Deck 12: Antebellum Culture and Reform

Question 1

The transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau

A)was more conventional in his thinking than Ralph Waldo Emerson.
B)felt every individual should balance society's expectations with one's own instincts.
C)argued that being part of society helped individuals to transcend their egotism.
D)established a college for transcendentalism at Walden Pond.
E)argued Americans had a moral right to disobey the laws of the United States.

Answer 1

argued Americans had a moral right to disobey the laws of the United States.

Question 2

Prior to the Civil War, Southern writers

A)developed a realist tradition that focused on the lives of ordinary people.
B)romanticized the institution of slavery.
C)brought a robust, vulgar humor to American literature.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Answer 2

All the answers are correct.

Question 3

Transcendentalists

A)rejected European intellectuals.
B)regarded reason to be the most important human faculty.
C)argued that emotional responses inhibited the internal development of individuals.
D)believed all individuals should develop their intellectualism.
E)argued for the liberating potential of "understanding."

Answer 3

regarded reason to be the most important human faculty.

Question 4

The transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson

A)believed American thinkers should be allied with European intellectuals.
B)asserted that through nature, individuals could find personal fulfillment.
C)was a leading critic of the American political system.
D)asserted that organized religion served no useful purpose in society.
E)remained a deeply religious clergyman throughout his life.

Question 5

Who among the following was NOT a participant in American communal living?

A)Nathaniel Hawthorne
B)Walt Whitman
C)George Ripley
D)John Humphrey Noyes
E)Robert Owen

Question 6

In redefining gender roles, the experimental 1840s Oneida community

A)put women in charge of all major aspects of the community.
B)was a controversial experiment in "free love."
C)demanded celibacy from all its participants.
D)carefully monitored sexual behavior to protect women.
E)put fathers in charge of child-rearing and taking care of the home.

Question 7

The transcendentalist movement

A)anticipated the environmental protection movement of the twentieth century.
B)understood the interconnectedness of species.
C)made the first scientific studies on behalf of preserving the natural environment.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Question 8

Through novels such as The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper examined the significance of

A)America's westward expansion.
B)the American free-enterprise system.
C)religious spiritualism in America.
D)racism in America.
E)slavery on the democratic mind.

Question 9

In the mid-nineteenth century, romanticism

A)was consistent with traditional Calvinist assumptions.
B)considered instincts to be sinful and needed to be repressed.
C)had its origins in the American Midwest.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Question 10

Which of the following features was NOT a characteristic of the Hudson River School?

A)canvases that tended to be very large in size
B)an assumption that America was a land of greater promise than Europe
C)a belief that democracy was the best source of wisdom and spiritual fulfillment
D)the exceptional popularity many of its artists enjoyed with the American public
E)portraits of some of the nation's most spectacular and undeveloped areas

Question 11

The primary goal of the 1840s community experiment known as Brook Farm was

A)to create a society where individuals did not have to work.
B)to allow individuals to live without any social limits on their behavior.
C)to eliminate social sexual discrimination through a practice of celibacy.
D)to permit all members to realize their full potential as individual beings.
E)to show that communal living was more efficient and productive than family life.

Question 12

One of the most enduring of the pre-Civil War utopian colonies was

A)Oneida.
B)New Harmony.
C)Brook Farm.
D)Walden.
E)Nauvoo.

Question 13

Herman Melville's most important literary work was

A)Leaves of Grass.
B)Moby Dick.
C)The Deerslayer.
D)"The Raven."
E)Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Question 14

The writings of Edgar Allan Poe were

A)primarily sad and macabre.
B)mostly ignored during his lifetime.
C)largely focused on Southern society.
D)acclaimed by many American writers in his time.
E)completely ignored in Europe after his death.

Question 15

All of the following painters were associated with the Hudson River School EXCEPT

A)James Whistler.
B)Thomas Cole.
C)Frederic Church.
D)Albert Bierstadt.
E)Asher Durand.

