2011 252 Midterm Multiple Choice

The Multiple choice section will be worth 100 points. Choose the best answer to complete the sentence or answer the question.

1)  The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was an expression of:

  1. Class conflict motivated by the envy of the poor.
  2. Brought on by the fourth wage cut in four years for railroad workers.
  3. Was an attempt to peacefully settle industrial labor problems, sparking riots across the country.
  4. Was an example of pathological class resentment of the middle class.

2)  The 1893 World’s Fair was the called the Columbian Exposition because:

  1. It was sponsored, in large part, by Colombia
  2. It was the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ trip to the Americas
  3. Cocaine was just then becoming popular in America
  4. No-one wanted to call it the Erickson exposition but no-one liked Swedes

3)  The Columbian Exposition was also called “The White City”; why?

  1. The dominant ideology in America, shared by North and South, East and West was one of the natural superiority of white people.
  2. The construction of all the buildings around the Grand Lagoon was done with white plaster and pained white.
  3. White is the color of purity and virtue in Anglo-American culture.
  4. All of the above.

4)  The White City was hoped to unify strengthen an American identity by:

  1. Making country people feel like hicks.
  2. Introducing visitors to the accomplishments of and new advances in American industry and the arts.
  3. Issuing identity cards to all visitors.
  4. The construction of a massive statue of George Washington in the middle of the Grand Lagoon.

5)  The massacre at Wounded Knee took place just two years before the Columbian Exposition. It was considered:

  1. The worst Native American massacre of white soldiers in history.
  2. A brilliant display of American tactics against marauding Plains Indians.
  3. A great opportunity for a reason to construct a new national park.
  4. The “battle” that brought the Plains Wars against Native Americans officially to a close.

6)  John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870. During his tenure with the company he became known, along with J.P. Morgan and a few others as:

  1. A “Robin Hood” of American business.
  2. A Robber Baron.
  3. An American businessman concerned only that the working class make a decent living wage.
  4. One of the most prominent members of the rising middle class.
  5. All of the above

7)  Frederick Jackson Turner believed the American Frontier was the thing that made Americans unique from Europeans because:

  1. We wore leather chaps and Europeans wore sissy clothes
  2. Buffalo Bill said so.
  3. The frontier provided opportunity to thousands of Americans (and thus a “pressure relief” valve to class conflicts, and the hardships of settlers and soldiers molded the American character.
  4. “Go west young man” sounded manly and “go east young man” would have sounded silly if Europeans had used that phrase.

8)  The Spanish-American War was:

  1. Partially started by the “Yellow Journalism” of Randolph Hearst
  2. Led to an era of peaceful relations with the U.S. Caribbean neighbors.
  3. Brought on by Spain’s sinking of the Lusitania.
  4. Brought on by Spain’s attempt to invade the United States and take back Florida.
  5. All of the above.

9)  In the Philippines Insurrection the ratio of dead to wounded Filipinos was:

  1. One killed to five wounded.
  2. One killed to one wounded.
  3. Fifteen killed to one wounded.
  4. Not applicable because we didn’t kill any Filipinos.
  5. All of the above.

10) Who coined the term “an Empire for Liberty?

  1. Theodore Roosevelt.
  2. Thomas Jefferson.
  3. Dick Cheney.
  4. Jack Bauer.

11) The period of the Spanish-American War was one in which the Untied States became known as:

  1. A force for doing unambiguous good in the world in its foreign policy.
  2. The world’s premier welfare state.
  3. A weak and isolationist national power.

12) An empire. “The Person Sitting in Darkness” referred to:

  1. New Yorkers before electrification of the city.
  2. Ignorant Americans who didn’t support making the Philippines a colony.
  3. Kids who tried to read Mark Twain by candlelight.
  4. The “ignorant” natives of countries who resisted U.S. Imperialism.

13) When the continental frontier was closed with conquering of native resistance and purchase of Alaska, the United States turned to:

  1. Conquering space, the final frontier.
  2. Painting their houses red, white or blue as a symbol of patriotism.
  3. Gave up on the idea that there was any frontier left.
  4. Turned its sights overseas to extend the frontier west to Asia.

14) The period from 1880-1968 was the period that marked:

  1. The high point of needlepoint in American culture.
  2. When America finally realized that race was no longer an issue in the U.S.
  3. A period of uninterrupted Democrat Party dominance in the U.S.
  4. A period of extreme racial violence and lynching in U.S. history.

