Courses:

Fall 2006 Final Exam (PDF)

Here are twenty possible identification terms. I will choose ten of them to put on the actual test. They are all based on our readings and lectures. In no particular order:

1. OPEC Embargo
2. Hanford, Washington
3. William J. Levitt
4. The Great Anthracite Strike
5. Peak Oil
6. The Trolley
7. Ibn Saud
8. The Rural Electrification Administration
9. The Keeling Curve
10. William Thompson
11. The Assembly Line
12. "Knowing Nature Through Work"
13. The "Crisis of Confidence Speech"
14. The Red Line Agreement
15. The Gas Refrigerator
16. The Interstate Highway Acts
17. The Pearl Street Station
18. Lowell Mills
19. The "Human Motor"
20. The "All Electric Home"

For each term, in four sentences or less, explain or define it as precisely as you can. Give it a date, include names of relevant figures, provide a specific location, etc. And most importantly of all, be sure to indicate why this term is significant in the history of energy and the environment.

Here's an example:

"Mail Steamships" - Gradually replacing sailing "packet boats" beginning in the 1830s, mail steamers carried newspapers, personal correspondence, and commercial instructions along predetermined ocean routes on fixed schedules, usually every month, every other week, or every week. Mail steamships were first subsidized by the British government, but by 1845, the U.S. government helped fund its own national lines on three routes between New York and Liverpool; New York, Havana, and Chagres; and the Pacific coast of Panama to San Francisco. Unlike the packet boats that depended on the wind, mail steamers required regular supplies of coal that had to be either mined near their ports of call or shipped there in sufficient quantities, a requirement that created the need for a new energy infrastructure in global shipping. Though several lines ultimately failed, the steamers inaugurated the rapid, regular flow of information that were subsequently further accelerated by telegraphs, telephones, aiplanes, and the internet.

In addition, there will be two essay questions. They will both be general, but allow you to incorporate material from throughout the course. As in your take-home essays, they will require an argument - the inclusion of specific facts - names, dates, events - that support a particular point of view.