the right to collective bargaining
C) the government passed social welfare legislation
D) consumers began to rely more heavily on installment plans
12. The textile industry coped with a drop in economic prosperity by __________.
A) encouraging collective bargaining
B) lobbying Congress for heavy federal subsidies
C) cutting back work hours
D) shifting operations to the cheap-labor South
13. Which of the following industries never recovered from the 1921 depression?
A) steel
B) agriculture
C) textile
D) meatpacking
14. Which of the following best describes the Republican presidents of the 1920s?
A) They used their power to directly aid the ailing farm economy.
B) They aggressively pursued programs that provided social reform.
C) They emphasized the importance of business interests.
D) They sought legislation to limit the size and power of large industrial companies.
15. After the 1920 elections, Republicans controlled the presidency __________.
A) only
B) and the House of Representatives only
C) and the Senate only
D) and both houses of Congress
16. During the Harding administration, the Supreme Court __________.
A) gained a liberal chief justice
B) expanded from nine to fifteen justices
C) became substantially more pro-business
D) gained its first female member
17. What improper government conduct was revealed in the Teapot Dome scandal?
A) Government officials illegally leased land to oil companies.
B) Government officials took bribes in exchange for government jobs.
C) Government officials stole money intended for disabled veterans.
D) Government officials illegally sold munitions to the German government.
18. The Sheppard-Towner Act __________.
A) required less regulation of national banks
B) ended the shame of child labor
C) provided federal funds for infant and maternity care
D) regulated interstate commerce
19. Politicians stopped supporting women’s reform issues __________.
A) when they realized women were not voting as a bloc
B) before any state could pass equal pay statutes
C) when women asked for the right to serve on juries
D) because many female reformers had close ties to the Soviet Union
20. In the 1920s, the industrial cities of the __________ and __________ grew the most.
A) South; lower Midwest
B) Northeast; upper Midwest
C) Northeast; Southeast
D) South; West
21. In the 1920s, more than __________ million African Americans moved to Northern cities from the
rural South.
A) one and a half
B) two
C) three
D) five and a half
22. The Harlem Renaissance _________.
A) was a movement among white liberals to achieve racial equality in America
B) failed to nurture the emergence of black cultural pride in northern cities
C) undermined the goals of the NAACP
D) featured some of the greatest literature, music, and visual art of the era
23. Why did blacks migrate to the urban North from the South?
A) Blacks could live with whites in integrated neighborhoods in the North.
B) There were greater economic opportunities in the North.
C) Blacks were treated equally with white workers in the North.
D) Racial discrimination did not exist in the North.
24. Which of the following groups found it the most difficult to integrate into American society?
A) Irish
B) Mexicans
C) Polish
D) Russians
25. Suburbanization in the 1920s __________.
A) was made possible by the success of the automobile
B) was confined to the Northeast
C) resulted in the passing of anti-segregation legislation
D) discouraged the creation of new retail businesses
26. What did President Coolidge call “one of the most potent influences” on modern life?
A) organized religion
B) the advertising industry
C) the film industry
D) welfare capitalism
27. During the 1920s __________.
A) debt rose twice as fast as incomes
B) incomes rose twice as fast as debts
C) incomes and debt rose at the same rate
D) incomes and debts declined at the same rate
28. Which statement best describes the economy of the 1920s?
A) Following the depression of 1921, the economy returned to its agricultural foundations.
B) Consumerism emerged as a major foundation of the national economy.
C) A decline in installment buying revealed the underlying weakness of the economy.
D) Industrial profits decreased steadily for most of the decade.
29. How did the experience of World War I affect life in the 1920s?
A) Great waves of immigration after the war caused many Americans to embrace traditional cultural and
social values.
B) Wartime sacrifices fueled a new obsession with consumption and immediate gratification.
C) The great loss of life prompted a renewed commitment to religious community.
D) The labor force shifted dramatically due to the large number of injured veterans who could not return
to work.
30. Which of the following groups had the greatest influence on the development of jazz?
A) African Americans
B) Spanish immigrants
C) Caribbean immigrants
D) Mexican Americans
31. Which sport was enormously popular in the 1920s?
A) college basketball
B) hockey
C) professional football
D) college football
32. What author wrote that there was no longer any meaning in the words “sacred, glorious, and
sacrifice.”
