Question 1

Trace the history of the currency question in American politics from the aftermath of the Civil War to the passage of the Gold Standard Act.

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Question 2

Why were the conflicts between federal and state military forces and western Indian tribes exceptionally bitter and cruel?

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Question 3

Was the reservation system inherently flawed from the beginning,or might it have worked if the federal government had enabled the Indians to keep more and better land and had treated them more fairly?

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Question 4

Political historians often argue that the election of 1896 was a watershed election that marked the beginning of the fourth party system.Explain why this is so,and how American politics from 1865 to 1896 differed from the political situation that developed after the election of 1896.

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Question 5

Populists often charged that there was conspiracy between government and big business aimed at holding down farmers and workers,and the federal courts were only the tools of banks and big business.What evidence did they cite for this charge? Does their argument convince you? Why or why not?

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Question 6

What is the safety-valve theory? Do you find it plausible? Why or why not?

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Question 7

For many years historians interpreted the 1896 election as the challenge of the people against the candidate of big business and the status quo.Explain why this view has largely fallen into disfavor,and why more of the people voted for McKinley.Are there any elements in the traditional view worth retaining?

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Question 8

The Homestead Act was less successful than hoped.Why? Consider the provisions of the law and its loopholes and environmental conditions on the Great Plains.

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Question 9

What do you think was the major technological innovation that influenced life on the Great Plains frontier? Why?

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Question 10

If you were a farmer in Kansas in 1887,what would be three or four of your major problems? How would you try to solve them? Would you be likely to seek help? Where? Why?

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Question 11

Write your definition of radical.Then use this definition to argue that the farmers' response to their problems in the 1880s and 1890s was or was not radical.

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Question 12

Had you lived during this period,which political party─Democratic,Republican,or Populist─would have attracted your allegiance?

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Question 13

What makes the Turner Thesis so provocative? Why do most modern historians not accept it,or accept it only with reservations? What are the most valid parts of Turner's argument that still hold up?

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Question 14

If you had lived at the time,what would you have proposed as a solution to the Indian problem? What would have been your view on concentration,the Dawes Severalty Act,and the savagery of Indian warfare?

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Question 15

Why did free silver become the key issue of the farmers' revolt? What other issues were important to them? Explain why Populism came down to a single-issue movement by 1896 and how this fixation may have harmed their cause.

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Question 16

If you had lived at the time,which would you have most wanted to join: the mining frontier,the ranching frontier,or the farming frontier? Why?

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Question 17

Explain the ultimate defeat of the Plains Indians by whites.Select and discuss at least three major reasons for the decline of the Plains culture; then tell which you think was the most important and why.

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Question 18

Explain why the Populist party became the most successful third party in American history up to that time.Explain why it failed to survive the decade of the 1890s.

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Question 19

The authors contend that "American history cannot be properly understood unless it is viewed in light of the westward-moving experience." Do you agree? Why or why not? What unique contributions did the frontier make to American life?

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Question 20

Explain the relative decline in the importance of agriculture in the American economy in the late nineteenth century.In what ways was the farmers' protest based primarily on their economic woes,and to what extent was it a protest against the loss of an older American way of life based on agriculture and small towns?

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Quiz 26: The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution,1865-1896