Deck 17: The Culture and Politics of Industrial America, 1870-1892

Question 1

What was typical for all presidential elections between 1876 and 1900?

Answer 1

The leading tickets eeked out a victory with narrow margins, at times without a majority in the popular vote.

Question 2

What was advocated by "protectionists"?

Answer 2

High protective tariffs.

Question 3

What important federal agency was created by Congress in 1889?

Answer 3

Department of Agriculture.

Question 4

What legislation authorized creation of the Civil Service Commission?

Question 5

How did Henry George propose to finance all governmental activity?

Question 6

Edward Bellamy wrote what novel about a future utopian society?

Question 7

Who served as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union?

Question 8

How did William Henry Seward change American foreign policy?

Question 9

Who did the People's Party (Populists) nominate for president in 1892?

Question 10

In Josiah Strong's view, what made Anglo-Saxons superior to other cultures?

A) Better educational opportunities.
B) Genetic qualities of endurance and strength.
C) Love of liberty and pure Christianity.
D) Purity of their gene pool.

Question 11

What did Strong and others of like mind think was the greatest threat to America?

A) Fifth-columnists.
B) Immigrants.
C) Long-haired men and short-haired women.
D) Terrorists.

Question 12

In nativists' view, why were immigrants a particularly dire threat to America?

A) They brought crime to American cities and undermined politics.
B) Too many of them qualified for welfare.
C) They took jobs from native-born Americans.
D) They would work for less and do dirty jobs that Americans would not accept.

Question 13

When Josiah Strong spoke of "pure Christianity," he referred to

A) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
B) Jehovah's Witnesses.
C) Protestantism.
D) Roman Catholicism.

Question 14

In the nineteenth century, partisan politics was

A) An activity in which men and women took part on an equal basis.
B) An activity in which the entire family could participate.
C) Largely a masculine affair.
D) Not something in which "nice" people engaged.

Question 15

Women could not vote in the nineteenth century. How did they participate in politics?

A) They encouraged their husbands to seek political office.
B) They home-schooled children in civics and public policy.
C) They provided practical support such as decorating meeting halls or preparing food for rallies.
D) They raised funds through direct-mail solicitation.

Question 16

What political issues were considered most appropriate for women's interest and participation?

A) Domestic issues dealing with education.
B) Financial issues that affected family budgets.
C) Foreign policy, especially in times of war.
D) Moral reform movements.

Question 17

Most American women who participated in voluntary reform movements were

A) Immigrants eager for a better life.
B) Members of the educated middle class.
C) Sharecroppers and wage earners working to move up the social ladder.
D) Wives and family members of movement leaders.

Question 18

Voluntary associations concentrated less on rousing voters than on

A) Calming the strictly partisan atmosphere of political campaigns.
B) Educating them and lobbying officials already in office.
C) Keeping hostile voters from voting.
D) Restricting the ballot to males.

Question 19

Late in the nineteenth century

A) More women than men took part in political rallies, even if they could not vote.
B) Psychological assignments of feminine and masculine roles played no part in politics.
C) Voluntarism involved both female and male stereotypes.
D) Voluntarism was considered feminine and party politics considered masculine.

Question 20

How had Frances Willard and her Woman's Christian Temperance Union come to view alcoholism by the end of the nineteenth century?

A) As an individual failure.
B) As a personal sin.
C) As a public health problem.
D) As the fault of Democrats, the "Party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion."

Question 21

Why were so many women attracted to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union?

A) Attending meetings provided an excuse to escape their homes.
B) They liked the camaraderie and political activism.
C) Many husbands drank excessively.
D) Membership in the WCTU was regarded as a social honor.

Question 22

Charles Francis Adams spoke for a small group of conservatives who regarded what as evidence of degradation of public life in America?

A) African American suffrage.
B) Suffrage for immigrants.
C) Universal suffrage.
D) Women's suffrage.

Question 23

Charles Francis Adams equated universal suffrage with the government of

A) The English.
B) The American people.
C) Virtue and morality.
D) Ignorance and vice.

Question 24

What was the goal of the National Civil Service Reform League?

A) To prevent political parties from filling government positions with supporters.
B) To raise campaign funds for conservative candidates.
C) To require a loyalty oath of public employees.
D) To root out subversives in the government posts.

Question 25

"Nativism" refers to

A) Advocacy of greater government subsidies for Indians living on reservations.
B) Celebration of traditional family values in American life.
C) Government delivering the mail, defending the shores, and leaving individual citizens alone.
D) Opposition to immigration.

