Which of the following describes the famous kitchen debate of 1959?
a. Nixon argued that the United States was technologically superior to the USSR in almost every area.
b. Khrushchev was greatly impressed and envious of the new American consumer applianc
d. It settled no greater political purpose, but it revealed the commercialism of the postwar American dream.
Which of the following statements describes post-World War II America?
a. City life flourished at the expense of the suburbs.
b. Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.
c. Suburbs welcomed blacks and Latinos.
d. Consensus replaced y
b. Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.
Which of the following statements is true about the post-World War II U.S. economy?
a. The power of organized labor reached an all-time low in the mid-1950s.
b. The economy was so strong and prosperous there was no worry of recession or unemployment.
c. A
c. American prosperity was beyond the reach of many poor and nonwhite Americans.
The term Pax Americana refers to
a. American domination of the global economy after World War II.
b. the Marshall Plan in Europe and U.S. occupation of Japan.
c. the Bretton Woods system.
d. the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race.
a. American domination of the global economy after World War II.
Which of the following elements was part of the Bretton Woods system?
a. A monetary supply with the British notes as a benchmark
b. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
c. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
d. A limiting of American capita
d. A limiting of American capital
Which of the following phenomena served as an engine of postwar economic growth?
a. Radio and print media advertising
b. Spending on national security
c. Television
d. The civil rights and feminist movements
b. Spending on national security
When Eisenhower said, "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought," he was referring to the
a. Sino-Soviet alliance.
b. military-industrial complex.
c. Axis powers.
d. Warsaw Pact.
b. military-industrial complex.
During the 1950s, military spending amounted to what percentage of U.S. gross national product?
a. 1 percent
b. 10 percent
c. 50 percent
d. 80 percent
b. 10 percent
The space race began after
a. the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear device.
b. President Eisenhower signed the Outer Space Exploration Act.
c. Americans learned that the Soviet Union had launched the first space satellite.
d. John F. Kennedy called
c. Americans learned that the Soviet Union had launched the first space satellite.
Which of the following was the predominant tendency in business during the twenty years following World War II?
a. The proliferation of highly competitive, small firms
b. A trend toward monopolies
c. The consolidation of economic power into big corporate
c. The consolidation of economic power into big corporate firms
Which of the following job categories grew explosively in the United States in the 1950s and came to symbolize the era?
a. Independent entrepreneurs
b. Blue-collar workers
c. White-collar managers
d. Unskilled laborers
c. White-collar managers
David Reisman's The Lonely Crowd and William Whyte's The Organization Man recognized the dilemma of
a. the entrepreneurial class.
b. the managerial class.
c. Washington politicians.
d. relations between labor and management.
b. the managerial class.
The Affluent Society (1958) was one of the most influential books about the U.S. economy in the twentieth century because it
a. promoted the ideal of the self-made man.
b. argued that the poor had been neglected by economists and politicians.
c. closely s
b. argued that the poor had been neglected by economists and politicians.
Michael Harrington's 1962 book The Other America exposed
a. the problem of American race relations.
b. poverty in America.
c. two inherently unequal societies in America, one white and one black.
d. the poor way in which illegal immigrants were treated by
b. poverty in America.
Which of the following economic statistics represented the U.S. economy in the post-World
War II period?
a. The poverty rate had declined to one in twenty American families by 1960.
b. Between 1947 and 1975, the productivity of America's workers more than
b. Between 1947 and 1975, the productivity of America's workers more than doubled.
Which of the following describes the economic changes taking place in the United States during the 1950s?
a. Sales of electrical appliances began to decline.
b. Consumption came to be seen as a social responsibility.
c. More money was spent on education t
b. Consumption came to be seen as a social responsibility.
The GI Bill (1944) stimulated the American economy by
a. granting specialized legal protections to labor unions founded by veterans.
b. giving each state directly millions of dollars to build new public universities.
c. subsidizing higher education and fi
c. subsidizing higher education and financing millions of mortgages.