15) Sundown Towns were proliferating in the late 19th Century:

  1. Exclusively in the South
  2. In Montana.
  3. By driving out minorities in towns and counties across America.
  4. East of the Mississippi River

16) The U.S. shifted from a primarily agrarian country to an urban country, in terms of where people lived (country or city) in:

  1. 1930
  2. 1890
  3. 1920
  4. 1940

17) In Manhattan, the new frontier as no longer horizontally defined in terms of “west”, but:

  1. Economically in terms of the great opportunity for immigrants to work wherever they pleased.
  2. Politically in terms of the new non-partisan politics revival.
  3. Vertically in terms of the necessity to build “up” rather than “out.”
  4. Subterraneanly in terms of the new move into underground caves.
  5. All of the above.

18) The Progressive movement was mainly a middle class movement of reformers who were worried about:

  1. The extreme poverty in inner cities and its possible effects on industrial peace or class war for America.
  2. The health conditions of immigrants and workers in America.
  3. The moral degeneration of American youth.
  4. Corruption in American city machine politics.
  5. All of the above.

19) The “new woman” in America could be symbolized by:

  1. The Gibson Girl as a model of culturally liberated woman.
  2. The Flapper, as a model of a culturally sopkisticated woman.
  3. The Suffragette as a model of a politically empowered woman.
  4. All of the above.

20) Gays in New York at the turn of the century were:

  1. Remarkably more open and free to express their sexuality in areas like the Bronx than they would be later in the Century when forced to hide their sexuality during the Cold War.
  2. Were mainly sailors.
  3. Routinely beaten specifically for being gay.
  4. Organized into a large political movement for the first time by the Stonewall riot.

21) The Armory Exposition in 1913:

  1. Was held to commemorate the bravery of the National Guard in WWI.
  2. Was an exposition of European painters held to embarrass the culturally backward American art community.
  3. Was and exposition of European artists alongside American artists to introduce Americans to new trends in Art and new American artists and their accomplishments.
  4. Was an exposition of African American artists.

22) Andrew Bacevich feels that American foreign policy is primarily driven by:

  1. Washington politicians trying fulfill average American voters’ expectations for cheap oil and consumer goods.
  2. Big corporations lobbying money in Congress.
  3. The military industrial complex and its insatiable demand for big budgets.
  4. George Bush and his ideological bent to bring democracy to the world.

23) Andrew Bacevich is:

  1. A Republican
  2. A college professor.
  3. An ex-career military officer.
  4. A man whose son was killed in Iraq.
  5. All of the above.

24) PW Singer talked about:

  1. The state of oil in Louisiana.
  2. The The need to develop a code of ethics befitting robotized warfare.
  3. Robot sex toys.
  4. The future of Drone workers.

25) How many robots of war are now in the middle east?

  1. 3 dozen.
  2. Several hundred overall.
  3. 5000+ in the air; 12000+ on the ground.
  4. Enough to get the job done, which is why we don't produce them anymore.

26) PW Singer is:

  1. A robot.
  2. A philosophy PhD who specializes in ethics, war and technology.
  3. An unabashed robotic warfare advocate, running a company that makes drones.
  4. A man who sees no benefits in robotic warfare.

27) Who invented the underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV), like the ones that were used to plug the Gulf Oil Spill?

  1. Jacque Cousteau, in 1967
  2. Richard Baseheart, in the 1980s.
  3. Kevin Costner, in 2010.
  4. Nicolai Tesla, in 1898.

28) The Lusitania was:

  1. the ship Leonardo DiCaprio went down on.
  2. sunk by German battleships.
  3. carrying arms to Britain when it was sunk, violating a law of the sea that stated no passenger ships may carry weapons meant to be used in war.
  4. was attacked without forewarning.

29) President Wilson was:

  1. an astronaut before he became president.
  2. the president after Hoover who ended the Great Depression by bailing out banks, which may end up requiring continued bank bailouts for the rest of term.
  3. the man who saw the end of the "war that ended all wars."
  4. opposed to the harsh treatment of Germany by France and Great Britain at the Versailles Conference.
  5. c. and d.

30) World War I ended the lives of:

  1. 20 million men and women,
  2. 100 million men and women.
  3. 36 million men and women.
  4. 5 million men and women.

31) In 1917, the Russian Revolution resulted in:

  1. the overthow of the Czar and the creation of the Soviet Union, officially setting off the earliest phase of the Cold War.
  2. the withdrawal of Russians from the war.
  3. the vitalizing of the Socialist movement in countries around the world.
  4. all of the above.

