After World War II

Abstract

Study Questions 1. Why didn’t the US sink back into the Great Depression once the war was over? 2. How did the end of the war affect American workers? 3. What was the goal of Harry Truman’s Fair Deal? 4. Why did most of the Fair Deal fail to pass the Congress? 5. What was in the Taft-Hartley Act, and why did labor unions—and President Truman—oppose it so vociferously? 6. What circumstances led to the creation of the short-lived Dixiecrat Party? 7. The smart money was betting that Harry Truman would lose the 1948 election. What conditions led to this assumption? 8. How did Truman manage to win the 1948 election, despite the odds? 9. How successful was Truman’s second term? Why? 10. Why did a second Red Scare begin after World War II? 11. Why was the Hiss case an important development in this Red Scare? 12. Why were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed? What effect did their case have on the beliefs of Americans? 13. Who is Joseph McCarthy, and why did he become enormously powerful in the early 1950s? 14. Why were Republicans so quick to rally around McCarthy? 15. What factors explain McCarthy’s fall from grace?