1. During World War I, New York City audiences (if they knew the language of the performance) could attend patriotic musicals with titles like ____ War Brides and ____ Martyrs of America. What ethnic group fills in the blanks?

a. Jewish

From the late 1880s to around 1940, Yiddish-language theatre found a home in New York City—as did the wave of Jewish immigrants who brought the performance form to the U.S. Fleeing persecution in Russia, these immigrants, whether they chose to be performing artists or audience members, developed a unique theatre culture. Unlike the short variety acts of contemporary vaudeville, Yiddish theatre presented full-evening-length plays, accompanied by music or broken up with song-and-dance numbers. Plays adapted popular works by authors like Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov, drew from folklore and folk customs, and/or commented on recent events in the U.S. and abroad. Some addressed issues of assimilation, such as intermarriage and generational gaps, while others praised the virtues of the immigrants' adopted country—as did the musicals mentioned above.

2. In 1852, a 42-member opera troupe arrived in the U.S. After giving successful performances to immigrants from its country of origin, it traveled to New York City, where non-immigrants panned its performances. Where did the troupe come from?

d. China

In 1852, the Tong Hook Tong Dramatic Company arrived in California, following the stream of Chinese immigrants who had come to the state with the 1848 gold rush. Greeted warmly by immigrant audiences, they accepted a contract to perform in New York City. In New York, they discovered the contract was a scam, and secured their own theatre space, performing for New Yorkers independently. Chinese opera bears little resemblance to European opera, and even less to the "Oriental" image of China then popular on the mainstream stage. Confused by what they were seeing, New Yorkers rejected genuine Chinese theatre that did not match up with contemporary media stereotypes.

3. In the 1960s and 1970s, a grassroots theatre movement, beginning in efforts to educate migrant farmers and encourage them to form unions, took off, spreading across the United States. Which minority group did this movement represent?

c. Chicanos

In 1965, Luis Valdez, the son of Chicano migrant farm workers, founded the theatrical company El Teatro Campesino. El Teatro Campesino took theatrical performances—often without props, sets, or written scripts—directly to the camps of migrant farm workers. In its performances, the company sought to inspire farm workers to form a farm workers' union, but it also performed pieces based on Mexican popular theatre: corridas (dramatized ballads), peladitos (comic skits with an underdog protagonist), and religious pageants.

El Teatro Campesino's success led to the growth of a national Chicano theatre movement, which peaked in the 1970s.

4. In the late 1910s and the 1920s, record companies including Okeh, Paramount, Vocalion, and Columbia began releasing records by performers from which minority group?

c. African Americans

Prior to the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when African Americans came north in search of a better life, major record companies released African American music, but only as performed by white performers. Sensing the potential for a new market, the companies began to record African American performers and release their music on special labels targeted at African American audiences. Called "race records," these records were later marketed to white audiences as well. African Americans also established their own companies to distribute records—the first African American owned label, Black Swan, was established in 1921. Many styles of music associated with race records would later be recategorized as "rhythm and blues."

1. The advertising executive who planned the first candidate television ad campaign had previously created the Coca-Cola "Passport to refreshment" campaign.

False. Advertising executive Rosser Reeves had previously created the "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" campaign for M&Ms. The campaign he planned for Eisenhower—20-second spots designed to run before or after popular television shows like I Love Lucy—featured "normal Joe" citizens asking Eisenhower questions about taxes, foreign policy, and other issues. Eisenhower answered in a brief, blunt, homey fashion, with the format giving the campaign its name: "Eisenhower Answers America." Prior to this campaign, presidential candidates had brushed off the potential of television advertising; following it, ads became an accepted and increasingly central aspect of campaigning.

2. In 1960, John F. Kennedy's television ad campaign included non-English-language advertisements.

True. JFK's 1960 campaign for the presidency, run by two different advertising agencies, included a multitude of television advertisements and a dizzying array of techniques and appeals. Several of the ads spoke out to specific demographics—including a spot in which Jackie Kennedy, speaking in uneven Spanish, assured voters that, in the face of the danger of communism, "Mi esposo siempre vigilará los intereses de todos los sectores de nuestra sociedad que necesitan la protección de un gobierno humanitario" (or, "My husband will always watch over the interests of all sectors of our society who are in need of the protection of a humanitarian government"). Other ads spoke to the African American community, assuring the public that Kennedy's Catholicism would not compromise his presidential duties.

3. As the Vietnam War continued despite his promises to end it, Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential ad campaign depicted him as stern and focused entirely on withdrawing troops from Vietnam.

False. Nixon's 1972 campaign for reelection cast him as a man of "compassion, courage, and conscience," concerned about many issues, including environmentalism and international diplomacy, as well as withdrawing from Vietnam. President Nixon, one ad declared, was willing to press for change, because "without change there can be no progress." The ads crafted the argument that Nixon, far from being cold and unapproachable, was personable and personally interested in a global push for peace and wellbeing nationally and internationally. Nixon won the campaign against South Dakota Senator George McGovern by a landslide.

4. A 1984 ad for Ronald Reagan's reelection used the threat of a bear in the woods to suggest the need for better gun control laws.

False. Though most of Ronald Reagan's ads stressed the economic wellbeing of the U.S., using montages of small-town Americans engaged in rituals such as weddings and buying new homes, one stuck out. The unusual ad showed a bear lurking in the woods; the accompanying narration suggested that the bear might or might not exist and might or might not be dangerous, but "since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear?" Though the ad never explicitly states what the bear stands for, the advertisement's creators intended it to symbolize the Soviet Union. The ad's watchers, however, took it as commenting on any number of issues, including gun control and the need for change in environmental laws. Despite its ambiguity, the ad gained attention and later served as inspiration for an ad in George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.