Henry Ford's chief contribution to the automobile industry was what?
Mass production on a moving assembly line
✓
Inventing the gasoline-powered automobile
Founding the first union for autoworkers
Designing the first electric car battery
Correct Answer
Mass production on a moving assembly line
Ford did not invent the car, but his moving assembly line broke work into simple repeated tasks and cut the time and cost of building each Model T. Falling prices put cars within reach of millions of ordinary Americans. Inventing the gasoline-powered automobile was the work of earlier European and American pioneers such as Karl Benz and the Duryea brothers. Founding the first union for autoworkers is wrong, since Ford fought unions. Designing the first electric car battery had nothing to do with Ford's success.
Category: Automobile Age
Question 2
Why did Henry Ford raise his factory workers' pay to five dollars a day?
To comply with a federal minimum wage law
To cut high worker turnover on the assembly line
✓
To end a strike called by the United Auto Workers
To meet the terms of a wartime government contract
Correct Answer
To cut high worker turnover on the assembly line
Repetitive assembly line work drove many employees to quit, so Ford roughly doubled pay and shortened the workday to keep a stable workforce. Higher wages also helped his own workers afford the cars they built. To comply with a federal minimum wage law is wrong, since no federal minimum wage existed until 1938. To end a strike called by the United Auto Workers is wrong, since that union did not yet exist. To meet the terms of a wartime government contract is wrong, since the raise came in 1914, before the United States entered the war.
Category: Automobile Age
Question 3
What practice allowed many middle-class families of the 1920s to buy cars, radios and appliances they could not pay for at once?
Government purchase subsidies
Barter through mail-order catalogs
Installment buying on credit
✓
Payment in company scrip
Correct Answer
Installment buying on credit
Installment plans let buyers take a product home for a small down payment and pay the rest in monthly amounts, which greatly expanded consumer spending. Rising consumer debt later left many households vulnerable when the economy collapsed. Government purchase subsidies for consumer goods did not exist. Barter through mail-order catalogs is wrong, since catalogs sold goods for money. Payment in company scrip was a practice of some mining towns, not the way families bought these goods.
Category: Consumer Culture
Question 4
What was one major cultural effect of the spread of radio in the 1920s?
It strengthened distinct regional dialects
It reduced the popularity of professional sports
It ended advertising in newspapers and magazines
It spread shared national programs and tastes
✓
Correct Answer
It spread shared national programs and tastes
Radio carried the same music, comedy, news and sports broadcasts into homes across the country, which helped create a more uniform national culture. It also gave advertisers a powerful new way to reach consumers. It strengthened distinct regional dialects is the opposite of what happened. It reduced the popularity of professional sports is wrong, since play-by-play broadcasts made athletes into national celebrities. It ended advertising in newspapers and magazines is wrong, since print advertising kept growing.
Category: Mass Entertainment
Question 5
In 1927, who became an international hero by flying solo and nonstop from New York to Paris?
Charles Lindbergh
✓
Bessie Coleman
Amelia Earhart
Orville Wright
Correct Answer
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic alone in about thirty-three hours in the Spirit of St. Louis and returned to a huge ticker-tape parade. His flight symbolized individual daring in an age of mass media. Bessie Coleman was a pioneering African American stunt pilot who died in 1926. Amelia Earhart made her solo Atlantic crossing in 1932. Orville Wright had made the first powered airplane flights with his brother in 1903.
Category: Mass Entertainment
Question 6
Which New York Yankees slugger helped turn baseball into a game built around power hitting in the 1920s?
Jim Thorpe
Babe Ruth
✓
Red Grange
Bill Tilden
Correct Answer
Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth hit home runs at a pace no one had seen, including 60 in 1927, and his fame helped make baseball a national obsession. Radio broadcasts and newspapers turned him into one of the decade's biggest celebrities. Jim Thorpe was an Olympic champion who played several professional sports. Red Grange was a college and professional American football star. Bill Tilden was a tennis champion.
Category: Mass Entertainment
Question 7
Why did many critics argue that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti did not receive a fair trial?
They were tried by a military tribunal
They were denied any defense lawyers
Prosecutors stressed their anarchist views and immigrant status
✓
Their case was heard in a foreign court
Correct Answer
Prosecutors stressed their anarchist views and immigrant status
The two Italian immigrants were convicted of a 1920 robbery and murder in Massachusetts on disputed evidence, and the prosecution played on their radical beliefs and foreign birth. Their 1927 execution drew protests around the world and came to symbolize the nativism of the era. They were tried by a military tribunal is wrong, since theirs was a state criminal trial. They were denied any defense lawyers is wrong, since they had attorneys and many appeals. Their case was heard in a foreign court is wrong, since it was tried in Massachusetts.
