Deck 10: Toward an American Culture

Question 1

The spiritualism of the emerging "Bible Belt" developed primarily from what element of southern society?

A) poor whites
B) gentry
C) slaves
D) elderly
E) planter class

Answer 1

poor whites

Question 2

Each of the following was popular among the northern working class in the mid-nineteenth century except

A) cock fighting.
B) prize fighting.
C) dog fighting.
D) opera.
E) minstrel shows.

Answer 2

opera.

Question 3

The first mass-circulation magazine for women was

A) Woman's Day.
B) Good Housekeeping.
C) Godey 's Ladies Book.
D) Family Circle.
E) New Yorker.

Answer 3

Godey 's Ladies Book.

Question 4

The most widely read novelist in the United States before the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin was

A) Nathaniel Hawthorne.
B) Herman Melville.
C) Harriet Beecher Stowe.
D) Susan Warner.
E) Walt Whitman.

Question 5

The first full-blown camp meeting held in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801 did not include

A) Methodists.
B) Baptists.
C) Presbyterians.
D) Lutherans.
E) all of these choices

Question 6

Which of the following was not one of the new religious orders?

A) Mormon
B) Disciples of Christ
C) Seven Day Adventist
D) Methodist
E) none of these choices

Question 7

In regards to slavery, in the late eighteenth century evangelical preachers

A) encouraged its expansion.
B) called for the removal of slaves from the United States.
C) called for the freeing of slaves.
D) generally avoided the subject.
E) justified it through Scripture.

Question 8

After 1830, there was a concerted effort by whites towards slaves to

A) disregard their spirituality.
B) argue blacks had no souls.
C) eliminate black churches.
D) prevent them from hearing sermons about freedom.
E) Christianize them.

Question 9

The religious leader who believed that the Earth would be destroyed in 1844 was

A) Brigham Young.
B) Joseph Smith.
C) William Miller.
D) Mathias.
E) John Noyes.

Question 10

Which of the following would be an accurate description of a nineteenth-century revivalist's message to a northern religious revival?

A) Men and women had no power over their own salvation.
B) Most men and women were destined to everlasting eternal life.
C) Most men and women were damned to eternal hell.
D) The end of the world was nigh.
E) Men and women were moral free agents.

Question 11

The new, northern middle class of the early nineteenth century would best be described as

A) country merchants, master craftsmen, and market-oriented farmers.
B) mill workers, journeymen, and wage-laborers.
C) tenant farmers, day laborers, and outworkers.
D) factory workers and small farmers.
E) plantation owners.

Question 12

All of the following statements regarding newspapers are true except

A) the federal government neither helped nor hindered newspaper sales
B) they were the most widely distributed form of print in the country
C) in New England, only ten percent of households subscribed to a newspaper
D) there were far more newspapers per capita in the United States than in Britain
E) it was common for newspapers to be read aloud in groups

Question 13

The author of Uncle Tom's Cabin was

A) Harriet Beecher Stowe.
B) Lydia Maria Child.
C) Catherine Beecher.
D) Sarah Josepha Hale.
E) Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Question 14

The most popular form of theater among nineteenth-century Americans was

A) Shakespearean dramas.
B) Sir Walter Scott romances.
C) minstrel shows.
D) burlesque shows.
E) opera.

Question 15

During the early nineteenth century, the birthrate among northern middle-class mothers

A) increased.
B) decreased.
C) remained the same.
D) is impossible to determine because few accurate records survive.
E) none of these choices

Question 16

White southerners justified the institution of slavery with each of the following religious arguments except

A) Jesus never criticized slavery.
B) slaves were the descendants of Ham and deserved enslavement.
C) slavery had given African Americans Christianity.
D) the Epistles of Paul urged slaves to obey their masters.
E) slavery was a gift to God.

Question 17

The founder of Mormonism, born in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century, was

A) Brigham Young.
B) William Miller.
C) Mathias.
D) Joseph Smith.
E) Sylvester Graham.

Question 18

By the 1830s, most of the responsibility for child-rearing in northern homes rested with

A) fathers.
B) mothers.
C) the school.
D) the church.
E) the servants.

Question 19

For the most part, the domesticity novels written by women during the mid-nineteenth century were

A) frivolous fairy tales.
B) subversive attacks on the power relations in society.
C) sentimental pastimes of little import.
D) political calls for revolution.
E) stories that supported the power structure.

Question 20

The large revivals in the northern United States most affected the values and beliefs of the

A) working class.
B) middle class.
C) upper class.
D) poverty stricken.
E) African Americans.

