HIST 1200-01 SP 2025 Final Exam Study Guide

Exam Overview

• The final exam focuses on the second half of the course, from the Great Depression to the 2010s, but includes some material from the first half, especially repeated questions from quizzes and the midterm.

• The objective section of the midterm and all four quizzes are available on Canvas with correct answers.

• The exam will consist of three sections:

  • Objective section (24 points): Multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, some repeated from quizzes.

  • Timeline section (6 points): Matching six historical events with their dates; a list of dates will be provided.

  • Essay section (30 points): To be written in a blue book.

• There will be a brief extra-credit section with questions about guest lectures and primary sources.

Essay Format and Strategies

• The essay should explain the answer to the prompt, with specific examples and historical context.

• Use dates when possible, and place events in chronological order.

• Major themes include:

  • Major economic trends: stock market crash, Great Depression, New Deal recovery, WWII recovery, postwar growth, energy crisis, stagflation, deindustrialization, 1990s boom, housing bubble, 2007-2008 financial crisis, and Great Recession.

  • Changes in the U.S. political landscape: shifts in Democratic and Republican party support; policies on the New Deal, Cold War, Great Society, etc.

  • Changes in the role of the federal government: expansion of the welfare state, federal spending during WWII, the “Reagan Revolution,” the War on Drugs, post-9/11 expansion of law enforcement, and the ACA.

  • The struggle over racial equality: race and the New Deal, racial tensions during WWII (Zoot Suit Riots, Japanese internment), civil rights efforts, segregationist resistance, the classic civil rights era (Brown v. Board, civil rights laws of 1964-1965), de facto segregation, and unequal impacts of policies like the War on Drugs.

  • Social movements: second-wave feminism, gay rights, the Chicano Movement, the American Indian Movement, the 1960s counterculture, and conservative/religious right backlash.

  • Immigration: strict controls under the Reed-Johnson bill, the Bracero Program, changes under the 1965 Hart-Cellar bill, and the 1986 IRCA.

  • U.S. engagement with the rest of the world: America First opposition, U.S. entry into WWII, the Cold War, the Gulf War, 9/11, and the War on Terror.

  • The Cold War: containment strategy, McCarthyism, proxy wars, Sputnik, the Cuban Missile Crisis, opposition to the Vietnam War, détente, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Great Depression through WWII (Weeks 8-10)

People

• Herbert Hoover: U.S. president, 1929-1933.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR): U.S. president, 1933-1944.

• Harry S. Truman: U.S. president, 1944-1953.

• Critics of the New Deal: Huey Long, Charles Coughlin, and Francis Townsend.

• Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady, 1933-1944, and liberal activist.

• Frances Perkins: Secretary of Labor, 1933-1945; first woman in a presidential cabinet.

• Axis leaders: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; Soviet leader: Josef Stalin.

• Charles Lindbergh: Leader of the “America First” movement.

• A. Philip Randolph: Labor leader and civil rights activist.

Organizations

• Bonus Army: WWI veterans marched on Washington, DC in 1932 for early payment of bonuses; symbolized desperation during the Great Depression.

• The CIO: Labor federation that competed with the AFL and pioneered the “sit-down strike.”

• Manhattan Project: U.S. military program (1942-1945) to develop the atomic bomb.

• “Alphabet soup” New Deal agencies: NRA, PWA, CCC, TVA, AAA, and WPA.

Laws, Court Cases, and Executive Orders

• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930): Taxed imported goods, worsening the Depression.

• Scottsboro Boys trial (begins 1931): Highlighted racial injustice in the South.

• Emergency Banking Act (1933): Gave FDR authority to intervene in the financial sector.

• Social Security Act (1935): Aid to retired people and other groups in need of welfare support.

• Wagner Act (1935): Supported labor unions.

• “Court packing”: FDR’s 1937 proposal to expand the Supreme Court to support the New Deal.

• Executive Order 8802: Banned racial discrimination in the defense industry (June 1941).

• Executive Order 9066: Japanese internment (starts 1942).

Concepts

• Uneven prosperity during the 1920s: Disparities between wealthy urban and poor rural Americans.

• Great Depression: Economic collapse starting in 1929.

• Bank run: Depositors withdraw money simultaneously, risking bank collapse.

