Deck 16: The Triumph of Industrial Capitalism, 1850-1890

Question 1

What tied the world's nations together by the end of the nineteenth century?

Answer 1

The political economy of capitalism.

Question 2

How did most immigrants reach America before the Civil War?

Answer 2

Sailing ships.

Question 3

What made farming in the prairies so difficult?

Answer 3

Climate changes were extreme, ranging from freezing blizzards to scorching droughts. In addition, insect plagues such as locusts could destroy harvests.

Question 4

Why were the Knights of Labor so revolutionary?

Question 5

By the time of his retirement, Andrew Carnegie had achieved a monopoly of what industry in America?

Question 6

Describe the meaning of the term middle class at the end of the nineteenth century.

Question 7

Why did Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Live capture the popular imagination?

Question 8

How did cowboy life compare to the popular image of cowboys?

Question 9

Give an example of how the west developed economically.

Question 10

What was used to construct fences in the virtually treeless prairies of the West?

Question 11

What was the destination of most international migrants in the nineteenth century?

A) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
B) United Emigrants.
C) United Kingdom.
D) United States.

Question 12

The economic history of the United States late in the nineteenth century was

A) A roller coaster of peaks and valleys every year.
B) Characterized by an unbroken recorded of national prosperity.
C) Mildly cyclical.
D) Sandwiched between financial panics in 1873 and 1893.

Question 13

What enabled Americans to learn of important events in Europe within 24 hours or less?

A) Development of aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
B) Satellite communication.
C) Short-wave radio transmission.
D) The transoceanic cable laid in 1866.

Question 14

What motivated most nineteenth-century immigrants to leave their homes?

A) The search for better jobs than the ones they held at home.
B) Social and economic change at home.
C) Racial discrimination at home.
D) Religious persecution in the United States.

Question 15

The earliest immigrants to the United States mostly came from where?

A) The most developed nations.
B) The most distressed nations.
C) The most oppressed nations.
D) The most primitive nations.

Question 16

From where did most immigrants to the United States come after the 1880s?

A) Northern and Southern Europe.
B) Southern and Eastern Europe.
C) Western and Eastern Europe.
D) Western and Northern Europe.

Question 17

In 1877, immigrant arrivals to the United States moved from an average of 200,000 between 1865 and 1873 to

A) 500,000.
B) 1 million.
C) 60,000.
D) 200,000.

Question 18

How did most of those immigrating to the United States travel by 1900?

A) In specially constructed barges.
B) In sailing vessels.
C) In steamboats.
D) Via the Panama Canal.

Question 19

Western mining camps brought together all of the following groups, except

A) Australians.
B) Chinese.
C) Mexicans.
D) Africans.

Question 20

What precipitated the massive immigration of European Jews to America?

A) A battlefield loss in France blamed on an officer who was Jewish.
B) An edict of condemnation from Pope Pius XII.
C) Anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia following the assassination of Czar Alexander II.
D) Resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany.

Question 21

Where did the majority of immigrants find new homes in America?

A) Eastern cities near factories.
B) Northern maritime states because so many were experienced seamen.
C) Southern and western farms where land was inexpensive.
D) Western ranches because work there required little experience.

Question 22

When did the modern "downtown" for shopping and business offices develop in cities?

A) By 1900, after the development of American industrialization.
B) Early in the twentieth century.
C) In the medieval period of Europe, and then was transferred to America in colonial times.
D) In the middle of the nineteenth century.

Question 23

Who published an expose of slums and other urban problems titled How the Other Half Lives in 1890?

A) Ida Tarbell.
B) Jacob Riis.
C) Ray Stannard Baker.
D) Samuel L. Clemens, a. a.k.a. Mark Twain.

Question 24

What was the only enterprise in America that could be called "big business" before the Civil War?

A) Iron and steel.
B) Railroads.
C) Steamboat manufacturing.
D) Textiles.

Question 25

Andrew Carnegie, America's most successful businessman late in the nineteenth century, migrated to America from what country?

A) England.
B) Ireland.
C) Scotland.
D) Wales.

Question 26

What background characterized most of America's leading businessmen?

A) They had to overcome prejudice against Jews.
B) The majority were native born and relatively educated.
C) They had a stronger work ethic than immigrants.
D) They worked their way up from entry-level jobs.

Question 27

Who established the elaborate bookkeeping system that allowed big businesses to keep track of every aspect of business operations?

A) Andrew Carnegie.
B) J. Edgar Thomson.
C) John David Rockefeller.
D) Thomas Scott.

Question 28

Where did Andrew Carnegie first work after his family immigrated to the United States?

A) In a coalmine.
B) In a steel factory.
C) In a textile mill.
D) On a railroad.

Question 29

Why did companies like the Pennsylvania Railroad borrow disciplinary methods from the military?

A) Most of their employees were veterans.
B) They had to fulfill military orders during the Civil War.
C) They feared that they could not otherwise keep control of black workers.
D) The costs of lax discipline were far more severe with a railroad corporation than most other businesses.

Question 30

James P. Morgan dominated what American industry?

A) Banking and finance.
B) Iron and steel.
C) Petroleum and mineral development.
D) Railroads and mining.

Question 31

In the course of his career, Andrew Carnegie mastered all of the following industries except

A) The telegraph business.
B) The oil business.
C) The steel business.
D) The retail business.

Question 32

The term "vertical integration" means

A) Affirmative action in employment policies.
B) Controlling as many aspects of business as possible.
C) Friendly governments policing labor disputes.
D) Prohibiting foreign competition from lowering prices.

Question 33

What business device did John D. Rockefeller employ to control the petroleum industry from production through refining and marketing?