Question 21

In post-revolutionary America the most important social and political distinction was based on

A) heads of households and those who were their dependents.
B) race.
C) education.
D) family heritage.
E) gender.

Question 22

After 1830, American national culture

A) did not really exist.
B) was predominantly elitist and Roman Catholic.
C) was defined by expansion, slavery, and a market economy.
D) was heavily influenced by immigration from eastern and southern Europe.
E) included numerous regional, economic, and racial subcultures.

Question 23

The American theater could best be described as

A) quiet and orderly.
B) loud and sometimes violent.
C) egalitarian.
D) an upper class phenomenon.
E) unorganized.

Question 24

The "yellow backed" fiction and penny press publications

A) portrayed a benign world in which good always triumphed over evil.
B) were popular with women readers because of the strong, morally superior female characters in the stories.
C) used graphic violence and sexual perversion to attract customers.
D) were designed to appeal to well-educated, sophisticated, upper-class readers.
E) appealed only to immigrants.

Question 25

Which of the following is true of early boxing matches?

A) Most of the fighters were native-born Americans of German descent.
B) The bare-knuckled fights were so brutal that the participants were sometimes severely injured or killed.
C) There were no rules and "no holds barred" in the contests.
D) The audiences were usually from the middle and upper classes.
E) No one was ever actually hurt.

Question 26

Nineteenth-century minstrel shows

A) were traveling productions in which white men in "black face" imitated African-American songs and dances.
B) were most popular with female audiences.
C) were the first theatrical entertainments to include black performers as regular troupe members.
D) were popular only in the large seaport cities of the Northeast.
E) were popular only in the South.

Question 27

The majority of American's founders were part of which of the following?

A) Deists
B) Baptists
C) Methodists
D) Catholics
E) Congregationalists

Question 28

The popular literature of the 1830s

A) was primarily written by women for women.
B) characterized women as weak, helpless, and fragile.
C) first introduced the male dominated action-adventure story to the public.
D) consisted of newspapers and magazines.
E) was not widely circulated.

Question 29

Evangelicals such as Charles Colcock Jones believed that slaves

A) should not be a part of organized faiths.
B) should be encouraged to rebel.
C) could have significant spiritual worth.
D) needed to be freed in order to be saved.
E) could not be saved.

Question 30

Which of the following were most likely to be postmillennialists?

A) evangelicals
B) Baptists
C) Methodists
D) Disciples of Christ
E) Anglicans

Question 31

In the early nineteenth century, free blacks

A) were only found in free states.
B) were not allowed to own businesses.
C) lived in states that either banned or restricted their right to vote.
D) could only attend white-controlled churches.
E) could not, by law, live in Virginia.

Question 32

The national culture that developed after the 1830s included all of the following elements except

A) republicanism.
B) capitalism.
C) abolitionism.
D) Protestantism.
E) paternalism

Question 33

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) believed that

A) descendants of the ancient Hebrews had been living in the Americas for many generations before Columbus' 1492 voyage.
B) merchants and lawyers were the best spiritual leaders for the church.
C) the church leadership should be equally divided between women and men.
D) angels were mythological pagan fantasies.
E) all races were created equal.

Question 34

Protestant postmillennialists

A) were mostly Southern Baptists and Methodists.
B) believed that the world would be destroyed by fire.
C) believed that there would be a thousand years of perfect social order followed by the return of Christ.
D) predicted the destruction of the world in 1837.
E) hoped to unite all Protestant faiths into one.

Question 35

The American theater in the mid-nineteenth century

A) produced plays and musicals written and performed by American citizens, not by Europeans.
B) was considered a low-class, vulgar form of entertainment.
C) inspired heated class loyalties and debates that sometimes led to violence.
D) was so expensive that only the wealthy could afford to buy tickets.
E) none of these choices

Question 36

During the early nineteenth century, the social distinctions based on gender

A) increased.
B) decreased.
C) stayed the same.
D) show significant change only in New England.
E) show significant change only in the deep South.

Question 37

Southern evangelicalism rested on all of the following beliefs except

A) the desire to change the world.
B) the belief God killed people.
C) that sinful behavior should be punished.
D) the imperfection of humans.
E) the sovereignty of God.

Question 38

Between 1790 and 1820, voting rights

A) increasingly excluded most artisans and laborers.
B) remained strongly tied to property ownership.
C) increased in New England but declined in the South.
D) was never limited to just free white men.
E) became easier and greatly expanded for white men.

Question 39

The 1845 sensationalist novel Quaker City

A) was set in New York City.
B) was banned by courts.
C) idealized the lives of Quakers.
D) portrayed the Christian elite as lustful hypocrites.
E) was considered offensive and failed to sell well.

