Chapter Twenty Nine: Affluence and Anxiety, 1945-1960

Practice Quiz:

1. All of the following statements about life in the suburbs is true EXCEPT
a. The flight to the suburbs was most significant social trend in postwar America
b. Critics disliked the conformity and uniformity of suburban life.
c. Suburban life depended on the automobile.
d. Children raised in the suburbs had almost daily contact with their grandparents.

2. The term “baby boom” refers to a significant increase in
a. the infant survival rate in America
b. the American birth rate
c. the amount of money spent on babies
d. the popularity of adopting children

3. What section of the nation benefited the most from the economic boom of the 1950s?
a. The inner cities.
b. The Great Lakes region
c. New England
d. the Sunbelt states

4. What change in labor practice came about in the postwar era?
a. Most people started getting less than two weeks of vacation each year.
b. Most people started working less than 40 hours each week.
c. Most people started working on Saturdays until noon.
d. Most people sent their teenagers to work for more disposable income.

5. What was Dr. Benjamin Spock’s 1946 bestselling book about?
a. infant and child care
b. space exploration
c. dating and marriage
d. Cold War politics

6. How did the drive-in culture of the 1950s change the way America shopped?
a. People shopped less often because traffic became a problem
b. Consumers began driving across state lines to avoid sales taxes
c. Delivery services replaced shopping excursions
d. Shopping centers and malls were built all over the country

7. People’s attitude toward organized religion in the 1950s was
a. incredibly positive and religious affiliation boomed
b. negative and churches lost large numbers of members
c. that it was not as important in their lives as in the lives of previous generations
d. that it was something they simply did not have time for as life became more hectic

8. What was the dominant social theme of 1950s America?
a. individualism
b. free love
c. political activism
d. consumerism

9. The “beats” were
a. jazz musicians who experimented with folk music.
b. a group of talented screenplay writers in the early days of television.
c. writers and poets who rebelled against materialistic 1950s values.
d. a motorcycle gang whose members included Jack Kerouac and James Dean.

10. By 1960, the most racially integrated institution in American society was the
a. public high school system
b. private university system
c. Protestant churches
d. armed forces

11. The Truman administration failed to pass any civil rights legislation because
a. Truman himself secretly worked to defeat its passage
b. most people said the civil rights movement was a communist plot
c. controversial social change during the Cold War could be divisive and dangerous
d. southern politicians managed to block the legislation

12. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation
a. could not be banned as long as local voters supported it
b. violated the 14th Amendment by creating feelings of inferiority and inequality
c. was necessary in order to foster a strong sense of racial identity among students
d. was protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution

13. How did the Deep South respond to court-ordered desegregation?
a. with violence and threats to once again secede from the Union
b. by taking swift action to end discrimination in schools
c. with apathy and passive acceptance
d. with massive and widespread resistance

14. Why did Eisenhower send 1,000 paratroopers to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957?
a. to ensure that black students could attend a desegregated school
b. to quell a violent race riot resulting from the desegregation of the military
c. to investigate a planned terrorist attack from the Soviet Union
d. to protect a top secret chemical weapon on its way to Washington, DC

15. Martin Luther King, Jr. founded the ____________ to obtain civil rights for African Americans.
a. Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
b. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
c. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
d. Southern Christian Leadership Conference

16. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy advocated
a. immigration to Africa rather than trying to gain rights in the United States.
b. acceptance of discrimination until the courts could act properly.
c. nonviolent, passive resistance to unjust laws.
d. the use of violence to get the nation’s attention for his cause.