Question 16

The Hudson River School of painters emphasized in their work the importance of

A)democratic ideals.
B)the yeoman farmer.
C)natural beauty.
D)realism.
E)the Founding Fathers.

Question 17

Reform movements emerged in America in the mid-nineteenth century in part because of a

A)pessimistic assumption in the natural weakness of individuals.
B)desire for social stability and discipline in the face of change.
C)belief that society needed to break free from its old traditions.
D)fear that civil war was going to engulf the nation.
E)declining importance placed on religious piety.

Question 18

In the mid-nineteenth century, the general European attitude toward American art and literature

A)was one of growing respect and admiration.
B)was that American artists had little to offer Europe.
C)included praise for American artists for defining a new set of national virtues.
D)included criticism of American artists for ignoring romanticism.
E)was that it had been hopelessly corrupted by the ideology of unfettered capitalism.

Question 19

Walt Whitman

A)intensely disagreed with the American transcendentalists.
B)rejected much of romanticism.
C)celebrated the liberation of the individual.
D)was a strong critic of American democracy.
E)became a strong defender of Southern institutions, especially slavery.

Question 20

All of the following people helped create a distinct American literature EXCEPT

A)Walt Whitman.
B)Herman Melville.
C)James Fenimore Cooper.
D)Edgar Allan Poe.
E)Sydney Smith.

Question 21

The nineteenth-century reformer Horace Mann believed that education should promote

A)capitalism.
B)democracy.
C)racial equality.
D)economic equality.
E)Christianity.

Question 22

Nineteenth-century Protestant revivalists such as the New Light evangelicals

A)sought to revive the ideals of Calvinism.
B)believed that no individual could control his or her personal salvation.
C)took the lead in the cause to end slavery.
D)formed a crusade against personal immorality.
E)believed temperance was detracting from other, loftier reform movements.

Question 23

Which of the following was arguably the most distinctive feature of Shakerism?

A)the admittance of women only
B)communal raising of children
C)polygamy
D)free love
E)complete celibacy

Question 24

Prior to 1860, public education in the United States

A)did not exist.
B)gave the nation one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
C)was legally denied for all non-whites.
D)was funded by the federal government.
E)emphasized independence and creativity.

Question 25

Mormonism

A)believed in human perfectibility.
B)emphasized individual liberty.
C)was founded by Brigham Young.
D)began in the Midwest.
E)always rejected polygamy.

Question 26

Prior to the Civil War, the religious denomination most active in feminism was the

A)Baptists.
B)Quakers.
C)Presbyterians.
D)Unitarians.
E)Methodists.

Question 27

Which statement about Mormonism is FALSE?

A)Its founder was murdered.
B)It advocated sexual equality.
C)Early Mormons practiced polygamy.
D)The first Mormons were generally marginally poor.
E)Early Mormons met with much persecution from their neighbors.

Question 28

In the early nineteenth century, the American Colonization Society

A)was founded by white Virginians opposed to slavery.
B)called for an immediate end to slavery.
C)opposed the idea of compensation for owners who freed their slaves.
D)carried out a large-scale resettlement of freed slaves.
E)was strongly supported by American blacks.

Question 29

The nineteenth-century practice of placing American Indians on reservations was partially designed to

A)isolate and protect Indians from white society.
B)help "regenerate" the Indian.
C)allow Indians to develop to a point where they could assimilate into white society.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Question 30

During the nineteenth century, the largest obstacle to improved medical care in America was

A)the absence of regulations in the medical profession.
B)the absence of basic knowledge about disease.
C)the low social status of medical professionals.
D)the difficulty in medical experimentation.
E)the apathy of the general population towards preventative health.

Question 31

Prior to 1860, prison reform in the United States

A)included the practice of solitary confinement.
B)led to widespread calls to end capital punishment.
C)focused on punishment, not on rehabilitation.
D)began largely in the West and spread to the East.
E)decried the racial bias of the judicial system.