A) Intertwined directorships.
B) Partnerships.
C) Proprietorships.
D) Trusts.

Question 34

What is a "trust"?

A) A business device by which different producers agree to operate as a single company to control competition.
B) A government-operated business, such as water or sewer provision for a community.
C) One company controlling an industry.
D) One company owning other companies.

Question 35

What groups formed the backbone of the new segment of society known as "middle class"?

A) Employees whose income was not based on weekly wages.
B) Middle-management employees of corporations.
C) Persons who owned their own businesses.
D) Professionals such as attorneys and medical doctors.

Question 36

All of the following were part of a new legion of white-collar workers at the turn of the century except

A) Cashiers.
B) Clerks.
C) Government employees.
D) Maids.

Question 37

Who primarily filled the jobs in new factories erected in the second half of the nineteenth century?

A) Craftsmen who shunned the responsibilities of operating their own small shops.
B) Former slaves who moved north to escape segregation.
C) Journeymen laborers who traveled from town to town.
D) Migrants from farms and small towns.

Question 38

Industrial workers could count on all of the following except

A) Almost no workmen's compensation if they were injured on the job.
B) The need for their children to go to work to help support the family.
C) Their labor union being respected and protecting their jobs.
D) A lifetime of hard work and no retirement funds.

Question 39

Between 1850 and 1890, the wealth owned by the 4,000 richest families

A) Declined by 20 percent.
B) Stagnated.
C) Doubled.
D) Quadrupled.

Question 40

Most American millionaires at the turn of the twentieth century

A) Came from southern Europe and were Catholics.
B) Traced their ancestry to England and were Protestant.
C) Were Germanic and believed in the Gospel of Wealth.
D) Were Jews who got ahead because they could work on Sunday.

Question 41

What allowed middle class families to leave urban environments?

A) Improved roads and mass transit systems.
B) Massive wage increases during the period.
C) Government loans.
D) Industrial sprawl away from cities.

Question 42

What is the name for the theory that natural selection could be applied to society?

A) Social Darwinism.
B) Creationism.
C) Intelligent Design.
D) Federalism.

Question 43

Natural selection was invoked to show which of the following?

A) That all men were created equal.
B) That women should be able to vote.
C) African inferiority.
D) All of the above.

Question 44

The "modern" university of the time reflected what?

A) New forms of pleasure.
B) A new Enlightenment.
C) The inequalities of the age.
D) Rising democratization.

Question 45

What did the Morrill Land Grant Act do?

A) Gave states money for public parks.
B) Gave states large tracts of land to found universities.
C) Established Native American reservations.
D) All of the above.

Question 46

Nob Hill, the Back Bay, and Fifth Avenue were all examples of what?

A) Radical labor collectives.
B) Slums.
C) Wealthy neighborhoods.
D) None of the above.

Question 47

How were the majority of working-class wives employed?

A) Cannery and confection workers.
B) Housewives who worked in their homes.
C) Office clerks and cashiers.
D) Textile factory employees

Question 48

What innovation allowed middle-class Americans to maintain a front lawn in the suburbs?

A) Oil-based paint.
B) Fertilizer.
C) Mass-produced mowers.
D) Purified grass seed.

Question 49

"Robber Barons" was a term applied to

A) Congressmen.
B) Immigrants.
C) Labor leaders.
D) Wealthy "captains of industry."

Question 50

Which city grew a great deal thanks to the Gold Rush?

A) Anchorage
B) San Francisco
C) Los Angeles
D) Seattle

Question 51

Which of the following inventions improved the lives of Western farmers?

A) Barbed wire.
B) Plumbing.
C) Highways.
D) None of the above.

Question 52

Why did cattle investors begin to turn away from the Texas longhorn?

A) The meat was tough.
B) It took too long to fatten up.
C) It carried a harmful tick.
D) All of the above.

Question 53

Who led the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor?

A) Samuel L. Gompers.
B) Terence Powderly.
C) Walter Reuther.
D) William H. Silvis.

Question 54

Who started the violence in Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886?

A) Anarchists.
B) Goons and company finks.
C) Out-of-control policemen.
D) Railroad workers.

Question 55

Membership in the Knights of Labor was open to all except

A) Women.
B) Skilled and unskilled workers.
C) Black and white workers.
D) Chinese.

Question 56

What best describes early mining in the West?

A) Crushing rocks containing traces of precious metals.
B) Moving from place to place to take advantage of previous discoveries by others.
C) Prospector panning for precious metals in a mountain stream.
D) Reaching a vein of ore with high-pressure streams of water.

Question 57

The Comstock Lode in Nevada

A) Was the largest single vein of gold and silver in the United States.
B) Only allowed white miners to excavate its riches.
C) Forced its workers to adhere to strict moral standards.
D) Provided the riches that funded the establishment of Las Vegas.

Question 58

Who was the Irish immigrant whose discoveries made the United States the leading producer of copper in the world?

A) Amon Devalero.
B) Andrew Carnegie.
C) J. C. Penney.
D) Marcus Daly.

Question 59

Cowboys in the late nineteenth century

A) Were known for their gunslinging skills.
B) Received low pay.
C) Had better chances at economic independence than most.
D) Were typically Texas natives.

Question 60

How were most cattle raised in the West?

A) As far as possible from railroads, farms, and sheep.
B) Behind enclosures to keep cattle from drifting and worked on foot.
C) On small ranches known locally as "spreads."
D) By the open-range method and worked mostly from horseback.

Question 61

How did social and economic developments in the United States link the nation to global trends? Explain.

Question 62

How did the rise of "big business" change social classes in the United States?

Question 63

Did America become more or less democratic from 1850-1890?

Question 64

How did the American West change after the Civil War?