(A) One-Sentence Identifications: Briefly state the importance of each of the following people/places/things/concepts for American economic history (40 pts):
Henry Ford; Crash of 1929; New Deal; Bretton Woods; Gold Standard; General Motors; Jim Crow; National Industrial Recovery Act; National Labor Relations Act; Civil Rights Act of 1964; Plessy v. Ferguson; John Maynard Keynes; Milton Friedman; Mass Production; World War II; Federal Reserve; Morrill Land Grant Colleges; Gilded Age; Wage Discrimination; Sharecropping.
(B) One-Paragraph Discussions: Write one paragraph (three to six sentences) answering each of the following questions (40 pts):
- How was America different from other more-or-less equally developed countries in sending its children to high school in the first half of the twentieth century?
- What role did the stock market crash of 1929 play in bringing on the Great Depression of 1929-1941?
- Why did the distribution of income among white male Americans become so much more equal between the 1920s and the 1960s?
- Chicago-school economists tend to argue that large-scale persistent discrimination has small economic effects unless it is supported and enforced by the government. Do you think this is accurate?
- What role did the United States play in putting western Europe on the right economic track (or a right economic track) in the years after World War II?
(C) Essay: Write an essay on one of the two following topics (40 pts):
What, in your view, are the similarities and differences in economic discrimination against women and against African-Americans since 1865? To what extent is it helpful and insightful to view these two phenomena as analogous? To what extent is it misleading and destructive?
The Great Depression and the political reaction to it changed the American economy. How did these change the American economy? To what extent were the changes permanent?
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