1. The United States asserted its agenda on the international stage in the 1890s and, by 1945, emerged as the world’s preeminent military and economic power. Use your knowledge of United States history to answer parts A, B, and C.
A) Identify and briefly explain how ONE incident from the 1890–1920 period allowed the United States to increase its international standing.
B) Briefly explain how the relationship of the Unites States to ONE of the following factors contradicted the nation’s larger pattern of increasing international power in the first half of the twentieth century:
The League of Nations
The Neutrality Act of 1935
The America First Committee
C) Briefly explain how the impact of World War II on ONE of the following areas contributed to the emergence of the United States as the preeminent world power in 1945:
The U.S. economy
The U.S. military
The U.S. presidency
2. Use your knowledge of United States history and the excerpt below to answer parts A, B, and C.
Our Government is no longer a laissez-faire Government, exercising traditional and more or less impersonal powers. There exists in Washington a sense of responsibility for the health, safety, and well-being of the people. . . . I believe that we are at the dawn of a day when the average man, woman, and child in the United States will have an opportunity for a happier and richer life. And it is just and desirable that this should be so. . . . We are not here merely to endure a purgatorial existence in anticipation of a beatific eternity after the grave closes on us. We are here with hopes and aspirations and legitimate desires that we are entitled to have satisfied to at least a reasonable degree. Nor will such a social program as we are discussing cause a strain on our economic system.
Source: Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, The New Democracy, 1934
A) Briefly explain how ONE of the following practices of the 1920s contributed to the economic crisis that incited the changes Harold Ickes described:
Liberal consumer credit
The associated state
B) Identify and briefly explain ONE example of a New Deal program that embodied the philosophy articulated in the excerpt above by providing a social or economic safety net for Americans.
C) Identify and briefly explain ONE example of World War II-era policy that embodied the philosophy articulated in the excerpt above by implementing greater federal regulation of private business.
3. In the 1920s and 1930s, class constituted the major attribute upon which inequality in the United States hinged; by the end of World War II, race began to replace class as the chief focus of Americans’ awareness of and attention to inequality. Use your knowledge of United States history to answer parts A, B, and C.
A) Identify and briefly explain how ONE of the following factors led to a declining emphasis on class divisions in American society:
Organized labor
The GI Bill
B) Identify and briefly explain how ONE of the following factors focused new attention on racial inequality in American society:
Wartime migration
The Double V Campaign
C) Identify and explain ONE governmental policy or practice that contributed to this shift.
4. Question 4 is based on the following two passages.
“Throughout the twentieth century . . . [t]he United States repeatedly used its military power, and that of its clandestine services, to overthrow governments that refused to protect American interests. Each time it cloaked its intervention in the rhetoric of national security and liberation. In most cases, however, it acted mainly for economic reasons—specifically to establish, promote, and defend the right of Americans to do business around the world without interference.”
Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, 2006
“The foreign policy of the United States builds on the normative assumption that the U.S. national interest is at minimum consistent with and sometimes constructive of global welfare. . . . Americans believe that they help others when they help themselves. . . . This approach has led Americans to formulate the major goals of their foreign policy by reference to values and ideals rooted in their identity as an exceptional nation with a destiny to mankind. . . . In practice, the cumulative effect of the idea of American mission on U.S. foreign policy has been to combine altruism with acquisitiveness. Americans seek to spread their political principles abroad not only to ‘improve’ other peoples . . . but also because doing so expands American power.”
Paul McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism, 2006
Using your knowledge of U.S. history and the two excerpts above, answer parts A, B, and C.
A) Briefly explain the main point made by Stephen Kinzer.
B) Briefly explain the main point made by Paul McCartney.
C) Provide ONE piece of evidence from the period 1890–1945 that is not included in the passages, and explain how it supports the interpretation of either passage.