• “Hoovervilles”: Camps of the unemployed and unhoused.

• New Deal coalition: Political coalition assembled by FDR.

• First New Deal / “Hundred Days” vs. Second New Deal

  • First New Deal: Focused on stopping the financial crisis with programs like NRA, PWA, CCC, TVA, and AAA.

  • Second New Deal: Included Social Security Act, Wagner Act, and WPA.

• The “Great Migration”: African Americans moving from the rural South to industrial cities.

• Redlining: HOLC practice that denied government support to African American, Hispanic, and immigrant neighborhoods.

• Segregation: Most African American troops kept in segregated military units during WWII.

• Bracero Program: U.S. government program allowing Mexican workers into the U.S. temporarily, starting in 1942.

• Zoot Suit Riots (1943): Riots targeting young Mexican American men.

• Japanese internment (1942-45): Forced relocation of Japanese Americans.

• “Rosie the Riveter”: Symbolized women working in defense industries during WWII.

• Massive U.S. industrial mobilization during WWII: Ended the Great Depression and built a large defense industry.

• U.S. reliance on technology and industrial power in WWII:

U.S. domestic history timeline

• 1929: Stock market crash and beginning of the Great Depression.

• 1929-33: Bank runs.

• 1930: Smoot-Hawley Tariff.

• 1931: Scottsboro Boys trial begins.

• 1932: FDR defeats Herbert Hoover.

• 1933: Prohibition ends.

• 1933: FDR declares a “bank holiday” and stabilizes the financial industry with the Emergency Banking Act.

• 1933-34: “First New Deal”.

• 1935-36: “Second New Deal”.

• 1937: FDR proposes “court packing” plan.

• 1941: U.S. enters WWII; government spending ends the Great Depression.

• 1942: Bracero Program begins.

• 1943: Zoot Suit Riots.

• 1945: FDR dies and is succeeded by Harry Truman.

WWII overseas timeline

• 1922: Benito Mussolini seizes power in Italy.

• 1931: Japan invades Manchuria (NE China).

• 1933: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seize power in Germany.

• 1939: WWII begins in Europe.

• 1940: Germany defeats France.

• 1941 (March): Lend-Lease begins.

• 1941 (June): Nazi Germany invades the USSR.

• 1941 (December): Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters WWII.

• 1944 (June): U.S. and other Allied troops invade northern France in the D-Day landings.

• August 1945: atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

• 1945: WWII ends with the defeat of the Axis Powers.

Postwar America through the 1970s (Weeks 11-13)

Presidents

• Harry S. Truman: U.S. president, 1944-1953

• Dwight D. Eisenhower: U.S. president, 1953-1961

• John F. Kennedy: U.S. president, 1961-1963

• Lyndon B. Johnson: U.S. president, 1963-1969

• Richard Nixon: U.S. president, 1969-1974

Other individuals

• Joseph McCarthy: Wisconsin senator who stoked fears of communist infiltration in the United States, c. 1950-54.

• J. Edgar Hoover: Director of the FBI from 1935 to 1972.

• Earl Warren: Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953-1969.

• Rosa Parks: Black civil rights activist who refused to relinquish her bus seat and inspired the Montgomery, AL bus boycott of 1955-1956.

• Martin Luther King, Jr: Most prominent civil rights leader of the 1950s-1960s.

• Malcolm X: Civil rights activist, more radical than MLK, affiliated with the Nation of Islam until 1964.

• Cesar Chavez: Leader of the United Farm Workers (UFW).

• Betty Friedan: Feminist activist and author of The Feminine Mystique (1963).

• Rachel Carson: Scientist and writer; author of Silent Spring (1962)

Laws, court cases, and executive orders

• GI Bill (1944): Helps military veterans get a college education and a mortgage

• Employment Act (1946), creating the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA)

• Mendez v. Westminster (1947), desegregation of schools in Southern California

• Brown v. Board (1954) overturns the old Plessy “separate but equal” doctrine

• National Defense Education Act (1958), expanding government support for public education and research universities

• A cluster of major civil rights laws of the mid-1960s, including the Civil Rights Act (1964), 24th Amendment (1964), and Voting Rights Act (1965)

• 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Cellar): eliminates national quotas

• The “Great Society” reforms of the LBJ presidency (mid-1960s), including Medicare and Medicaid, the “War on Poverty”

• Warren Court decisions (mid-1950s to late 1960s)

  • Brown v. Board (1954) on school desegregation

  • New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) on press freedom from defamation suits by public officials

  • Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) on the right to legal birth control

  • Miranda v. Arizona (1966) on the rights of criminal suspects (“Miranda rights” – “you have the right to remain silent,” etc.)

