Download Review Questions for Chapter 37

Review Questions for Chapter 37
1. Which of the following was NOT true of the changing nature
of work in the 1950s?
(A) Science and technology drove economic growth.
(B) There were fewer jobs in the military-related aerospace
industry.
(C) White-collar workers were surpassing blue-collar workers in numbers.
(D) Labor unions reached a peak and then began to
decline.
(E) Job opportunities in the white-collar work force were
opening to women.
2. Which of the following best summarizes the fundamental
criticism directed against the new popular mass-media culture of the early post-World War II era offered by social critics such as David Riesman and William H. Whyte, Jr.?
(A) Affluence tended to erode Americans’ moral character.
(B) Americans had become affluent conformists who were
unable to think for themselves.
(C) The wealth produced by the new mass economy was
unevenly distributed.
(D) The open sexual displays of figures like Elvis Presley
and Marilyn Monroe was morally dangerous.
(E) Americans were becoming too soft to be able to fight
the Cold War effectively.
3. What campaign pledge did Republican presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower make that sealed his 1952 election
victory over Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson?
(A) Eisenhower promised to use atomic weapons to end
the Korean War.
(B) Eisenhower pledged that he would order a naval blockade of the China coast and bomb Manchuria to end the
Korean War.
(C) Eisenhower promised to open peace negotiations over
Korea with Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
(D) Eisenhower affirmed that he would order the United
Nations troops to invade North Korea.
(E) Eisenhower promised to personally travel to Korea to
end the war.
4. What is the primary criticism offered by historians critical
of the overall presidential record of President Eisenhower?
(A) Eisenhower emphasized social harmony over social justice, declining to spend his enormous political capital
on behalf of an important social cause such as civil rights.
(B) Eisenhower’s strongest commitment was to party loyalty over sound public policies benefiting the entire
country.
(C) Eisenhower was too aggressive and confrontational in
addressing civil rights issues such as school
desegregation.
(D) Eisenhower pursued a reckless national security policy
of militarily confronting Soviet Communist expansion
and consolidation in all parts of the world.
(E) Eisenhower’s unyielding commitment to political reform and ethics in government prevented a political
compromise being struck between Democrats and Republicans on cleaning up politics in Washington, D.C.
5. All of the following were true about the rise and fall of the
notorious anticommunist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy EXCEPT
(A) Senator McCarthy first rose to national prominence by
publicly charging that scores of known communists
were working for the U.S. State Department.
(B) Senator McCarthy outrageously charged that General
George Marshall, a former secretary of state and World
War II military hero, was part of a pro-communist conspiracy to betray America.
(C) as a result of Senator McCarthy’s purges of Asian experts in the State Department, the department lost a
number of Asian specialists who might have counseled
a wiser course in Vietnam.
(D) President Eisenhower, at an early stage of Senator McCarthy’s political rise, publicly denounced McCarthy’s
slanderous and demagogic attacks against Americans
loyally working for the U.S. government.
(E) Senator McCarthy’s fall from political power and influence was hastened when he foolishly and ineptly attempted to attack the U.S. Army during the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954.
6. In an effort to overturn Jim Crow laws and the segregated
system they had created, African Americans used all of the
following strategies EXCEPT
(A) economic boycotts.
(B) legal attacks on the underpinnings of segregation in the
courts.
(C) appeals to foreign governments to pressure the United
States to establish racial justice.
(D) mobilization of African American churches on behalf of
civil rights.
(E) use of the nonviolent tactics of Mohandas Gandhi.
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Review Questions for Chapter 37
7. What prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to advance the
cause of civil rights in the 1950s, beginning with the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education?
(A) The Court believed that it was the only branch of government with the constitutional authority to do so.
(B) In the 1950s, the U.S. Supreme Court was dominated
and heavily influenced by New Deal liberals appointed
by President Roosevelt.
(C) President Eisenhower had requested the Court to intervene in the matter of civil rights.
(D) Congress and the president had largely abdicated their
responsibility by taking a hands-off approach to civil
rights.
(E) The Court sought to ensure that its earlier historical
precedents in the area of civil rights, such as Plessy v.
Ferguson, were upheld.
8. Which federal public works program promoted by President
Eisenhower was far larger and more expensive than any
program of Roosevelt’s New Deal?
(A) The interstate highway system
(B) The Grand Coulee dam project
(C) The St. Lawrence Seaway
(D) The airport construction project
(E) The public housing system
9. Which of the following represented the strategic military
policy underlying President Eisenhower’s and Secretary of
State John Foster Dulles’s New Look foreign policy in the
1950s?
(A) The dismantling of the military-industrial complex
(B) Massive new military spending
(C) Greater reliance on air power and the deterrent power
of nuclear weapons than on the army and navy
(D) A buildup of unconventional and guerrilla-warfare
forces
(E) The rapid deployment of the navy and the Marines to
trouble spots
10. Which of the following international crises amply demonstrated the futility of the stated Eisenhower administration
policy of massive retaliation and the limitations on its ability to roll back Communist geopolitical gains?
(A) The Hungarian revolt in 1956
(B) The Suez Crisis of 1956
(C) The CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953
(D) The CIA-directed coup against the elected government
of Guatemala in 1954
(E) The American U-2 spy plane incident
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11. Which of the following was NOT an American government
response to the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in
1957?
(A) The federal government spending millions of dollars to
improve American science and language education,
principally through the National Defense Education Act
(B) The establishment of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA)
(C) The directing of billions of public dollars to missile and
satellite development
(D) A sober reassessment of America’s vaunted scientific
and military superiority and dominance by U.S.
policymakers
(E) Passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act
12. By the end of the 1950s, Latin American anger toward the
United States had intensified because Washington had done
all of the following EXCEPT
(A) extend massive aid to Europe and little to Latin
America.
(B) continue to intervene in Latin American affairs.
(C) support repressive right-wing dictators who claimed to
be fighting communism.
(D) provide diplomatic support and economic assistance to
Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government in Cuba.
(E) initiate a CIA-directed coup in Guatemala.
13. Which factor do some historians believe tipped the electoral scales for Senator John F. Kennedy against Vice President Richard Nixon in the presidential election of 1960?
(A) Kennedy’s age
(B) Kennedy’s religion
(C) Kennedy’s political experience as a senator and
congressman
(D) Kennedy’s televised debates with Richard Nixon
(E) President Eisenhower’s heavy loss of popularity during
his last two years in office
14. All of the following American writers portrayed varying and
illuminating aspects of African American life and identity in
postwar America EXCEPT
(A) Richard Wright.
(B) James Baldwin.
(C) Arthur Miller.
(D) Lorraine Hansberry.
(E) LeRoi Jones.
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