1890 - 1945

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

An increasingly pluralistic United States faced profound domestic and global challenges, debated the proper degree of government activism, and sought to define its international role.

Key Concepts

  • Growth expanded opportunity, while economic instability led to new efforts to reform U.S. society and its economic system.
  • Innovations in communications and technology contributed to the growth of mass culture, while significant changes occurred in internal and international migration patterns.
  • Participation in a series of global conflicts propelled the United States into a position of international power while renewing domestic debates over the nation’s proper role in the world.


  1. Was American foreign policy during the 1920s isolationist or internationalist?
  2. Was the decade of the 1920s a decade of innovation or conservatism?
  3. Did the Nineteenth Amendment radically change women’s role in American life?
  4. Did women experience significant liberation during the 1920s? Or: Did the role of women in American life significantly change during the 1920s?
  5. Should the United States limit immigration?
  6. Should the United States have enacted the Prohibition Amendment?
  7. Does economic prosperity result from tax cuts and minimal government?
  8. Was the Great Depression inevitable?
  9. Was the New Deal an effective response to the depression?
  10. Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal weaken or save capitalism?
  11. Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal undermine the constitutional principles of separation of powers and checks and balances?
  12. Did minorities receive a New Deal in the 1930s?
  13. Do labor unions and working people owe a debt to the New Deal?
  14. Did the New Deal effectively end the Great Depression and restore prosperity?
  15. Has the United States abandoned the legacy of the New Deal?
  16. Did United States foreign policy during the 1930s help promote World War II? Or: Could the United States have prevented the outbreak of World War II?
  17. Should the United States sell arms to other nations? Or: Should the United States have aided the Allies against the Axis powers? Or: Does American security depend upon the survival of its allies?
  18. Was war between the United States and Japan inevitable?
  19. How important was the home front in the United States’ victory in World War II?
  20. Was the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II justified or an unfortunate setback for democracy?
  21. Should the US employ atomic (nuclear) weapons to defeat its enemies in war? (President Truman’s decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan)
  22. Could the United States have done more to prevent the Holocaust?
  23. Was World War II a “good war?” Or: Was World War II justified by its results?