choose ONLY 1 essay question from the list below, which covers chapters 20 and 21 in the textbook. Grades will be based on the content of the answer and must be more than 300 words in length. Direct quotes do not count toward the required word count.
1 – After World War I and more than twenty years of reform, Americans became much more conservative in the 1920s. In fact, Reinhold Niebuhr stated that America was “rapidly becoming the most conservative nation on earth.” Give examples that defend this perception of America as conservative in the 1920s.
2 – The 1920s are commonly referred to as the Roaring Twenties. Document who was and who was not “roaring” in the 1920s. Your answer ought to illustrate the dichotomy of the decade.
3 – The 1920s present a time when an entire people was grappling with massive technological and social change. Americans spent the decade seeking to adapt to the rise of a mass-production, mass-culture metropolitan world that had emerged seemingly overnight. Discuss the decade in these terms, describing the many ways in which Americans sought to deal with this change.
4 – Would you describe the 1920s as a decade that benefited women? Why, or why not? Remember to consider the experience of all women when composing your answer.
5 – The Great Depression came dramatically with the stock market crash, but the causes of the Depression had been planted well before 1929. Discuss what brought on the Great Depression and why Hoover was not able to properly address the crisis.
6 – Analyze how FDR oversaw the transformation of the Democratic Party into a coalition of farmers, industrial workers, the reform-minded urban middle class, liberal intellectuals, northern African-Americans, and the white supremacist South.
7 – How did the New Deal alter the role of the national government? In your answer, discuss specific New Deal reforms.
8 – Compare the New Deal reforms with those of the Progressive era. How did the New Deal reflect the reform traditions of the Progressive era? Be sure to include in your answer a discussion about Roosevelt’s key administrators.
9 – Thinking back to other labor struggles in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as the Homestead Strike, Haymarket Affair, 1902 Coal Strike, and Ludlow Massacre, how do the Memorial Day Massacre and the UAW sit-down strikes compare? Had organized labor become any more sophisticated over the years in its tactics? Had business or government become any more sympathetic?
10 – Even though there were no significant gains made in civil rights during the 1930s, there seemed to be an optimistic view among the black community. African-Americans were able to find help in the 1930s through the hope they viewed in the Roosevelt administration, their inclusion within the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the Popular Front. Write an essay that elaborates on these three pillars, and discuss what each offered to the African-American community.