American history Final Questions

Short Answer – Please define ten of the following terms in three to five sentences each. (20 pts)

“Black Thursday”

Joseph McCarthy

National Recovery Admin. (NRA)

The Organization Man

Huey Long

The Great Society

Social Security Act

Gulf of Tonkin

The Four Freedoms

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

“American Century”

Kerner Report

Henry Wallace

Trickle-Down Economics [Reaganomics]

Double V Campaign

Jerry Falwell

Executive Order 9906

Multiculturalism

Truman Doctrine

Bush Doctrine

Essays – Please answer two of the following questions in a 2-4 page essay for each of the two. Use MLA format of 1-inch margins, double spaced, Times New Roman Font. You may use sources outside of the text books and lectures so long as they are from a credible source, NO WIKIPEDIA! Please refer to the rule of citation in your syllabus on what requires citation, you must cite the PowerPoints for the class lecture in your works cited page as well. [80pts.]

1. How did the New Deal change the role of the national government in Americans’ lives? How did it transform the relationship between the national government and citizens? Cite specific New Deal reforms and past conceptions of government in your answer.

2. World War II is commonly referred to as the “good war.” The United States defeated its enemies, the war got the country out of the Great Depression, and the United States rose to become one of the leaders of the world. However, in class we also learned about things in the war that were not so good – Japanese internment, segregation in the US military, and atrocities committed during the war like dropping of the atomic bomb. Do you think that the war should still be considered as the “Good War”? Why or why not?

3. 1950s America is normally remembered as a golden decade in American history, where the people enjoyed a new level of prosperity and were able to live in happiness and security with their job and their neighborhoods as shown in popular tv shows like Happy Days. Were the 1950s truly “happy days” for Americans? Why or why not? Consider things happening in the country in the 1950s regarding the economy, race, sex, gender, and the larger anxieties about communism leading to the “scares” of the decade.

4. Lyndon B. Johnson was a one term president did not run for a second term and is now held in contempt for America’s involvement Vietnam. Ronald Reagan was a two-term president who is now considered by the public as one of the best American presidents ever. Why is one so venerated and the other so overlooked? Is this perception fair. Compare and contrast their presidencies, their accomplishments, and their fallacies. Do you think both deserve the praise and hatred each has garnered, or should they be remembered differently? How would you write about them if you wrote their history?

5. The 1960s were a time of massive protests and reconceptualization of the United States domestically and internationally with civil rights, the Vietnam War, and later issues like women’s rights and homosexual rights. What were some of the biggest social movements of the 1960s and who participated in them? Did these movements feed into one another, or were they separate from each other? What were their goals, who were some of the key figures, what were their accomplishments and failures?