The broadly based postwar labor-management accord brought
a. declining market share for American industry.
b. a permanent peace between labor and management.
c. a general acceptance of collective bargaining.
d. movement of businesses overseas, where labor
c. a general acceptance of collective bargaining.
Which of the following phenomena served as a major engine for consumption in the United States during the 1950s?
a. Urban revitalization
b. Rural electrification
c. The baby boom
d. The space race
c. The baby boom
Which of the following statements describes television in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s?
a. The television industry was subsidized by the U.S. government.
b. Television actually stimulated movie attendance through the use of advertisin
d. It transformed American culture as much as the automobile had in the 1920s.
Which of the following was a popular television program of the 1950s that depicted American working-class lives?
a. Father Knows Best
b. I Love Lucy
c. The Honeymooners
d. Bonanza
c. The Honeymooners
The ideal family, as presented in the media of the 1950s, with a stay-at-home mom and a father as the breadwinner, was
a. an accurate representation of American life.
b. true only for urban family life.
c. not representative of diverse American culture.
d
c. not representative of diverse American culture.
Which of the following describes Alan Freed, who made his mark on American culture in the 1950s?
a. It was the real name of the early rock star Buddy Holly.
b. He introduced Elvis Presley to the American public on his popular television program in 1956.
c
c. His Cleveland radio show introduced white America to black music.
Record sales boomed in the United States during the 1950s because of
a. the timeless appeal of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
b. a resurgence in the popularity of swing and big band music.
c. the golden age of Broadway musicals, including Camelot and Sout
d. the emergence of rock 'n' roll as a popular new musical genre.
Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Charlie Parker were all associated with
a. the Beat generation.
b. self-expression in painting.
c. "hot" bebop jazz.
d. cultural rebellion.
d. cultural rebellion.
The Beat generation of the 1950s rejected
a. spontaneity.
b. political activism.
c. sexual adventurism.
d. drug use.
b. political activism.
The great resurgence of evangelical religion in 1950s America was most evident in the dramatic rise in popularity of
a. Fulton J. Sheen.
b. Norman Vincent Peale.
c. Billy Graham.
d. Billy Sunday.
c. Billy Graham.
In the 1950s, evangelist Norman Vincent Peale preached
a. the therapeutic use of religion.
b. fundamentalist Protestantism.
c. the use of faith healing instead of traditional medicine.
d. Social Gospel.
a. the therapeutic use of religion.
Between 1940 and 1960, church membership in the United States
a. declined sharply to 10 percent.
b. declined significantly to 25 percent.
c. remained steady at around 50 percent.
d. rose to 70 percent.
d. rose to 70 percent.
Which of the following statements characterizes the pressure felt by middle-class American women during the 1950s?
a. Cultural messages indicated that domesticity should be women's highest priority.
b. Prominent experts claimed that "well-adjusted" women
a. Cultural messages indicated that domesticity should be women's highest priority.
Which of the following was an impetus for the post-World War II baby boom?
a. The Roman Catholic Church's successful stand against birth control
b. The declining average age of marriage for women and men
c. Government incentives, chiefly tax credits to fa
b. The declining average age of marriage for women and men
Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin are both associated with
a. the polio vaccine.
b. television.
c. cultural dissent.
d. the civil rights movement.
a. the polio vaccine.
Which of the following statements describes women and their relationship to work and family life in the postwar decades?
a. Prosperity allowed even working-class women to devote themselves solely to domesticity.
b. Most "women's jobs" were in teaching, nu
b. Most "women's jobs" were in teaching, nursing, or the service sector.
How did middle-class wives and mothers seek to justify their work outside the home in the 1950s?
a. They insisted that housekeepers and nannies could perform their domestic duties just as effectively.
b. Middle-class women argued that it was unfair for th
c. They explained their work in family-oriented terms and maintained their domestic responsibilities.
