Why did Eisenhower send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957?
A) to ensure that black students could attend a desegregated school
B) to quell a violent race riot resulting from the integration of the military
C) to investigate a planned terrorist attack from the Soviet Union
D) to protect a top secret chemical weapon on its way to Washington
E) to arrest hundreds of African-American activists and supporters
What effect did U.S. involvement in the war have on American civil liberties?
A) The federal government instituted committees and Congress passed acts to ensure
the safety and rights of war dissenters.
B) Women had more opportunities in war-related jobs, so their civil liberties increased,
especially in voting rights.
C) African Americans had more opportunities in war-related jobs, so their civil liberties
increased, encouraging integration.
D) Propaganda campaigns led to programs and congressional acts that interned German
Americans in work camps, denying their civil liberties.
E) Propaganda campaigns and legislation made inroads for Americans’ civil liberties.
The individual most responsible for promoting African-American rights during the New
Deal was _______.
A) Franklin D. Roosevelt
B) John Collier
C) Harry Hopkins
D) Harold Ickes
E) Huey Long
Which statement about American life in the late nineteenth century is NOT true?
A) Meals tended to be heavy and so did people.
B) Medical science was still hopelessly primitive.
C) Infant mortality declined between 1877 and 1900.
D) There were few hospitals and no hospital insurance.
E) Food prices were constantly getting lower.
Most American churchgoers in the 1880s _________.
A) stopped attending services by 1900
B) believed the school was the center of life
C) were church-attending Protestants
D) had few private moral standards
E) were Roman Catholic parishioners
Which of the following statements reflects Lincoln’s view of Reconstruction?
A) Free amnesty for all southerners including those who had willingly aided the
Confederacy.
B) Reconstruction would guarantee full political and civil equality for southern blacks.
C) Congress would determine the terms for readmission of the seceded states.
D) Pardons would be granted to all southerners who took an oath to the Union.
E) The president and Congress would work together to readmit the Confederate states.
The society created by Puritans in New England ________.
A) copied the social order they had left behind in England
B) was modeled on contemporary Dutch society
C) represented a near-total rejection of traditional English ways
D) was quite similar to that of the Chesapeake region
E) adapted to include slavery
What was the most important impact of the Haymarket Riot?
A) The eight-hour day became widely accepted.
B) The AFL folded.
C) Labor organizations became linked with anarchism.
D) The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed unanimously.
E) The labor movement ended.
What defined immigrants as “birds of passage”?
A) They remained in the United States.
B) They moved from region to region.
C) They took the train from their ship to a western farm.
D) They were detained, or “caged,” indefinitely where they arrived.
E) They did not stay permanently in the United States.
How did the election of 1916 influence the nation’s involvement in World War I?
A) By electing Roosevelt, Americans showed their determination to remain neutral in
World War I, although this was a short-lived determination.
B) By electing Hughes, Americans showed their determination to remain neutral in
World War I, although this was a short-lived determination.
C) By electing Wilson, Americans showed their determination to remain neutral in
World War I, although this was a short-lived determination.
D) By electing Wilson, Americans showed their determination to enter World War I,
whatever the costs.
E) By electing Roosevelt, Americans showed their determination to enter the war,
whatever the costs.
Where do the largest single group of Asian Americans come from?
A) Cambodia
B) China
C) Laos
D) Thailand
E) Vietnam
What did Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover all have in common?
A) All three politicians were presidents from the Democratic Party.
B) All three politicians were born and raised in America’s largest cities.
C) All three politicians were conservatives who epitomized traditional values.
D) All three politicians pushed a reform agenda while serving in office.
E) All three politicians supported small business owners and labor unions.
Hoover’s response to the Great Depression could best be described as _______.
A) restrained and cautious
B) innovative and adaptive
C) humanitarian and pragmatic
D) socialist and radical
E) aggressive and rapid
Which one of the following was NOT a southern staple by about 1820?
A) cotton
B) rice
C) sugar
D) indigo
E) tobacco
According to historian Norman Graebner, the United States did not annex all of Mexico
because they already had ________.