Question 32

In the 1840s in the United States, an initial understanding of germ theory was made by

A)Edward Jenner.
B)William Morton.
C)Oliver Wendell Holmes.
D)James Warren.
E)Ignaz Semmelweis.

Question 33

The 1848 Seneca Falls, New York convention on women's rights

A)issued a manifesto patterned after the Declaration of Independence.
B)asserted that women should have a place in society distinctly different from men.
C)refused to allow men to attend.
D)called on the government to treat both genders and all races with equality.
E)shied away from demanding female suffrage as too radical.

Question 34

Shaker societies

A)asserted that God was a female.
B)established most of its communities in the South.
C)saw women exercise more power than men.
D)first began in the United States in the 1840s.
E)were eventually forced to move to Utah.

Question 35

Which of the following nineteenth-century leaders is primarily known for her pioneering work in the American feminist movement?

A)"Mother" Ann Lee
B)Harriet Tubman
C)Sojourner Truth
D)Rachel Eaton
E)Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Question 36

According to the nineteenth-century "science" of phrenology, what could be discerned from the shape of an individual's skull?

A)her life expectancy
B)her likelihood of succumbing to infectious diseases
C)her future earning potential
D)her chances of having children
E)her character and intelligence

Question 37

In 1840, a catalyst for an American feminist movement was a London convention that dealt with

A)woman suffrage.
B)prostitution.
C)abolition.
D)temperance.
E)prison reform.

Question 38

In the 1840s, the organized movement against drunkenness in the United States

A)linked alcohol to crime and poverty.
B)grew largely out of immigrant communities.
C)was actively opposed by a large majority of Americans.
D)remained a minor social movement.
E)spent much of its time and resources battling evangelical Protestants.

Question 39

The Massachusetts reformer who built a national movement for new methods of treating the criminally ill was

A)Susan B.Anthony.
B)Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
C)Lucretia Mott.
D)Angelina Grimke.
E)Dorothea Dix.

Question 40

In the 1830s and 1840s, cholera epidemics in the United States

A)were transmitted to humans by fleas living on rats.
B)led many cities to build water treatment facilities.
C)were diminished as physicians gained a basic understanding of bacteria.
D)typically killed more than half of those who contracted the disease.
E)None of the answers are correct.

Question 41

Edgar Allan Poe's writings focused on the bleak nature of the human spirit and emotion.

Question 42

Hudson River School artists felt America had more promise than Europe.

Question 43

In the 1840s, abolitionists in the United States constituted

A)a small percentage of the national population.
B)approximately one-quarter of the national population.
C)the majority of the population in the North.
D)the largest reform movement in the nation.
E)approximately one-third of the national population.

Question 44

Mark Twain was the leading writer in the Southern Romantic tradition.

Question 45

In the 1840s, William Lloyd Garrison spoke against

A)equality for women.
B)defensive wars.
C)ending the asylum system.
D)Northern disunion from the South.
E)extreme pacifism.

Question 46

Many of the Hudson River School artists expressed a nostalgic view of nature.

Question 47

Frederick Douglass

A)was born free but was sold into slavery as a youth.
B)wrote for William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper.
C)spent years lecturing in England against slavery.
D)was an ordained minister.
E)argued that blacks wanted only an end to slavery, and not full social equality.

Question 48

Prior to the Civil War, the Liberty Party

A)supported the rights of slaveowners.
B)opposed the admission of California into the union in 1850.
C)promoted "free soil."
D)focused on strengthening the fugitive slave laws.
E)campaigned for outright abolition.

Question 49

William Lloyd Garrison believed the abolitionist movement should

A)stress the damage that slavery did to blacks rather than to whites.
B)seek the gradual elimination of slavery.
C)demand freedom for slaves, but deny them citizenship.
D)organize slave rebellions throughout the American South.
E)join forces with the more established American Colonization Society.

