Set 1: Answer all 3.

1) John D’Emilio and Estelle Friedman “The Sexual Revolution.” Why did sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd chose a Midwestern town for their 1929 study Middletown?  How was the Muncie, Indiana of the 1890s different than the Muncie, Indiana of the 1920s? 

2) What do the authors mean when they write that adolescents now moved in a “youth-centered world”? 

3) Senator Henry Meyers, “Moving Pictures Evoke Concern, 1922.”  According to Senator Meyers, at their best what could movies accomplish for society?  But, in fact, how did he think movies changed society?  What did he offer as a solution?

Set 2:  Answer any 3 out of the 5 questions. 

1) According to the historian David Chalmers, why did the Ku Klux Klan become such a powerful organization in the 1920s?  In the years after the Civil War, the first generation KKK was limited to the southern states.  How did it infiltrate the North and West in the ‘20s? 

2) Who were some of the Klan’s chief targets?  Why? 

3) In “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism, 1926,” Hiram Evans made the case for the Klan as the ultimate patriotic institution.  How did he and the KKK define “American”?  What does he mean by the Klan’s “trilogy”?

4) “Congress Debates Immigration Restriction, 1921.”  What kinds of arguments did the two congressmen make concerning immigration restriction? 

5) How did the 1951 Senate Committee deal with the issue thirty years later?  Are arguments similar to these two made in our day?

1) “Disbelief May Bar Volunteer Counsel at Evolution Trial” (Washington Post, 5/27/25).  Why did Clarence Darrow come under the suspicion of observers of the Dayton, Tennessee trial?  What was at stake for both sides in this conflict?

2) Thomas E. Terrill, “Religion and Culture in the New South.”  What was the Butler Act?  What role would the ACLU play in the 1925 Scopes trial? 

3) Describe the area around Dayton Tennessee.  How did journalist H. L. Mencken view the trial?

4) H. L. Mencken, “The Hills of Zion” and “In Memoriam: W. J. B.”  Describe Mencken’s depiction of Dayton, Tennessee.  How did he portray the people of the hill country?

1) “Huge Dust Cloud, Blown 1,500 Miles, Dims City 5 Hours” (New York Times, 5/12/34).  How did the dust storms of the Midwest alter the atmosphere in New York City?  How did the city respond?

2) “In the Land Made Desolate by Drought” (New York Times, 7/ 22/34).  What impact did the crisis on the Great Plains have on the rest of the United States?

3) How did the farm families interviewed here respond to the harsh changes of the decade?  In what ways did the environmental trouble influence their livelihoods?

Over the course of the semester, you will need to write one longer book review (4-5 pgs) and two shorter ones (1.5-2 pgs).  You may choose to complete either for this assignment  Remember, you will be graded on style, form, and content.  Answer one of the questions below and read this writing guide for further details.  Make sure to indicate on your paper which question (1 or 2) you answer.

Question 1: Timothy Egan describes the midwestern farming boom that lasted well into the 1920s. According to Egan, how did the land grab and heavy farming alter the high plains?  How did sodbusters and ranchers meet the many challenges of the 1930s? 

Question 2: Timothy Egan writes that “it may seem that most people just hurried through the southern plains or left in horror. . . . Yet most people living in the center of the Dust Bowl, about two thirds of the population in 1930, never left during that hard decade” (9-10).  Write a review essay on The Hard Worst Hard Time examining the various reasons why settlers stayed.

Set 6: Answer 3 questions from section A and 1 from section B.

Section A

1) Augusta H. Clawson, “Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder (1940s), 1944.”  What sort of challenges did Clawson face in her work as a welder?  How did she adapt to these? 

2) “Conditions in the [Japanese Internment] Camps” (1942-1945) Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942.  Through this law, 120,000 persons (2/3 of them American citizens) were confined to concentration camps on American soil, in some cases for nearly 4 years.  The law mentioned no ethnic or racial group by name but it was obviously intended to apply to Japanese-Americans.  What were the conditions like in these camps? 

3) Should certain people lose there rights during times of national emergency?  Are there similarities between what Japanese-Americans faced during WW II and what Americans of Middle Eastern descent faced in post-9/11 America? 

4) During WW II, there were no camps for U. S. “civilians” of German or Italian descent.  Why was this the case? 