A) F. Scott Fitzgerald
B)Gertrude Stein
C) Sinclair Lewis
D) Ernest Hemingway
33. In his novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway __________.
A) ridiculed the narrowness of suburban, middle-class life
B) used the muckraking style to criticize large industries
C) rejected traditional values and the idealism of his youth
D) satirized the era’s mass consumerism
34. The National Origins Act of 1924 was aimed at limiting the immigration of __________.
A) western Europeans and Irish Protestants
B) western European Catholics and Japanese
C) southern and eastern Europeans and Japanese
D) Germans and southern and eastern Europeans
35. A Restrictionist in the 1920s would be most opposed to immigration by a(n) __________.
A) Polish Catholic man
B) impoverished English woman
C) illiterate Irish man
D) single French woman
36. In 1921, a Methodist minister and Klan member murdered a __________ on his own doorstep.
A) Catholic priest
B) Chinese laundry worker
C) African American sharecropper
D) Socialist union leader
37. Which of the following would be most likely to oppose prohibition?
A) female leaders of the temperance movement
B) fundamentalist preachers
C) immigrants in urban ethnic areas
D) protestant farmers in the South
38. The Scopes Trial revealed fundamentalists’ discomfort with __________.
A) international communism
B) nativism
C) labor unions
D) evolutionary science
39. In 1923, __________ banned textbooks based on Darwinian theory.
A) Ohio
B) Georgia
C) Tennessee
D) Oklahoma
40. A dramatic point of the Scopes Trial occurred when __________.
A) the judge ruled that scientists could testify
B) John Scopes was acquitted
C) Clarence Darrow called William Jennings Bryan to the stand
D) H. L. Mencken spoke in favor of the prosecution
41. Which country was the world’s dominant economic power in the 1920s?
A) Great Britain
B) the United States
C) France
D) Japan
42. Which of the following created tension in the United States’ relationships with European nations
during the 1920s?
A) debts that European nations owed the United States from World War I
B) the rapid expansion of American based companies into European markets
C) the continued mistreatment of African Americans in the United States
D) the refusal of American companies to export oil to Europe
43. In an effort to expand markets and avoid foreign tariffs, U.S. companies __________.
A) made negotiating concessions with organized labor
B) increasingly became multinational corporations
C) resorted to trade embargoes with European nations
D) supported the Sheppard-Towner Act
44. In the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the United States __________.
A) withdrew its commitment to free trade
B) renounced aggression and condemned war
C) began an arms race with European powers
D) agreed to limit industrial overproduction
45. The resolution passed at the 1928 Inter-America Conference attempted to prohibit the United States
from __________.
A) allowing American corporations to control natural resources in Latin American countries
B) interfering in the internal affairs of Latin American countries
C) imposing tariffs on goods from Latin American countries
D) sending naval ships into the waters controlled by Latin American countries
46. Where did the United States exert the most international influence in the 1920s?
A) Western Europe
B) Asia
C) Latin America
D) Eastern Europe
47. The “Good Neighbor Policy” was designed to __________.
A) address the growing problem of crime in urban areas
B) bring social justice to blacks in the South
C) address the growing problem of crime in rural areas
D) improve relations with nations in Latin America
48. Alfred Smith, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928, was __________.
A) Methodist
B) Baptist
C) Jewish
D) Catholic
49. The most ominous trend of the 1920s was __________.
A) the loss of economic power experienced by large industries
B) the decline of the standard of living in American suburbs
C) the United States’ inability to adopt new forms of mechanization
D) the uneven distribution of wealth that existed beneath apparent prosperity
50. Which of the following best describes Herbert Hoover?
A) He was hostile toward organized labor.
B) He was hostile toward women’s issues.
C) He was hostile toward racial segregation.
D) He was hostile toward big business.
Essay Questions
51. Respond to the following statement: “The 1920s was a decade in which the forces of modernization
came into conflict with the forces of traditionalism.”
52. What factors contributed to the rise of modern popular culture in the 1920s? What examples revealed
the emerging importance of celebrities in American culture?
53. In what ways was the prosperity of the 1920s misleading? What examples led people to believe the
country was beginning a period of unending prosperity? What underlying factors revealed that economic
problems were just around the corner?
54. Analyze the impact of mechanization, consumerism, advertising, and the boom in the auto industry on
American life in the 1920s. Do you feel these impacts were for the betterment of American life?
55. Choose three of the following groups and describe the characteristics of life for them in the 1920s:
African Americans, female reformers, young people in urban areas, fundamentalists, novelists and poets,
celebrities, and union members.