Category: Nativism and Immigration
Question 8
How did the National Origins Act of 1924 set immigration quotas for European countries?
A literacy test given to every adult immigrant
An identical yearly quota for every country
Visas sold at auction to the highest bidders
Two percent of each nationality's U.S. population in 1890
✓
Correct Answer
Two percent of each nationality's U.S. population in 1890
By using the 1890 census, before most southern and eastern Europeans arrived, the law sharply cut immigration from countries such as Italy and Poland while favoring northern and western Europe. It also barred immigration from Japan and other Asian nations. A literacy test given to every adult immigrant was established by an earlier law in 1917. An identical yearly quota for every country would have defeated the law's purpose of favoring certain nationalities. Visas sold at auction to the highest bidders were never part of American law.
Category: Nativism and Immigration
Question 9
Besides African Americans, which groups did the Ku Klux Klan revived in 1915 attack in its rhetoric and actions?
Catholics, Jews and immigrants
✓
Factory owners and bankers
Western ranchers and miners
Union veterans and their families
Correct Answer
Catholics, Jews and immigrants
The second Klan promoted a narrow vision of white Protestant America and denounced Catholics, Jews and immigrants as well as Black Americans. It spread well beyond the South, especially in the Midwest and West. Factory owners and bankers were not its targets, and many middle-class businessmen joined it. Western ranchers and miners were not singled out. Union veterans and their families were not its focus.
Category: Ku Klux Klan
Question 10
D. W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation helped inspire the Klan's revival by doing what?
Showing the horrors of trench warfare
Portraying Klansmen as heroes of Reconstruction
✓
Celebrating the Great Migration to northern cities
Exposing corruption in the Hollywood studios
Correct Answer
Portraying Klansmen as heroes of Reconstruction
The film presented Reconstruction through a racist lens, depicting Black Americans as dangerous and the Klan as saviors of the white South. The NAACP protested it, and the new Klan was founded in Georgia months after its release. Showing the horrors of trench warfare is wrong, since the film was about the Civil War and Reconstruction. Celebrating the Great Migration to northern cities is wrong, since it was hostile to Black progress. Exposing corruption in the Hollywood studios was not its subject.
Category: Ku Klux Klan
Question 11
The 1925 Scopes trial became a national symbol of the conflict between what?
Organized labor and big business
Northern and Southern Democrats
Religious fundamentalism and modern science
✓
Prohibitionists and bootleggers
Correct Answer
Religious fundamentalism and modern science
The trial of a Tennessee teacher for teaching evolution pitted defenders of a literal reading of the Bible against advocates of modern scientific thought, and many saw it as a clash between rural and urban values. Newspaper and radio coverage made it a national spectacle. Organized labor and big business clashed in strikes, not in this courtroom. Northern and Southern Democrats split over issues such as Prohibition and the Klan. Prohibitionists and bootleggers had nothing to do with the case.
Category: Fundamentalism and Science
Question 12
Which lawyer led the defense of John Scopes and questioned William Jennings Bryan about his reading of the Bible?
H. L. Mencken
Felix Frankfurter
Billy Sunday
Clarence Darrow
✓
Correct Answer
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow, a famous trial lawyer and outspoken agnostic, called Bryan to the stand as an expert on the Bible and pressed him on literal interpretations. Supporters of evolution saw the exchange as a humiliation for Bryan, while many rural Americans saw it as an attack on faith. H. L. Mencken was a journalist who covered the trial. Felix Frankfurter was a law professor who criticized the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. Billy Sunday was a famous evangelist who took no part in the trial.
Category: Fundamentalism and Science
Question 13
Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association promoted what?
Black pride and a return to Africa
✓
Integration through federal court challenges
Vocational schooling for Southern farmers
Socialist revolution in American cities
Correct Answer
Black pride and a return to Africa
Garvey urged people of African descent to take pride in their race, build their own businesses and look to Africa as a homeland, and his movement drew a large following among working-class Black Americans. He was later convicted of mail fraud and deported. Integration through federal court challenges was the strategy of the NAACP. Vocational schooling for Southern farmers was associated with Booker T. Washington. Socialist revolution in American cities was not Garvey's goal.
Category: Harlem Renaissance
Question 14
Which writer, often called the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, drew on the rhythms of jazz and blues in his poems?