Question 26

What was the purpose of the Civil Service Commission when Congress authorized its creation in 1881?

A) To award federal jobs on the basis of merit rather than patronage.
B) To prevent labor unions from organizing and engaging in collective bargaining.
C) To screen immigrants so each could be assigned a job for which they were educated or trained.
D) To set up job descriptions and pay scales in private industries.

Question 27

Social scientists opposed to massive immigration said that

A) Italians were predisposed to organized violence.
B) Jews were superior businessmen, and so more should be encouraged to immigrate.
C) Only Anglo-Saxons could really understand the Constitution.
D) Orientals could never become Americans because they were not Christians.

Question 28

How did most Americans feel about the nation's natural resources by the end of the nineteenth century?

A) A majority thought the principle of "first come, first served" should apply.
B) They endorsed the concept that natural resources belonged to everyone.
C) Most Americans accepted the idea that government should oversee the distribution of natural resources.
D) They resented the government's role in subsidies for railroad construction.

Question 29

Which of the following was not one of the consequences of the nation's high protective tariff in the late nineteenth century?

A) The tariff grew government surpluses.
B) The accumulation of the nation's money in the treasury tightened credit.
C) High tariffs kept Americans from drinking liquor.
D) Tariff revenue tempted politicians to spend it on subsidies and pension.

Question 30

What were "greenbacks"?

A) Certificates of achievement in environmental preservation.
B) Coinage made from pyrite instead of genuine gold.
C) Illegal aliens who crossed northern mountains to reach the United States.
D) Paper currency backed only by the word of the United States.

Question 31

To what does the term "specie" refer?

A) Advocates of a dual monetary policy.
B) Classification of the tariff.
C) Gold or silver coins.
D) Paper currency.

Question 32

Between the 1870s and 1900,

A) More Democrats than Republicans were elected president.
B) Regardless of which party controlled the executive branch, Republicans usually controlled Congress.
C) Republicans and Democrats had nearly equal electoral strength in presidential elections.
D) Third-party candidates won the presidency twice.

Question 33

Which of the following was true about Rutherford B. Hayes?

A) His radical stance on black civil rights alienated many voters.
B) Congressional Republicans were annoyed by his efforts to conciliate Democrats investigating his election.
C) Democrats introduced their theme song, "Happy Days Are Here Again."
D) He was the first president since 1865 who had not served in the Civil War.

Question 34

Who was the Republican Party "boss" of New York state politics?

A) Daniel Drew.
B) Roscoe Conkling.
C) Samuel J. Tilden.
D) Tammany X. Hall.

Question 35

What motivated the assassin who shot President James A. Garfield in 1881?

A) He wanted to gain attention to the cause of Serbian freedom.
B) He wanted to create chaos in the North so the Confederacy could organize again.
C) President Garfield failed to appoint him to a federal position he sought.
D) The assassin intended to take the life of the vice president but missed.

Question 36

The Pendleton Act

A) Created the Civil Service Commission to administer competitive examinations for non-policy-level federal jobs.
B) Designated portions of the Pacific Northwest as National Scenic Sites.
C) Divided Indian reservations into individual homesteads for Indians.
D) Raised the tariff on foreign-made goods by 10 percent.

Question 37

Why did Grover Cleveland think the federal government should allow southern whites to control their states?

A) Cleveland was a southern white.
B) He was committed to the authority of local government.
C) Reconstruction efforts to make the South be more like the North in industry, thrift, and patriotism had failed.
D) They were better educated and more qualified to control their states.

Question 38

What was the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Act?

A) To curb monopolistic and discriminatory practices by railroads.
B) To develop policy on international trade issues.
C) To promote the development of trade throughout the nation.
D) To restrict transportation of controlled substances across state lines.

Question 39

What helped Republicans win the presidency and congress in 1888?

A) The association of the Democratic Party with segregation and disruption of the Union.
B) An increased interest in social issues.
C) The national trend toward more conservative political positions.
D) Its vigorous stand on retaining the protective tariff.

Question 40

What was the impact of the Harrison McKinley Tariff on foreign affairs?

A) It gave the president new authority in trade relations with other countries.
B) Lower tariff rates opened American markets to foreign producers.
C) It raised the national deficit to $1 billion.
D) It removed restrictions on imported steel products and caused unemployment in Pittsburgh.

Question 41

What activity did the Sherman Anti-Trust Act outlaw?

