Deck 16: Standardizing the Nation: Innovations in Technology, Business, and Culture, 1877-1890

Question 1

Why did U.S. businesses grow larger and more quickly than their western European counterparts in the late nineteenth century?

A) The United States possessed a social and legal culture favorable to big business.
B) The United States had a smaller and more homogenous population.
C) The United stated had an entrenched, conservative elite.
D) The United States government had an ownership stake in many industries.

Answer 1

The United States possessed a social and legal culture favorable to big business.

Question 2

What led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act?

A) an outbreak of cholera in northeastern cities
B) a series of terrorist attacks in Chicago, Boston, and New York
C) a general desire to limit immigration among most Americans
D) nativist sentiment on the West Coast

Answer 2

nativist sentiment on the West Coast

Question 3

How did southern textile mill owners in the Piedmont region of South Carolina and Georgia keep control over their poor white workforce?

A) They threatened to hire black workers.
B) They offered their workers a living wage.
C) They gave their workers generous old-age pensions.
D) They hired armed guards to patrol their workers' neighborhoods.

Answer 3

They threatened to hire black workers.

Question 4

__________ earned a reputation as a leading efficiency expert.

A) Frederick Winslow Taylor
B) John D. Rockefeller
C) Thomas Edison
D) Marshall Field

Question 5

Andrew Carnegie excelled at __________.

A) horizontal integration
B) vertical integration
C) land acquisition
D) factory design

Question 6

Why did late nineteenth-century factory managers hire efficiency experts?

A) to cut labor costs
B) to improve product quality
C) to help meet government regulations
D) to expand consumer markets

Question 7

Between 1890 and 1910, the three largest groups of immigrants came from Russia, Poland, and __________.

A) England
B) Ireland
C) Spain
D) Italy

Question 8

What was the main advantage of the American system of manufacture?

A) It made it possible to customize manufactured products.
B) It improved the quality of manufactured products.
C) It allowed manufacturers to take better advantage of skilled workers.
D) It made it possible to assemble products more cheaply and efficiently.

Question 9

The __________ system of manufacturing relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts.

A) Lowell
B) Auburn
C) American
D) Bessemer

Question 10

The Standard Oil company provides a good example of __________.

A) horizontal integration
B) vertical integration
C) decentralized management
D) the American system

Question 11

Who invented the telephone?

A) Bell
B) Edison
C) Singer
D) Matzeliger

Question 12

The __________ process revolutionized the production of steel.

A) Vanderbilt
B) Carnegie
C) Bessemer
D) Slater

Question 13

What was the principle goal of advocates of standardized industrial processes and mass marketing?

A) to promote diversity
B) to enliven American society and culture
C) to improve the lives of workers
D) to create an integrated national economy

Question 14

Which of the following is demonstrated by the large number of "birds of passage" in the late nineteenth century?

A) Not all immigrants wanted to settle permanently in the United States.
B) Not all immigrants came to the United States for economic reasons.
C) Not all immigrants came to the United States legally.
D) Not all immigrants believed in the political ideals of the United States.

Question 15

Why did American companies form trusts?

A) to avoid taxes
B) to reduce competition
C) to improve product quality
D) to attract skilled workers

Question 16

__________ promoted hunting activities that led to the near extinction of the buffalo.

A) The U.S. army
B) John D. Rockefeller
C) Railroads
D) The Homestead Act

Question 17

Created in 1879, the _______________ took on a task originated in 1804 with the Lewis and Clark expedition.

A) Environmental Protection Agency
B) Bureau of Land Management
C) Army Corps of Engineers
D) U.S. Geological Survey

Question 18

The __________ industry produced America's first business bureaucracies.

A) railroad
B) steel
C) coal mining
D) textile

Question 19

Which of the following groups found work in California's fruit orchards and vegetable farms?

A) Polish immigrants
B) Japanese immigrants
C) Jewish immigrants
D) Italian immigrants

Question 20

Why did a federal court issue a permanent injunction against hydraulic mining in 1884?

A) because it led to water shortages
B) because real estate developers had filed complaints
C) because it contributed to soil erosion and water pollution
D) because mining companies employed illegal foreign workers

Question 21

New York's Tammany Hall was headquarters for __________.

A) social reformers
B) the city's political machine
C) women's rights advocates
D) local labor unions

Question 22

By the late 1870s, Republicans and Democrats at the national level disagreed about __________.

A) foreign policy
B) the role of government in the economy
C) almost everything
D) very little

Question 23

Why did Democrats run Winfield S. Hancock, a former Union general, in the 1880 presidential election?

A) to counter the "bloody shirt" effect
B) to highlight social and economic inequality
C) to give credibility to the party's foreign policy agenda
D) to create promote party unity

Question 24

Which of the following was true of late nineteenth-century department stores?

A) They sought to make shopping exciting.
B) They were only frequented by women.
C) Most of their customers were poor.
D) They found it difficult to compete with traditional consumer outlets.

Question 25

The mail-order catalog allowed companies like Montgomery Ward to __________.

A) charge higher prices
B) reach rural customers
C) target customers overseas
D) cut labor costs

Question 26

The mail-order catalog was pioneered by __________.

