Comparative Questions

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Document Links

Document 27-1: Edith M. Stern Attacks the Domestic Bondage of Women

Document 27-2: Vance Packard Analyzes the Age of Affluence

Document 27-3: George E. McMillan Reports on Racial Conditions in the South in 1960

Document 27-4: Civil Defense in the Nuclear Shadow

Document 27-5: President Dwight D. Eisenhower Warns about the Military-Industrial Complex

  1. How do Edith M. Stern's notions about women's enslavement compare with George E. McMillan's observations about racial discrimination? What might account for the differences?
  2. In what ways do Dwight D. Eisenhower's views about the promise of America compare with those of Vance Packard, Stern, and McMillan?
  3. To what extent does the North Dakota civil defense plan reflect Eisenhower's warnings about the dangers faced by America?
  4. How did the era's relative economic abundance shape the ideas and experiences of the individuals described in these documents?
  5. How did the events of World War II continue to impact American lives in the 1950s? What changes that occurred during the war were reversed during peacetime? Why?