A) Combination in restraint of trade.
B) Foreign ownership of more than 50 percent of U.S.-based companies.
C) One company "holding" control over subsidiary companies.
D) Pooling the assets of individually owned companies.

Question 42

Secretary of State William Henry Seward's view of American foreign affairs was linked to

A) Sending American missionaries to foreign lands.
B) Exporting democracy.
C) Expanding American trade.
D) All of the above.

Question 43

Between 1860 and 1898

A) Iron and steel exports increased.
B) American-made goods sold abroad increased.
C) America exported more goods than it imported.
D) Each statement is correct.

Question 44

Each of the following statements about American plantation owners in Hawaii is accurate except

A) They provoked an anti-American attitude among native Hawaiians.
B) They did not support Queen Liliuokalani.
C) They reduced sugar production in Hawaii to prove their economic power.
D) They wanted the United States to annex Hawaii.

Question 45

Many states passed laws on education that did all of the following, except

A) Increase the school year.
B) Increase spending per pupil.
C) Make attendance mandatory.
D) Adopt standardized testing for high school graduation.

Question 46

"Boss" rule in city governments was possible because

A) State governments did not care to regulate city governments.
B) City bosses could trade municipal jobs for votes.
C) Voters were apathetic.
D) Bosses had the peoples' best interests at heart.

Question 47

What was the greatest weakness of the Interstate Commerce Commission when it was founded?

A) Commissioners were employees of the railroads they were supposed to regulate.
B) It had insufficient staff to do necessary work.
C) It lacked power to enforce its rules.
D) Public opinion did not support the commission's mission.

Question 48

Minstrel shows generally depicted what?

A) Sexually-charged urban life.
B) Happy plantation life.
C) The horrors of slavery.
D) The Civil War.

Question 49

How did the writer of Progress and Poverty want to finance government?

A) Through a direct tax on personal incomes.
B) Through excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products.
C) By raising the tariff.
D) Through a single tax on rising rents.

Question 50

What did advocates of a single tax hope to accomplish with this method of public finance?

A) To avoid paying taxes themselves.
B) To pass the tax burden to foreign consumers of American products.
C) To prevent the development of a permanent underclass in America.
D) To restore wealth to those who produced it.

Question 51

Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward was

A) A literary device used to advocate a utopian society.
B) A thinly veiled accusation that President Grover Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child.
C) An exposé of corruption in labor unions.
D) A hard-nosed investigative report of the meat packing industry.

Question 52

Whereas Henry George reasserted the values of hard work and self-restraint, Edward Bellamy embraced

A) Equal pay for equal work for women and minorities.
B) Family planning and birth control as a solution for overpopulation.
C) Psychotherapy as a solution for social problems.
D) The modern cult of leisure.

Question 53

What term did Edward Bellamy use to describe his dream of social peace with little government interaction?

A) Holy Grail.
B) Nationalism.
C) Rugged individualism.
D) Utopia.

Question 54

The Comstock Law did which of the following?

A) Legalized abortion.
B) Encouraged freedom of speech.
C) Banned the production and distribution of obscenity.
D) Cracked-down on gambling operations.

Question 55

Before the Farmers' Alliance came into existence, American farmers tried to influence legislation through membership in

A) Cooperatives.
B) The Grange.
C) Socialist organizations.
D) Women's Missionary Union.

Question 56

The goal of the Farmers' Alliance was to

A) Make cheap loans available through land banks.
B) Bring American farmers into the modern world of industry and prosperity.
C) Make sharecropping illegal.
D) Transfer ownership of the railroads to farmers.

Question 57

The Populist Party advocated all of the following, except

A) Government ownership of railroads and telegraph.
B) Secret ballots and the popular election of U.S. senators.
C) Eight-hour workday and laws regulating child labor.
D) Redistribution of wealth and land ownership.

Question 58

How did states try to bolster traditional marriage?

A) They banned divorce.
B) They allowed for interracial marriage.
C) They raised the age of consent.
D) All of the above.

Question 59

During the time, American cities

A) Reflected a changing America.
B) Suffered major population loss.
C) Were hotbeds of conservative sentiment.
D) None of the above.

Question 60

What economic issues dominated politics in the United States in the post-Reconstruction period?

Question 61

Discuss changes in the nature of central, state, and local governments during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Question 62

Explain the emergence of the Populists at the end of the century.

Question 63

How did immigration affect the culture of the United States?