32) After World War I, the Eugenics program in America took off,introducing the idea of "negative Eugnics and sterilizing women of color by the thousands,and cutting of immigration from Asia to the U.S. which influenced::

  1. Nazi scientists working on like programs.
  2. Caused Hiler to note in Mein Kampf.
  3. influenced the Nazi policies leading to the Holocaust.
  4. all of the above.

33) American Drone "pilots" flying Predators from places like Las Vegas and Sacramento are suffering from:

  1. Boredom.
  2. Nausea.
  3. a higher rate of post-traumatic stress sydrome than ground combat troops in the Middle East.
  4. giddiness..

34) (for one point) Because of the “war hero” status he gained at San Juan Hill, Teddy Roosevelt was granted:

  1. The vice-presidential slot on the ticket with McKinley in 1900.
  2. Access to Cuban casinos for life.
  3. A Masonic ring.
  4. A pardon for killing all those buffalo and elephants.

Fall 20111 History 252 Midterm Essay Options:

Write a minimum of a two-four page essay on one of the following questions and bring it in on the day we do an in-class multiple choice part of the midterm. You may write the essay at home. Do not go under two pages and a lack of citations in the text of the paper will be an automatic 20% off, so don’t feel you can skip that and do very well at all, since your base grade will start no higher than 80% if you do leave out cites. Be analytical and feel free to give your opinions, but do back them up!

1a an 1b) 1A) I know it’s a little ahead of time right now, but I’ve provided a link to Martin Luther King’s Riverside Church Speech in 1967, less than a year before he was assassinated. In the speech, King talks about how U.S. Foreign policy and war will come home with the troops and how it might destroy us in the process. In the White City and Empire, Trade and Biology Readings, as well as in Twain's The U.S. of Lyncherdom and to the Person Sitting in Darkness, parallels are also made between U.S. Foreign Policy (Imperialism, War) and U.S. economic policy in Foreign Trade. For that matter, you can find similar ideas in Andrew Bacevich’s interview with Bill Moyers. 1B) Write an essay on how domestic policies, economics, racial attitudes (Eugenics, Sundown Towns, Lynching, etc.) interact with U.S. Imperial policies overseas. How does one help shape the other? You can go in either direction: home to abroad or abroad to home, but try and use your sources creatively to write this essay. Hint: If you choose this option and are not quite sure of how to go about it, think about the White City, the issues of race in America and the conduct of the Philippines war.

2) Despite the myths we learn and hold onto from our childhood schools and academic descriptions of America, this country has always been ruled by a relatively small group of elites – sometimes principled and well-meaning, sometimes greedy and consistently lusting for more power. For instance, no truly poor person has ever been elected president, though some – like Lincoln or Grant and maybe Harry Trman – were men of modest means comparatively. The dynamics of our republic and constitution favor the maintenance of at least some portion of government being dominated by economic elites, simply in the resources it takes to seek and hold office in the senate and the presidency. Discuss how and why our system is constructed to protect the power that is inherent in wealthy classes in America. Use C. Wright Mills' essays, as well as some of the readings from Bill Domhoff and others,I’ve supplied in a folder from The Power Elite, Or you can watch Andrew Bacevich’s interview with Bill Moyers, which is not a class analysis but a discussion of America’s shaping of policy around our demands as consumers and not as citizens. Who, Where and Why do certain elites in society gain power and then wield it in favor of their interests? For the truly adventurous and speculative, I will supply some sources on secret societies, if you wish to discuss their place in American History and society today, though that is by no means necessary for this essay.

3) Has the United States ever fought a war because we’ve been truly threatened? Discuss the role of “false flag” events in American history and how they have shaped both American Patriotism and international politics as well as the power and prestige of the military in American history. Sources will be provided in a separate folder for this, although Bacevich will be helpful and so the Biology, Trade and Empire readings. Make sure and be a little subtle about this essay no matter what your answer and do discuss the shades of difference in the motives of creating a “false flag event”. Just to clarify that, sometimes we might have provoked an attack like in Mexico in 1846 where US troops were on Mexican soil when they were attacked, or sometimes we actually are attacked but we have allowed to motivate public support for going to war (as in Pearl Harbor, using it to go to war with Germany). And yes, you can discuss 9/11 if you’d like; ask me about sources.