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AP U.S. History Exam 2.49 170 Views
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Description:
AP U.S. History Exam 2.49. Why would many Americans have felt "contentment amidst prosperity" at the time the Port Huron Statement was written?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:04
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Port Huron,
- 00:07
a great port for a great lake.
- 00:13
All right, give this excerpt a read. Right here.
- 00:15
[ mumbles ]
Full Transcript
- 00:20
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:27
All right, and the question:
- 00:29
Why would many Americans have felt "contentment amidst prosperity"
- 00:33
at the time the Port Huron statement was written?
- 00:36
And here are the potential answers.
- 00:37
[ mumbles ]
- 00:41
All right, well, even though America heaved a huge sigh of relief
- 00:44
following World War II, groups like the Students for a Democratic Society
- 00:49
were yearning to search for "truly democratic alternatives to the present,"
- 00:52
and "a commitment to social experimentation with them."
- 00:56
Let's see which answer best describes why many of
- 00:58
the SDS's peers were perfectly happy being... happy. Heh.
- 01:03
Would many Americans have felt contentment amist prosperity
- 01:06
at the time of the Port Huron statement because of A -
- 01:09
periods of detente in the Cold War?
- 01:11
Well, while detente certainly made people feel warm and fuzzy,
- 01:14
the Cold War was just heating up in 1962.
- 01:17
So we're a little early for a cooling period.
- 01:19
Could these feelings of contentment have arisen from B -
- 01:22
recent gains of the Civil Rights Movement?
- 01:24
Well, the Civil Rights Movement might have done a lot of good for the country,
- 01:27
but it wasn't a time of contentment.
- 01:29
It was a time to point out all kinds of societal unfairness.
- 01:34
Was this contentment amidst prosperity a result of D -
- 01:37
promotion of values by the growing Conservative movement?
- 01:41
Well, while the Conservative movement was growing at this time,
- 01:43
it didn't start dictating America's moral barometer until the 1980s.
- 01:47
Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
- 01:48
So if D is off the table, that means many Americans felt
- 01:51
contentment amidst prosperity because of C -
- 01:53
postwar economic growth and upward social mobility.
- 01:57
After World War II, the imminent threat of the Axis Powers
- 02:00
was removed and the economy was doing better than ever,
- 02:04
giving rise to a perfectly content, nothing-to-fear, middle class.
- 02:07
So the answer is C.
- 02:09
With the Port Huron statement, the SDS wanted to show America
- 02:12
that even in this prosperous time, the rising economic tide
- 02:16
was not lifting every boat.
- 02:18
[ ding ]
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