A) U.S. citizenship for thousands of Mexicans living in the territory
B) the grazing lands of the southwest
C) the fertile farming lands of new Mexico
D) the harbors of California
E) the deserts of Arizona
Why was Americans’ obsession with equality hypocritical?
A) They believed in and reinforced class distinctions.
B) They were the only country in the world to enforce equality.
C) They denied liberty to African Americans in the institution of slavery.
D) The government controlled and influenced most of the newspapers.
E) The court system was so corrupt that people didn’t really have fair trials.
The most obvious indicator of the supremacy of democracy in the United States was the
________.
A) high percentage of people who voted
B) widespread use of the ‘spoils system”
C) absence of any kind of social or economic class
D) development of universal white manhood suffrage
E) increase in the number of appointed officials
In the beginning, the Civil War was a ________.
A) struggle to free the slaves
B) struggle to preserve the Union
C) personal struggle between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
D) struggle to preserve “King Cotton”
E) struggle over control of new and future territories
The armed conflict between Native Americans and New Englanders in 1675 was led by
________.
A) Massasoit
B) Powhatan
C) Metacomet
D) Tecumseh
E) Opechancanough
Who surrendered to the Union Army at Appomattox Courthouse in April of 1865?
A) Confederate President Jefferson Davis
B) General Robert E. Lee
C) General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson
D) General Ulysses S. Grant
E) Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens
The new American suburbs of the 1950s were NOT _______ diverse.
A) economically
B) socially
C) professionally
D) racially
E) ethnically
Joseph McCarthy led the crusade against alleged __________ in American government
during the 1950s.
A) embezzlers
B) interventionists
C) communists
D) racists
E) isolationists
The Contract with America did NOT include ________.
A) universal health care coverage
B) a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution
C) term limits for members of Congress
D) a line-item veto for the president
E) a middle-class tax cut
The major significance of Jackson’s national bank veto message was that it ________.
A) was the first veto made by Jackson
B) failed to explain the constitutional reasons for his decision
C) was the first veto not based solely on a bill’s constitutionality
D) decisively ended the life of the national bank
E) was the first recorded presidential veto
Why did militants seize the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979?
A) The Carter administration had threatened war if the oil embargo wasn”t lifted
immediately.
B) The Carter administration had seized insurgents the week before and refused to
release them.
C) The Carter administration refused to end American involvement in Nicaragua.
D) President Carter publicly denounced their Ayatollah’s revolution.
E) Carter had allowed the exiled shah to seek medical treatment in the United States.
Which group in American society greatly benefited from the passage of prohibition?
A) The upper middle class greatly benefited because they were exempt from this law.
B) Bootleggers who controlled the illegal production and sale of alcohol greatly
benefited.
C) People in rural areas who championed this “noble experiment” greatly benefited.
D) Churches greatly benefited due to the role they played in counseling alcoholics.
E) Government leaders who passed the law greatly benefited from public appreciation.
What Indians desired most, upon encountering Europeans, was ________.
A) cultural enlightenment
B) victims for human sacrifice rituals
C) religious instruction
D) allies to help them defeat their enemies
E) commercial relations
How did barbed wire change the lives of farmers on the Great Plains?
A) It allowed farmers to establish the boundaries of their farms, which had not
previously been possible.
B) It made it possible for farmers to leave their farms for extended periods of time.
C) It helped farmers get cattle to northern markets along the cattle trails.
D) It kept Native Americans away from their farms so that their land was protected.
E) It ended the era of vast open ranges.
Under the headright system in Virginia, ________.
A) every adult male could vote
B) every child was guaranteed a primary education
C) 50 acres were granted for each new settler, free or indentured
D) new immigrants were guaranteed a year’s provisions
E) every new settler was entitled to one slave
What was the significance of the invention of the John Deere steel plow?
A) It allowed farmers to cultivate tough prairie soils.
B) It lowered the cost of steel plows.
C) It helped farmers plow loose soil in half the time of a cast-iron plow.
D) It allowed farmers to plow by hand without the aid of a farm animal.
E) It allowed farmers to plow more accurately than cast-iron plows.