Ch 26 Quiz Multiple Choice Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question. 1. 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 2. 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 3. 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. created a problem in the real estate industry. 4. 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 5. 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 studied the lifestyle of the wealthy. d. declared one-third of the nation to be poorly paid, poorly educated, and poorly housed. 6. 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 capital 7. 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. 8. 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. 9. 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 expansive. d. Covenants required that new residents be parents or expectant parents. 10. 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 entertain male visitors. c. Only married women had easy, unfettered access to birth control pills. d. The average marriage age increased dramatically during this period. 11. 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 dressed in modest, conservative clothing. c. They came out to all of their friends, neighbors, and family. d. They worked through mainstream organizations such as colleges and churches. 12. 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 for the United States to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. 13. 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 the sororities on U.S. campuses. d. recognition of the contributions American women made to politics. 14. 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. The influx of new Asian immigrants into American cities
15. 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. 16. 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. 17. 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 doubled. c. Between 1946 and 1969, the real income for ordinary Americans rose by 40 percent. d. Over 85 percent of American families owned a television set by 1950. 18. 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 could handle jobs and motherhood. c. The media stressed the importance of women s financial contributions to their families. d. Television preachers stressed that unhappy housewives should repent for their materialistic sins. 19. 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 appliances. c. Nixon and Khrushchev each agreed that the United States and USSR were technological and military equals. d. It settled no greater political purpose, but it revealed the commercialism of the postwar American dream. 20. 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.
21. In the 1950s, most Puerto Rican immigrants settled in a. Chicago. b. New York City. c. Miami. d. Kansas City. 22. 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 their employers. 23. 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 24. 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 restrictive quotas that the United States had enforced since the 1920s. c. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act ended the exclusion of immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. d. Mexican immigration was not permitted in the United States between 1945, when the World War II era Bracero Program ended, and 1964. 25. 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 youthful rebelliousness. 26. 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 27. 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 28. 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. 29. 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 families d. Increased welfare payments to mothers with dependent children 30. 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. Short Answer Answer each question with three or four sentences. 1. What were the most significant migration trends in this era? 2. How did the federal government shape postwar suburbanization?