Deck 18: The New South and the Trans-Mississippi West 1870-1914

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the story of the "Exodusters"to make the point that

A) religious imagery was important in the lonely lives of rural folk in the late nineteenth century.
B) hopes for the future in the South and West confronted realities of "colonial" economies built on exploited lands and peoples.
C) while the South suffered from floods and worn-out soil, westerners suffered from locust infestations and the Dust Bowl.
D) both the South and the Midwest lost population as blacks and whites alike joined the "Boomer" land rushes in the far West.

Answer 1

hopes for the future in the South and West confronted realities of "colonial" economies built on exploited lands and peoples.

Question 2

Dreams of a "New South"centered on a vision for

A) industrial development.
B) racial harmony.
C) recovering the virtues of antebellum southern culture.
D) political reform to break the power of conservative elites.

Answer 2

industrial development.

Question 3

What does the text mean by the phrase "the Southern burden"?

A) a paralyzing thirst for revenge for the Civil War defeat
B) white guilt about slavery
C) an awkward system of low-paid labor
D) a characteristic speech pattern that northerners regarded as backward

Answer 3

an awkward system of low-paid labor

Question 4

What is NOT true about the post-Civil War southern economy?

A) The South's economy was poor, decentralized, and isolated.
B) Cotton remained the dominant southern product, despite falling prices.
C) Despite dreams of a "New South," industry never took hold in the South before 1900.
D) A capital shortage made tenant farms the prevailing pattern in southern agriculture.

Question 5

"Sharecropping"means

A) returning a fraction of the harvest to the landowner as rent.
B) planting two separate crops (e.g., cotton and beans) in the same field.
C) borrowing against a future crop in order to obtain seed.
D) organizing a farm as a corporation to gain tax advantages.

Question 6

Most new textile workers in the South were

A) young, single, African American males.
B) young women.
C) poor and white.
D) middle-class whites.

Question 7

What is the best explanation for how tenancy became widespread in the South?

A) Southern farmers preferred not to own land.
B) Blacks generally refused to leave the localities where they had lived all their lives.
C) A shortage of cash and credit made land ownership difficult.
D) It made cattle ranching more practical.

Question 8

Which of the following were among developing industries in the New South?

A) alcohol production
B) agriculture
C) steel mills
D) oil refining

Question 9

What new industries in the South typified the realities of post-Civil War economic life?

A) tobacco and textiles
B) lumber and steel
C) milling and meatpacking
D) mining and ranching

Question 10

Wages in southern industries remained low because

A) of the historic low wage pattern in agriculture.
B) unions had no success in organizing key industries.
C) of the close relationship between mill owners and workers.
D) extremely low wage scales for black workers offset the decent wages whites earned.

Question 11

The combination of a change in American taste, a technological breakthrough, and the accelerated development of a classic southern product gave the South one of its few opportunities to control a national market. What was the item?

A) fine hardwood furniture
B) beef
C) whiskey
D) cigarettes

Question 12

Which of the following explains the South's persistent poverty?

A) a poor educational system, fostering a slave work force
B) an isolated and high-paid labor pool
C) an absence of capital, allowing northern investors to exploit southern resources
D) the fact that the South lagged so far behind the North in industrializing

Question 13

At the center of southern life was

A) slavery.
B) the small town.
C) the saloon.
D) the church.

Question 14

The text makes the point that southern rural folk sought stability and social order in

A) hunting.
B) drinking.
C) religion.
D) reform politics.

Question 15

To what does the term "Jim Crow"refer?

A) a process by which freed slaves established new communities in Kansas
B) a Supreme Court case that declared that legalized segregation was constitutional
C) a system of legalized separation of blacks as socially inferior
D) a technique used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate rural African Americans in the South so they would not try to vote

Question 16

Who were the Redeemers?

A) northern reformers who took over southern governments during Reconstruction
B) moderate border-state Republicans
C) white Democrats vowing to end Republican rule
D) nonpartisan advocates of equal rights for freedmen

Question 17

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

A) extended protection to blacks under the Fifteenth Amendment.
B) established the concept of "separate but equal."
C) banned discrimination from interstate commerce.
D) upheld legislation curbing the power of monopolies.

Question 18

What was the significance of the 98^th meridian?

A) The Census Bureau considered it the beginning of the frontier.
B) It marks a boundary within the plains where the area of scarce rainfall begins.
C) It delineates the eastern boundary of the area originally designated for Indian reservations.
D) Slavery had not existed beyond that line.

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT true about the environment in the West?

A) Wood is scarce in most areas outside the Pacific Northwest.
B) Water is scarce in most areas except the Pacific Coast.
C) The Great Plains were for many millennia home to horses and bison, and to Indians who hunted bison on horseback.
D) The Great Plains were largely grasslands, requiring heavy investment before a profitable farm could be created.

Question 20

The Great Plains and mountain frontier comprised a complex web of cultures and environments in which Spanish, Anglo-American, and Indian cultures penetrated one another and often produced swift change. An excellent example of this change was

A) the voluntary adoption of the Catholic faith by Native Americans.
B) the use of buffalo robe camouflage by Anglo hunters.
C) western settlers using Indian trails to find their way across the "trackless wilderness" of the western Great Plains.
D) the shift from village-centered agriculture to nomadic hunter by the Plains Indians.

