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VICModern HistoryQuick questions
Unit 1: Change and conflict (1918 to 1939)
Quick questions on Challenges of democracy in the 1920s: VCE Modern History Unit 1 Year 11
12short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is britain?Show answer
Postwar Britain faced economic decline. The General Strike (1926) showed labour tensions. The 1929 Wall Street crash hit Britain hard; the 1931 financial crisis saw the Labour government replaced by a National Government.
What is france?Show answer
France was politically unstable but democracy held. Heavy WWI casualties left a defensive foreign policy focused on collective security. Construction of the Maginot Line (begun 1929).
What is roaring Twenties?Show answer
Economic boom: consumer goods (cars, radios, refrigerators), mass production, advertising, credit. Stock market boom.
What is prohibition?Show answer
The 18th Amendment banned alcohol. Created organised crime (Al Capone, Chicago) and widespread non-compliance. Repealed by 21st Amendment.
What is mass culture?Show answer
Hollywood films, radio, jazz, sports celebrities. Cultural Americanisation began influencing Europe.
What is immigration restriction?Show answer
Quota Acts (1921, 1924) sharply restricted immigration, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia.
What is racism?Show answer
Ku Klux Klan revival (1915-1925, peak membership 4 million). Race riots (Tulsa 1921, others). Jim Crow segregation in the South.
What is wall Street Crash?Show answer
Brought the boom to an abrupt end and triggered the Great Depression worldwide.
What is suffrage?Show answer
- USA: 19th Amendment (1920) granted federal vote to women. - Britain: 1918 Representation of the People Act (women over 30 with property); 1928 Equal Franchise Act (all women over 21). - Germany: 1919 (universal suffrage in Weimar Constitution).
What is workforce?Show answer
Wartime employment opened factory, office and service work to women. After the war, many returned to domestic work, but white-collar opportunities (clerical, retail, teaching) expanded.
What is social and cultural change?Show answer
The "flapper" image: bobbed hair, shorter skirts, jazz, public smoking and drinking. Symbolic of new women's roles. Mostly limited to urban middle-class women.
What is marriage and family?Show answer
Birth rates declined. Contraception became more accessible (though still legally restricted in many states). Domestic ideology persisted alongside new opportunities.