Which of the following exemplified the sexual conservatism that characterized the period from 1945 to the mid-1960s?
a. Alfred Kinsey's books on sexuality were banned in most major American cities.
b. College women had curfews and needed permission to ent
b. College women had curfews and needed permission to entertain male visitors.
Which of the following pairs are correctly matched?
a. Allen Ginsberg�author of a groundbreaking study on sex in America
b. Hugh Hefner�founder of Playboy magazine
c. Alfred Kinsley�prominent gay activist in the 1950s
d. Del Martin�famous Beat author and
b. Hugh Hefner�founder of Playboy magazine
The Daughters of Bilitis was a women's organization founded in 1955 that sought
a. new alternatives for women who got pregnant out of wedlock.
b. greater visibility for and acceptance of lesbians in the United States.
c. greater autonomy and influence for
b. greater visibility for and acceptance of lesbians in the United States.
How did homophile activists challenge the prejudicial attitudes of most Americans toward gay men and lesbians in the 1950s?
a. They organized gay pride celebrations in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
b. They avoided gay bars and nightclubs and dress
b. They avoided gay bars and nightclubs and dressed in modest, conservative clothing.
Which of the following statements characterizes the innovations in housing construction pioneered by William Levitt after World War II?
a. His company pioneered the application of mass-production techniques to home construction.
b. In 1947, Levitt's basic
a. His company pioneered the application of mass-production techniques to home construction.
Which of the following became a symbol of the postwar housing boom in the United States?
a. Levittown
b. Urban renewal
c. The Sunbelt
d. The slogan "half down and ten years to pay
a. Levittown
Which of the following characterizes many of the newly built suburban communities in the 1950s?
a. Suburbs required that resident couples be married.
b. They were generally homogeneous in their population.
c. Suburban houses and lots were consistently exp
b. They were generally homogeneous in their population.
The term restrictive covenants refers to
a. the promise of GI mortgages to veterans.
b. Federal Housing Authority contracts.
c. the CIO campaign for higher wages.
d. prohibitions on black residents in some communities.
d. prohibitions on black residents in some communities.
An unexpected result of building the interstate highway system was that it
a. precipitated the decay of American urban areas.
b. revealed and exaggerated regional differences.
c. hurt the petroleum industry as Americans traveled less by air and rail.
d. c
a. precipitated the decay of American urban areas.
Which of the following factors spurred congressional approval of the Interstate Highway Act?
a. The destruction of the mass-transit systems
b. The New Deal
c. The Fair Deal
d. The Cold War
d. The Cold War
Which of the following factors precipitated the urban crisis of the 1950s and 1960s?
a. Local efforts to desegregate urban neighborhoods
b. The flight of white urban residents to the suburbs
c. Gentrification efforts led by young professional whites
d. Th
b. The flight of white urban residents to the suburbs
Which of the following describes the urban renewal projects that took place in U.S. cities in the 1950s?
a. Urban residents strongly supported the projects, which provided new, modern housing.
b. Urban renewal projects promoted racial integration in segre
d. Urban renewal efforts coincided with an increase in cities' black, Latino, and Native American populations.
Immigration policy in the 1950s led to
a. a quota for Latin American countries.
b. a preferential quota for unskilled labor.
c. a resumption of unrestricted European immigration.
d. the legal resumption of Asian immigration.
d. the legal resumption of Asian immigration.
Which of the following statements accurately characterizes U.S. immigration laws between World War II and the mid-1960s?
a. The Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed in 1943 for twenty more years.
b. The Displaced Persons Act, passed in 1948, ended all restri
c. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act ended the exclusion of immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.
In the 1950s, most Puerto Rican immigrants settled in
a. Chicago.
b. New York City.
c. Miami.
d. Kansas City.
b. New York City.
Beginning in the 1960s, the influx of Cuban refugees rapidly changed the character of
a. New York City.
b. Los Angeles.
c. Denver.
d. Miami.
d. Miami.