Question 21

William Gilpin's vision for the West stressed ________, while John Wesley Powell argued ________.

A) that rain would come when the plains were plowed and planted; that water should be controlled by the community as a valued resource
B) that the abundant resources of the West should be rapidly developed; that the Indians of the West should be quickly subdued
C) that the Indians should be protected from white settlers; that the land should be protected from eastern capitalists
D) conservation of the land and its peoples; for exploitation of the land and its peoples

Question 22

The earlier federal Indian policy of "concentration"(deemed a failure by the 1880s) sought to

A) limit the hunting grounds of many tribes.
B) bring all Indians together in a single nation.
C) promote tribal rather than individual land ownership.
D) surround hostile tribes with a strong U.S. army in order to inflict military defeat.

Question 23

In the wake of the Plains Indian wars, U.S. Indian policy changed from a policy of ________ (recognized as a failure by the 1880s) to a policy of ________ (an effort that also failed).

A) removing the tribes to the Great Plains; confining the tribes on reservations
B) promoting individual land ownership; pacifying the tribes by military means
C) concentrating tribes onto reservations; trying to integrate Indians into white society as farmers
D) defeating Indian war parties on the battlefield; breaking the power of tribal chieftains

Question 24

Western booms followed what typical pattern?

A) Initially, settlers showed respect for the environment; later immigrants practiced ruthless exploitation.
B) Initially, there was accommodation with the Indians; ultimately, a war of extermination was pursued.
C) Initially, homesteaders sought new farmlands; eventually, the cattle barons displaced the farmers.
D) Initially, individuals rushed in for quick profits; then, corporations moved in with hired labor.

Question 25

A common pattern marked Western boom industries: initially, ________; eventually, ________.

A) individual entrepreneurs sought quick riches; large-scale corporate enterprise took over for the long term
B) boom towns sprang up; they became ghost towns
C) great and unrealistic hopes brought an influx of speculators; frustration grew because no one really got wealthy
D) great wealth was controlled by a few; many ordinary folk managed to participate

Question 26

The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 proved destructive because it

A) prevented Indians from selling tribal lands.
B) attacked the communal structure of tribal life.
C) required different tribes to live together on the same reservation.
D) ignored the demands of sympathetic white reformers for a new Indian policy.

Question 27

Labor in the construction of the California section of the transcontinental railroad was supplied by

A) Irish workers.
B) Chinese workers.
C) Italian workers.
D) Mexican workers.

Question 28

The cattle boom on the Great Plains ended in part because

A) many ranchers preferred raising sheep.
B) too few people were willing to risk investment.
C) severe weather conditions and overgrazing wiped out many ranchers.
D) new breeds of cattle made ranching less profitable.

Question 29

Which of the following was NOT true about farming on the western plains?

A) Rising crop prices made farming attractive to homesteaders.
B) Establishing a homestead farm was expensive for the average family.
C) The harshness of nature made farm life difficult.
D) Large-scale farmers had a competitive advantage over small farmers.

Question 30

Former slaves who followed reports of better opportunities to the promised land of Kansas were nicknamed "________."

Question 31

The southern economy after the Civil War was based on one dominant product: ________.

Question 32

According to the ________ theory in vogue after the Civil War, any poor farmer could work his way up, rung by rung, until he owned his own land.

Question 33

The Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld segregation, coining the famous phrase "________."

Question 34

________ has been the key to growth and development in the area west of the 98^th meridian.

Question 35

By 1868 a generous Congress had granted western settlers their two greatest wishes: free land under the ________ Act of 1862, and a transcontinental railroad.

Question 36

Thanks to a generous Congress and the diligent labor of Chinese and Irish workers, the first ________ was completed shortly after the Civil War.

Question 37

The Southwest had a distinct and complex development: as the South relied on the labor of a particular group, former slaves, the Southwest grew on the labor of ________.

Question 38

How did the shortage of credit encourage the crop-lien and sharecropping systems?

Question 39

What was the doctrine of the "New South"?

Question 40

What is a "colonial"economy? Why did many southerners and westerners believe their regions were colonial economies?

Question 41

Explain the relationship between family size and the persistence of poverty in the South.

Question 42

How did the policies of segregation become entrenched in the South?

Question 43

Why did corporations in the West succeed more often than small entrepreneurs?

Question 44

Explain why Charles Crocker used Chinese labor on the western portion of the transcontinental railroad.

Question 45

What factors led to the rapid growth of the cattle business after the Civil War?

Question 46

What factors made it difficult for farmers to succeed on the western plains?

Question 47

Compare and contrast racial conflict in the South and the West.

Question 48

Explain why, despite its vast human and natural resources, the South experienced more severe poverty than the West.

Question 49

Explain how industrialization affected agriculture in the South and West.

Question 50

By comparing and contrasting the cultural values of whites and Indians, explain why it was so difficult for the two peoples to live together peacefully.

Question 51

Explain how the environment in the West forced people from the East to modify their way of life.

Question 52

In what ways was the role of religion similar in the South and West?

Question 53

How did the North and the abolitionists fail the newly freed man?

Question 54

How did the KKK form? What circumstances led to the formation of the Klan.