Section B 

5) Roger W. Lotchin, “Turning the Good War Home Front Bad: Historians’ Counterattack on the Greatest Generation” (Historically Speaking, Sept/Oct 2005).  What is Roger Lotchin’s chief criticism concerning how historians treat the U. S. home front? 

6) What does Lotchin think is missing in histories of WW II?
 

Over the course of the semester, you will need to write one longer book review (4-5 pgs) and two shorter ones (1.5-2 pgs).  You may choose to complete either for this assignment  Remember, you will be graded on style, form, and content.  Answer one of the questions below and read this writing guide for further details.  Make sure to indicate on your paper which question (1 or 2) you answer.

Question 1: What does the title of Michael C. C. Adams book, The Best War Ever, mean?  Write an essay analyzing the ways in which that title draws together the author's many themes.  Does Adams make a strong argument?  Why or why not? 

Question 2: In The Best War Ever, historian Michael C. C. Adams describes the many changes American society underwent during the WW II era—including, the growth of big business, the emergence of a new youth culture, the breakdown in traditional values, and racial and gender upheavals.  How does Adams asses these transformations?  Are his conclusions sound?  Why or why not?

Set 7: Answer all 3.

1) Kenneth Jackson, “The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision.”  What was the housing situation in the U.S. like immediately after World War II? 

2) According to Jackson, why were families drawn to Levittown and other suburbs like it?  What did these Americans find so appealing about such new communities? 

3) Describe some of the distinguishing features of Levittown.  Some architectural and social critics reacted negatively to these new suburbs.  Why did these detractors despise Levittown?  Does their critique apply to modern suburbs?

1)  Historian Brian Ward notes that in 1956, “various forces of resistance to” rhythm and blues and biracial rock “intensified their efforts to halt its spread” (Ward 90).  How and why did the opponents of this new music lash out?  What were these detractors reacting to? 

2)  What does the April 1956 attack on Nat King Cole tell us about white southern views concerning race and music?

3) Describe the activities of the White Citizens Council in 1956.  What was that organization’s strategy and tactics? 

Set 9: Answer all three

1) How does the author of “Why Do the Girls Love Elvis” describe the so-called “three button man”?  What sort of picture of Presley does the writer offer? 

2) Rev. David Wilkerson--who later wrote The Cross and the Switchblade and founded the youth ministry, Teen Challenge--certainly was no fan of rock.  Why was he so opposed to it?  Was Wilkerson's position similar to that of the anti-rock critics Brian Ward writes about? 

3) Describe the exchange between Mrs. Earl H. Clements and Ralph Riggs, a leader of the Assemblies of God church.  What was at stake for Clements?

1) According to W. J. Rorabaugh, what made the 1960s a “promising time”?

2) What were some of the dark undercurrents of the early sixties?  What problems threatened the order and seeming stability of the era?

3) How was the “tone” of the sixties different than that of the fifties?

Set 11: Answer all 3.

1) How did the U. S. Supreme Court make it’s 1954 ruling in Brown vs Topeka Board of Education?  What sort of evidence did the Court use to make its case?

2) Congressman James Whitten of Mississippi (Democrat) was a member of the U.S. House from 1941 to 1995, setting a record for length of service.  Why did Whitten think that America’s legislative body was destroying the Constitution and violating “every intent of the founders of our Republic”? (250)  How did he make this argument?

3) Describe the different treatment whites and blacks received according to Howell Raines in his Growing Up Black in the South. How did he respond to those circumstances?

1) “Port Huron Statement, 1962,” drafted by Tom Hayden, co-founder of the Students for a Democratic Society (268-73).  What were the young members of the SDS reacting against?  What did they find so disturbing about American culture? 

2) Hayden quotes one observer of college-age Americans who remarked, “Students don’t even give a damn about the apathy” (272).  Moreover, Hayden’s “Port Huron Statement” condemned college students as passive, uninterested in the duties of citizenship, and unwilling to take risks.  They were, says Hayden, more interested in their future careers and securing good marriages than in worldwide suffering or intellectual pursuits.  Are college students today more “active” and “socially aware” than those Hayden discribed?  Why or why not? 

1) What did Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara see as some of the critical problems facing the US in Vietnam?  Describe the strategy he lays out in this selection. 

2) Why did George F. Kennan criticize US involvement in Vietnam?  How did his opinion contrast to McNamara’s?