Question 40

The first state to abolish slavery was which of the following?

A) Georgia
B) Vermont
C) New York
D) Virginia
E) Massachusetts

Question 41

Few people read Uncle Tom's Cabin before the Civil War.

Question 42

When working class American audiences found theater productions too sophisticated for their tastes,

A) they walked out of the theater.
B) they began producing their own plays.
C) they resorted to mob violence.
D) they refused to attend the productions.
E) the theatres were closed.

Question 43

In the early nineteenth century, sentimental novels outsold

A) Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
B) Herman Melville' s Moby Dick.
C) Henry David Thoreau's Walden.
D) Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlett Letter.
E) all of these choices

Question 44

The best-selling author of the antebellum period (before Harriet Beecher Stowe) was Susan Warner.

Question 45

For the most part, religion and the position of pro-slavery advocates were compatible in the South.

Question 46

Most Protestant denominations in America

A) emphasized the importance of a hierarchy of authority in the church.
B) favored local control in their churches.
C) rejected evangelicalism
D) believed that human society was perfectible.
E) taught racial equality.

Question 47

As he grew up, the religious faith of Joseph Smith's family was

A) Catholics.
B) Unitarians.
C) Baptists.
D) Methodists.
E) Lutherans.

Question 48

Minstrel shows included

A) political satire.
B) sexual jokes.
C) ridicule of the elite.
D) racial humor.
E) all of these choices.

Question 49

The novel Quaker City imagined an idealized America built on Quaker beliefs.

Question 50

By 1830, southern clergymen

A) condemned material improvements as being worldly.
B) preached that all moral truth came from the Bible.
C) called for universal Christian love.
D) could rightly be called adherents of Thomas Jefferson.
E) lashed out at human relations based on dominance and submission.

Question 51

The Presbyterian minister, Charles Colcock Jones, taught that slaves must stand up to immoral masters.

Question 52

Most southern clergy endorsed relationships based on dominance and submission.

Question 53

The literacy rate in preindustrial America was among the highest ever recorded.

Question 54

The middle class was a product of

A) industrialization and a market economy.
B) a strong agrarian society.
C) a religious revival.
D) strong attachments to ideas of honor and the family.
E) all of these choices

Question 55

In the south, evangelicals

A) challenged the social hierarchy.
B) held that social roles were made by God.
C) criticized the patriarchal family.
D) claimed the social hierarchy was in need of constant change.
E) all of these choices

Question 56

With the rise of middle class culture, child rearing practices changed in that

A) servants assumed the primary responsibilities for teaching morals and faith.
B) children were strictly raised with fear and punishment.
C) children received more attention from their mothers.
D) older children were expected to be the primary caregivers of younger children.
E) fathers played a greater role than previous generations in the raising of children.

Question 57

The "plain people" of the North all shared similar characteristics

A) were culturally conservative.
B) included urban wage laborers.
C) embraced reformist religion.
D) rejected the father-centered family.

Question 58

By 1830, American society was essentially republican, capitalist, and Protestant.

Question 59

Millerites were a religious group that believed the world would end in the year following March 1843.

Question 60

The spread of newspapers was financially assisted by the federal government.

Question 61

Immigrants did not participate in prize fighting.

Question 62

White southerners suggested slave owners treat slaves as "dear brethren in Christ," instead of freeing them.

Question 63

The Baptist millenarian William Miller condemned greed and the city of New York.

Question 64

Audience participation was discouraged at minstrel shows.

Question 65

In 1835, most Americans had access to newspapers.

Question 66

By 1830, slavery was nonexistent in the North.

Question 67

Universal suffrage was truly universal.

Question 68

The first full-blown camp meeting took place in Georgia in 1808.

Question 69

Joseph Smith set himself up as the first patriarch of the Mormon Church.

Question 70

Modern notions of racism emerged in the early nineteenth century.

Question 71

Prior to the 1860s, it would be unthinkable for an American novelist to write about explicit sexuality.

Question 72

An 1849 dispute over the acting styles of two Shakespearians led to a riot in which twenty people were killed.

Question 73

Before 1845, it was rare for a woman to author a book of any significant commercial success.

Question 74

Southern white men tended to distrust early evangelicals.

Question 75

Northern plain folk rejected middle-class optimism and reformism.

Question 76

Southern evangelicals moved from calling for an end to slavery to strongly supporting it.

Question 77

Newspapers were written mainly for women.

Question 78

Southern camp meetings were usually limited to a single denomination.

Question 79

Baptists and Methodists both relied on an appeal to localism for their successful growth.

Question 80

Newspapers encouraged both democracy and individualism.