levo

The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery

  • 16 subtopics
  • 48 things to know
  • Paper 2
  • Paper 2 depth option, chosen from sixteen

What The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery covers

A Paper 2 depth study of the United States from the post-war boom to the eve of the civil rights movement, covering the prosperity and social tensions of the 1920s, the Crash and the Depression, the New Deal and its limits, the transformation brought by the Second World War, and the affluence and anti-communism of the early 1950s.

Where it is assessed

Paper 2

Depth study with sources, one option of sixteen.

Check the Pearson Edexcel specification ↗

The 16 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Process

What drove American prosperity in the 1920s?

Process

What did the first hundred days achieve?

Key term

What was the revived Ku Klux Klan?

Key term

What were the 'alphabet agencies'?

Key term

What was the Wagner Act of 1935?

Key term

What was the Indian Reorganisation Act of 1934?

Who and when

How did the war change women's roles?

Key term

What was Levittown?

Numbers

Who were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg?

Key term

What lay behind American prosperity in the 1920s?

Key term

What caused the Wall Street Crash of 1929?

Who and when

What was overproduction and why did it matter?

Numbers

What was Prohibition?

Key term

What was the 'Jazz Age'?

Key term

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

Numbers

How far did national output fall?

Numbers

What happened to the banks?

Key term

What were Hoovervilles?

Numbers

What did the Smoot-Hawley Tariff do?

Who and when

What did the Social Security Act of 1935 create?

Numbers

Did the New Deal end unemployment?

Key term

What was the effect on the banking and financial system?

Key term

What were the race riots of 1943?

Numbers

What was the Fair Employment Practices Commission?

Who and when

How did the war reshape American industry and population?

Who and when

How did the Second World War affect unemployment?

Key term

What was the GI Bill?

Key term

What was McCarthyism?

Key term

What lay behind the origins of teenage culture?

Key term

What was the significance of the paperback and the LP?

Who and when

What role did the NAACP play?

Key term

What was the Brown v Board of Education ruling of 1954?

Who and when

Which groups did not share in the 1920s boom?

Numbers

What was the bull market of the late 1920s?

Key term

What was the 'Red Scare'?

Key term

Why is the 1920s called the Jazz Age?

Key term

How were workers affected by the Depression?

Key term

How is Hoover's response usually judged?

Who and when

What did Roosevelt promise in 1932?

Key term

Why was a Second New Deal needed?

Key term

How is the New Deal assessed overall?

Key term

What was the 'Double V' campaign?

Who and when

How did the Depression affect family life?

Who and when

How did the war transform American industry?

Numbers

What was the baby boom?

Key term

What was HUAC?

Evaluation

What criticisms were made of 1950s culture?

Numbers

How was Brown implemented?

Take The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Hire purchase vs 'Red Scare'

    Hire purchase: buying goods on credit in instalments, which fuelled a surge in consumer spending. 'Red Scare': Fear of communism after the First World War, leading to the persecution of radicals and immigrants.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What lay behind American prosperity in the 1920s?

    Model answer

    Mass production such as Ford's assembly line, new consumer goods, credit through hire purchase, and laissez-faire government policy.

  2. 2

    What was hire purchase?

    Model answer

    Buying goods on credit in instalments, which fuelled a surge in consumer spending.

  3. 3

    Which groups did not share in the 1920s boom?

    Model answer

    Farmers, black Americans and many unskilled workers.

  4. 4

    What was mass production and who pioneered it?

    Model answer

    The moving assembly line, developed by Ford, which cut the time to build a Model T from twelve hours to about ninety minutes and made cars affordable.

  5. 5

    How did the motor industry drive the wider economy?

    Model answer

    It consumed steel, rubber, glass and oil, generated road building, garages, motels and suburbs, and by 1929 employed directly or indirectly one worker in twelve.

  6. 6

    What new consumer goods spread in the 1920s?

    Model answer

    Radios, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners and telephones, bought increasingly on instalment credit.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

The Crusades, c1095–1204
England, 1509–1603: Authority, Nation and Religion
Britain, 1625–1701: Conflict, Revolution and Settlement
Britain, c1785–c1870: Democracy, Protest and Reform

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

Luis de .
RequesensAlbaGranvelle

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AThe government admitted 96 dead and 333 wounded.
BOther estimates run to several hundred dead.
COpponents claimed thousands.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Robert Aske led the Pilgrimage of Grace.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery revision questions

What does The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery cover in Edexcel A-Level History?
16 subtopics: the economic boom of the 1920s, causes of the crash of 1929, changes in american society in the 1920s, cultural change in the 1920s, the spread of the depression, 1929–32, hoover’s response to the depression, 1929–33, roosevelt and the first new deal, 1933–35, the second new deal, 1935–38, the new deal and the economy, the new deal, the war and ethnic minorities, social and cultural changes, the war and the economy, 1941–45, economic transformation, the end of post-war euphoria, cultural change and the changing status of minorities. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery organised?
By the Edexcel 9HI0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in The USA, c1920–55: Boom, Bust and Recovery, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.