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes
✓
Zora Neale Hurston
W. E. B. Du Bois
Correct Answer
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes wrote poetry about everyday Black life using the language and rhythms of Black music, and he became one of the movement's best-known voices. His work expressed the racial pride central to the Harlem Renaissance. Claude McKay was a Jamaican-born poet known for militant protest verse. Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist and folklorist. W. E. B. Du Bois was a scholar and NAACP leader who edited its magazine.
Category: Harlem Renaissance
Question 15
What did the flapper of the 1920s symbolize?
Women campaigning to enforce Prohibition
Rural women resisting city culture
Young women defying older standards of behavior
✓
Older women entering the professions
Correct Answer
Young women defying older standards of behavior
Flappers cut their hair short, wore shorter dresses, smoked and danced in public, openly rejecting the manners their mothers had been taught. The image reflected new freedoms for young urban women after the war. Women campaigning to enforce Prohibition represented the older temperance tradition. Rural women resisting city culture were closer to the backlash against modern life. Older women entering the professions is wrong, since the flapper was an image of youth.
Category: New Morality and Women
Question 16
What did the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 fund?
Pensions for World War I veterans
Public housing for factory workers
Loans to struggling farmers
Health programs for mothers and infants
✓
Correct Answer
Health programs for mothers and infants
The act provided federal money for prenatal and well-baby clinics, nursing visits and health education, and it helped lower infant mortality. Congress let its funding lapse by the end of the decade. Pensions for World War I veterans were a separate issue that led to the bonus fights of later years. Public housing for factory workers was not a federal program in the 1920s. Loans to struggling farmers were handled by other measures.
Category: New Morality and Women
Question 17
Which development was a major consequence of Prohibition in the 1920s?
The growth of organized crime and bootlegging
✓
A boom in legal breweries and distilleries
The spread of licensed saloons in cities
A collapse of alcohol smuggling from Canada
Correct Answer
The growth of organized crime and bootlegging
Because millions of Americans still wanted to drink, gangs supplied illegal liquor, bribed police and fought violent turf wars, with figures such as Al Capone growing rich. Many historians argue that the law weakened respect for the law itself. A boom in legal breweries and distilleries is wrong, since the industry was outlawed. The spread of licensed saloons in cities is wrong, since saloons were closed and replaced by illegal speakeasies. A collapse of alcohol smuggling from Canada is wrong, since smuggling across the border thrived.
Category: Prohibition
Question 18
Which novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the glamour and emptiness of wealthy Jazz Age society?
The Sun Also Rises
The Great Gatsby
✓
The Sound and the Fury
The Age of Innocence
Correct Answer
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, follows a mysterious millionaire whose lavish parties hide loneliness and moral decay, capturing the restless materialism of the decade. Fitzgerald was a leading figure of the Lost Generation. The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's novel about American expatriates. The Sound and the Fury was a William Faulkner novel set in Mississippi. The Age of Innocence was Edith Wharton's novel about old New York society.
Category: Lost Generation
Question 19
In the Teapot Dome scandal, Interior Secretary Albert Fall accepted bribes in return for what?
Selling supplies meant for the Veterans' Bureau
Awarding naval shipbuilding contracts
Leasing federal oil reserves to private companies
✓
Pardoning convicted bootleggers
Correct Answer
Leasing federal oil reserves to private companies
Fall leased navy oil reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and Elk Hills in California to oil developers without competitive bidding and took large payments from them. He was later convicted of accepting a bribe and sentenced to a year in prison. Selling supplies meant for the Veterans' Bureau was a separate scandal involving Charles Forbes. Awarding naval shipbuilding contracts was not part of this case. Pardoning convicted bootleggers was not something an interior secretary could do.
Category: Republican Politics
Question 20
Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's policies under Harding and Coolidge centered on what?
Raising income taxes to pay off war debts
Placing the railroads under federal ownership
Expanding federal relief for the poor
Cutting taxes, especially for the wealthy
✓
Correct Answer
Cutting taxes, especially for the wealthy
Mellon argued that lower taxes on high incomes and corporations would encourage investment, and Congress cut rates several times during the decade while the government still reduced its war debt. His approach reflected the era's pro-business Republican philosophy. Raising income taxes to pay off war debts is the opposite of his program. Placing the railroads under federal ownership is wrong, since wartime control of the railroads ended in 1920. Expanding federal relief for the poor was not part of his agenda.
Category: Republican Politics