Question 50

The effect of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the nation was to

A)spread the message of abolitionism to an enormous new audience.
B)reveal the ugly extent of the vicious slave trade to America.
C)ignite such anger in the South that several states soon seceded from the Union.
D)offer the first written history of American slavery.
E)help humanize Southern slaveholders in the minds of Northern readers.

Question 51

Herman Melville was less exuberant in his celebration of America than was Walt Whitman.

Question 52

Prior to the Civil War, free blacks in the North tended to be

A)deeply antagonistic to William Lloyd Garrison.
B)indifferent to slavery in the South.
C)anxious to leave the United States.
D)in favor of the "back to Africa" movements.
E)strongly opposed to Southern slavery.

Question 53

One leading abolitionist who was murdered for his activism was

A)William Lloyd Garrison.
B)Frederick Douglass.
C)Sojourner Truth.
D)Benjamin Lundy.
E)Elijah Lovejoy.

Question 54

The black abolitionist who called for uncompromising opposition to and a violent overthrow of slavery in his 1829 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World was

A)William Lloyd Garrison.
B)Frederick Douglass.
C)Elijah Lovejoy.
D)Benjamin Lundy.
E)David Walker.

Question 55

The American Colonization Society helped to transport blacks from the United States to

A)the Caribbean.
B)Liberia.
C)Angola.
D)England.
E)Canada.

Question 56

The Romantic movement originated in American intellectual circles.

Question 57

In the 1830s and 1840s, abolitionists were divided

A)by radicals and moderates within their ranks.
B)over whether or not to use violence.
C)by calls for Northern and Southern separation.
D)over the question of female equality.
E)All the answers are correct.

Question 58

James Fenimore Cooper thought Americans should become more like Europeans.

Question 59

Above all, nineteenth-century reform movements in the United States promoted racial equality.

Question 60

The Supreme Court ruling in Prigg v.Pennsylvania (1842)

A)prohibited the interstate slave trade.
B)led to the passage of "personal liberty laws."
C)angered abolitionists.
D)abolished slavery in the District of Columbia.
E)forced state officials to assist in the capture of runaways.

Question 61

The Mormons were forced to abandon their settlement at Nauvoo due to persecution from neighbors.

Question 62

Nearly a quarter of the population of New Orleans died in 1833 as a result of a cholera outbreak.

Question 63

Reformers believed the concept of Indian reservations was beneficial to both whites and Indians.

Question 64

Ralph Waldo Emerson was both a minister and a transcendentalist philosopher.

Question 65

American transcendentalists borrowed heavily from European thinkers.

Question 66

Sylvester Graham encouraged people to eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat.

Question 67

Henry David Thoreau favored the solitary life, but not civil disobedience.

Question 68

The study of the human brain through phrenology was the origin of modern psychology.

Question 69

Both the Oneida Community and the Shakers were committed to celibacy.

Question 70

Horace Mann believed public education should promote both democracy and social order.

Question 71

By the beginning of the Civil War, the United States had one of the highest literacy rates of any nation of the world.

Question 72

Reformers of the pre-Civil War period thought it was possible to rehabilitate criminals through solitary confinement.

Question 73

By 1860, public schools in the United States had failed to produce significant improvement in education.

Question 74

Like other mid-nineteenth-century experiments in social organization, Mormons believed in human perfectibility.

Question 75

By the 1850s, the principle of tax-supported elementary schools had been established in every state.

Question 76

The mid-nineteenth-century "age of reforms" was simultaneously attracted to ideas of personal liberty and social order.

Question 77

Both Brook Farm and New Harmony were essentially failures as communal experiments.

Question 78

Most early nineteenth-century American physicians opposed medical innovations and experimentation.

Question 79

Evangelical Protestantism was at odds with the reform spirit of the pre-Civil War period.

Question 80

The Oneida Community sought to redefine gender roles and engage in "free love."