  • Loving v. Virginia (1967) legalizing interracial marriage

  • Roe v. Wade (1973) on the right to abortion.

Domestic events

• Truman desegregates the military (1948)

• The States’ Rights Democrats (nicknamed “Dixiecrats”) break away from the Democratic Party (1948)

• Eisenhower’s presidency (1953-1961) marks a break with two decades of Democratic control of the White House (1933-1953)

• Government policies encourage the growth of suburbs

• Eisenhower oversees a Cold War military buildup

• JFK is the first Catholic to be elected president (1960)

• JFK is assassinated, and his vice president LBJ takes his place (1963)

• LBJ implements his domestic reform program, the “Great Society” (mid-1960s)

• The civil rights movement challenges Jim Crow

• The Black Power movement breaks with the relatively moderate approach of MLK

• The “counterculture” challenges traditional values about sexuality, drug use, ways of dressing, etc.

• Other social movements

  • Chicano (Mexican-American) Movement

  • American Indian Movement (overlapping with the “Red Power” movement)

  • Second-wave feminism

  • The gay pride movement (especially after Stonewall in 1969)

  • The modern environmental movement (especially after the first Earth Day in 1970)

• Kent State shootings (1970)

• The Pentagon Papers (1971)

• The Watergate scandal forces Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency (1974)

Overseas events

• The United States and the Soviet Union enter into a rivalry known as the Cold War, beginning soon after WWII ends in 1945

• Winston Churchill declares that an “iron curtain” has fallen across Europe (1946)

• Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1949)

• The Korean War (1950-1953)

• The Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first artificial satellite (1957)

• The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

• The Tonkin Gulf Incident and Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964)

• Vietnam War

The 1970s to the 2000s (Weeks 14-15)

Presidents

• Gerald Ford: U.S. president, 1974-1977

• Jimmy Carter: U.S. president, 1977-1981

• Ronald Reagan: U.S. president, 1981-1989

• George H.W. Bush: U.S. president, 1989-1993

• Bill Clinton: U.S. president, 1993-2001

• George W. Bush: U.S. president, 2001-2009

• Barack Obama: U.S. president, 2009-2017

• Donald Trump: U.S. president, 2017-2021 and 2025-present

• Joe Biden: U.S. president, 2021-2025

Domestic events

• Watergate scandal (1972-1974)

• General decline in American trust in the government and other top institutions

  • The Vietnam War

  • CIA and FBI misdeeds during the Cold War

  • Watergate

• Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s

• Arab oil embargo (1973-1974)

• Stagflation

• Deindustrialization

• Rising economic inequality after the 1970s

• Reagan’s 1980 defeat of Jimmy Carter

• Reagan’s policies

• The “War on Drugs”

• The HIV/AIDS epidemic

• The fracturing of the media landscape

• The election of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992

• Economic boom in the 1990s

• Climate change

• Monica Lewinski scandal

• George W. Bush is elected president after the disputed 2000 election

• 9/11 attacks on NYC and Washington, DC

• The Bush administration strengthens the law enforcement powers of the federal government

• Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans (2005)

• Housing price bubble pops, causing the 2007-2008 financial crisis and triggering the Great Recession

• Barack Obama is elected in 2008 after Bush and the Republicans suffer a huge loss in popularity

Overseas events

• The United States pursues “détente” toward the USSR and China

• U.S. support for Israel provokes the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo

• The 1979 Iranian Revolution

• The end of the Cold War

• Tiananmen Square massacre (1989)

• The Gulf War (1990-1991)

• The Rio de Janeiro (1992), Kyoto (1997), and Paris (2015) agreements are designed to organize an international response to climate change

• The United States invades Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) after the 9/11 attacks

• The Bush administration declares a broader “War on Terror”

• The United States detains and sometimes tortures suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba

• The United States withdraws its troops from Iraq in 2011