A) Montgomery Ward
B) Sears and Roebuck
C) J.C. Penny
D) Lord and Taylor

Question 27

Which city reversed the flow of a river so its sewage would flow toward the Mississippi River?

A) Chicago
B) Kansas City
C) St. Louis
D) New Orleans

Question 28

Republicans waved the "bloody shirt" to remind voters of the ____________.

A) Mexican-American War
B) Revolutionary War
C) Spanish-American War
D) Civil War

Question 29

Urban machines existed to ___________.

A) clean up city government
B) secure jobs for supporters
C) give citizens a voice in their own government
D) increase governmental efficiency

Question 30

Which of the following was true of internal migration in the late nineteenth century?

A) Most internal migration was from the countryside to the cities.
B) Most internal migration involved movement from south to north.
C) Most internal migration involved movement from west to east.
D) Most internal migration was from the cities to the countryside.

Question 31

The three major sports in the late nineteenth century were baseball, football, and __________.

A) lacrosse
B) hockey
C) boxing
D) track and field

Question 32

Why did Charles J. Guiteau shoot President Garfield?

A) He had been denied a government job.
B) He wanted to overthrow the U.S. government.
C) He believed that Garfield had seduced his wife.
D) He wanted to gain notoriety.

Question 33

____________ and Charles Dudley Warner coined the term "Gilded Age."

A) Mark Twain
B) Richard Sears
C) Andrew Carnegie
D) Horatio Alger

Question 34

The invention of the electric streetcar in 1888 permitted cities to __________.

A) become more compact
B) attract immigrants
C) spread out
D) build skyscrapers

Question 35

Why did Sitting Bull leave William Cody's "Wild West" show after just one year?

A) White audiences jeered him.
B) He got a better offer from a rival show.
C) He fell sick.
D) He was needed by his people.

Question 36

The idea of laissez-faire referred to __________.

A) centralized economic planning
B) the absence of government interference in the economy
C) the balance between the rights of workers and employers
D) efforts to promote racial reconciliation

Question 37

What city was home to the world's first metal-frame skyscraper?

A) New York
B) Boston
C) Chicago
D) Atlanta

Question 38

Chester A. Arthur believed which of the following?

A) Centralized planning was the only solution to America's problems.
B) Personal morality was none of the government's business.
C) The government should do as little as possible.
D) Laissez-faire policies had their limits.

Question 39

Why did Republicans favor a high tariff?

A) They thought it would benefit consumers.
B) They thought it would help domestic businesses.
C) They thought it would help immigrants.
D) They thought it would encourage imports.

Question 40

According to the 1880 census, the three cities with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents were Chicago, San Francisco, and __________.

A) Pittsburgh
B) Los Angeles
C) New York
D) Boston

Question 41

Which of the following best characterizes Social Darwinists?

A) They took a scientific approach to solving the problem of urban crowding.
B) They drew on science to help raise the average standard of living.
C) They applied science to the study of natural systems.
D) They distorted science in order to justify exploitation.

Question 42

President Garfield's assassination contributed to the passage of the __________.

A) Edmunds Act
B) Chinese Exclusion Act
C) Pendleton Act
D) Sherman Antitrust Act

Question 43

What role did urban machines play in late nineteenth-century American cities?

Question 44

How did department stores reflect the new consumer culture of the late nineteenth century?

Question 45

What were the core beliefs of Social Darwinists? How did William Graham Sumner and Josiah Strong apply Social Darwinism to American society?

Question 46

The Pendleton Act did which of the following?

A) banned Chinese immigration to the United States
B) outlawed polygamy and appointed a federal commission to supervise elections in Utah
C) resumed the coinage of silver
D) established a merit system for federal job applicants

Question 47

In 1883, the Supreme Court set back the cause of blacks' civil rights by __________.

A) declaring the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional
B) offering a narrow interpretation of the Fifteenth Amendment
C) affirming the ruling in the Dred Scott case
D) ruling that convict-lease programs were constitutional

Question 48

With which of the following statements would William Graham Sumner have agreed?

A) All men are created equal.
B) Government must protect those who are unable to protect themselves.
C) Society does not need any care or supervision by government.
D) There are no races, only individuals.

Question 49

What is vertical integration? How did Andrew Carnegie apply it to his steel company?

Question 50

Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act after the Supreme Court had struck down state laws regulating __________.

A) telegraph companies
B) steamboat lines
C) mining companies
D) railroads

Question 51

The election of 1884 pitted ___________ against Grover Cleveland.

A) James G. Blaine
B) Benjamin Harrison
C) Warren Harding
D) Samuel Tilden

Question 52

The Edmunds Act __________.

A) banned Chinese immigration to the United States
B) outlawed polygamy and appointed a federal commission to supervise elections in Utah
C) resumed the coinage of silver
D) established a merit system for federal job applicants

Question 53

__________ drew on the ideas of Social Darwinism to justify the displacement of dark-skinned peoples by "civilized" whites.

A) Susan B. Anthony
B) James G. Blaine
C) Helen Hunt Jackson
D) Josiah Strong

Question 54

Which of the following led to unemployment among California white manufacturing workers in the 1870s?

A) the Tariff of 1872
B) the Edmunds Act
C) an influx of Chinese immigrants
D) the availability of cheap eastern-made goods