EXAMPLES OF ESSAY QUESTIONS-Unit 12
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Do you think that the “noble experiment” of prohibition did more harm than
good or vice versa? Explain your view by citing specific consequences of the
prohibition amendment.
List at least five major economic and/or technological developments of the
1920s. Select the three most significant ones and explain your choices.
What were the greatest changes in religious and moral values in the 1920s?
How did Americans respond to these changes?
In what ways did writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and
Theodore Dreiser reflect the prevalent American culture of the 1920s? In
what ways did they criticize it?
Compare the presidential leadership of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. What
did they have in common, and how did they differ? How did their personal
qualities affect their political success in the 1920s?
Outline the causes of the great crash of 1929. Why did come so
unexpectedly?
In what ways did the Washington Conference, Kellogg-Briand Pact, and
Stimson doctrine fall short of ensuring American national security?
Historians have not looked too kindly on the presidents of the 1920s, usually
judging them as mediocre. Do you agree with this evaluation of their
performance?
Many historians now believe that Herbert Hoover has been unfairly maligned
as the villain of the Great Depression. What blame, if any, does Hoover
deserve for the economic collapse and the suffering of the public? Why does
the text state that Hoover was caught “on the horns of a cruel dilemma”?
Was Franklin Roosevelt’s victory in 1932 more a support for his campaign
proposals or a repudiation of Herbert Hoover and the Republican policies?
Compare and contrast the first two years of the New Deal with the later New
Deal after 1934. Account for the differences.
Select the three most important programs of the New Deal, explain what they
did, and tell why you chose these three.
Among New Deal actions that have continued long after the 1930s are Social
Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the full legalization of
labor unions. Why have these efforts continued long after the Depression
conditions of the 1930s passed? What other New Deal programs quickly
passed away, and why?
What was the greatest threat to the stability of American society in the 1930s?
Was there ever any serious threat that the United States could have turned
away from democracy as many other nations did during the Depression?