Deck 20: The Rise of an Urban Order 1870-1914

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the story of the Great Chicago Fire to make the point that

A) city life was becoming especially stressful for many Americans.
B) while the city was a harsh place, there were some who cared enough to give aid.
C) the city would survive because of its strategic location.
D) fire codes of the nineteenth century were in need of an overhaul.

Answer 1

the city would survive because of its strategic location.

Question 2

Which is an accurate statement of demographic trends in the late nineteenth century?

A) Birth rates rose.
B) Death rates rose.
C) Immigration from western and northern Europe rose.
D) The proportion of Americans living in cities rose.

Answer 2

The proportion of Americans living in cities rose.

Question 3

Which of the following statements about late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century immigrants is NOT true?

A) Most were young, between 15 and 40.
B) Most were skilled urban workers.
C) Most came from southern and eastern Europe.
D) Most settled in cities.

Answer 3

Most were skilled urban workers.

Question 4

Which of the following statements about late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century immigrants is NOT true?

A) Most settled in ethnic communities centered on church life.
B) Most married later but bore more children than the native-born.
C) Most were Protestants.
D) Most were surplus farmworkers.

Question 5

Jewish immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century came to the United States and

A) planned to stay and start a new life.
B) came to make money and return to Europe.
C) immigrated singly and started businesses.
D) rioted because of the anti-Semitic treatment they received

Question 6

In late nineteenth-century American cities,

A) the wealthy lived at the core.
B) the poor were thrust to the outer fringes.
C) residential patterns reflected the mingling of economic classes.
D) the middle and upper classes lived in the newer outer suburbs.

Question 7

What was true about middle-class family and community life in "Victorian"America?

A) Middle-class families moved to homes in the downtown in major cities, to be closer to work.
B) Middle-class values stressed a lifestyle that rejected elaborate furnishings and leisure pursuits.
C) Increasing opportunities for formal schooling became available.
D) Freed from farm chores, families increasingly spent more time with each other.

Question 8

What, according to your text, transformed the appearance of American cities in the late 1800s?

A) The streetcar and subway spread the city out.
B) The skyscraper stretched the city up.
C) The city spread both outward and upward, due to streetcars, subways, and skyscrapers.
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 9

What was the primary solution to the realization that cities could hardly survive, let alone grow, without improved transportation?

A) the horse-drawn trolley
B) the cable car
C) one-way streets
D) electric streetcars

Question 10

What urban housing design, once hailed as a helpful innovation, turned out to be a dangerous blight on the cityscape?

A) the dumbbell tenement
B) the el
C) the skyscraper
D) the settlement house

Question 11

The urban political machines stayed in power in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century because

A) they kept immigrants from getting jobs.
B) they supported the Democratic Party, which dominated national politics.
C) no one exposed their corrupt practices.
D) they effectively provided needed services to the poorer city dwellers.

Question 12

________ divorced her husband, ran for president in 1872 on the Equal Rights party ticket, and pressed the case for sexual freedom.

A) Catharine Beecher
B) Frances Willard
C) Victoria Woodhull
D) Ida B. Wells

Question 13

The urban political machine was run like a

A) welfare agency.
B) business corporation.
C) fraternal organization.
D) criminal syndicate.

Question 14

Which of the following is an accurate statement about the urban bosses?

A) They served the people of the city.
B) They exploited the people of the city.
C) They both served and exploited the people of the city.
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 15

Which is true of political machines?

A) They served as a crude welfare system.
B) They enriched the police agencies.
C) They convinced city-dwellers that government should not be trusted to help the needy.
D) They built modern city systems and moved farmers to the city.

Question 16

A small group of ministers spread a new "________"that focused on improving the conditions of society in order to save individuals.

A) rescue missions
B) Social Gospel
C) Great Awakening
D) social tolerance

Question 17

A new experiment in providing social services to slum dwellers featured centers where middle-class women lived among the poor, provided amenities, and taught American ways to immigrants. These were called

A) social gospel centers.
B) vaudeville houses.
C) settlement houses.
D) rescue missions.

Question 18

Which group among the poor was generally more responsive to "settlement houses"than to church-run efforts to help the downtrodden of the cities?

A) immigrants
B) those actually living in slum housing
C) alcoholics
D) the audiences of Dwight L. Moody

Question 19

How did women's colleges respond to Dr. Edward Clarke's assertion that, "the rigors of a college education could lead the 'weaker sex' to physical or mental collapse, infertility, and early death"?

A) They began to only accept "new women" who were more likely to already be physically fit.
B) They implemented programs of physical activity to keep students healthy.
C) Most colleges realized the problem was not women's health per se, but their restrictive dress; they changed the dress code to require lighter, more comfortable clothing.
D) All these answers are correct.

Question 20

Which of the following statements best describes the typical pattern of immigrant life?

A) Stripped of their religious and linguistic identity, immigrants dispersed into the general population mix of the city, rapidly assimilating into their adopted homeland.
B) Hostile to Anglo-Saxon ways, immigrants crowded together in "foreign quarters," embracing each other's cultural contributions while resisting assimilation.
C) Clustered into ever-changing neighborhoods in the cities, with a church or synagogue at the center, ethnic communities both preserved old-world flavor and eased the transition to an Americanized culture.
D) Shaped by their rural peasant backgrounds, European immigrant men married quickly and bought a farm as soon as they could.

Question 21

In the urban household, evidence of technological progress would include

A) the large noonday dinner.
B) the fact that few had live-in maids any longer.
C) brand-name prepared foods.
D) electric refrigerators.

Question 22

Victorian crusaders against intemperance and vice saw themselves as

A) radical visionaries.
B) stuffy moralists.
C) apostles of social control.
D) intolerant religious zealots.

Question 23

Which of the following was a trend in education in the late nineteenth century?

A) City girls and boys, as required by laws in most states, attended school together for most of the workday.
B) Many new colleges were established, underwritten by grants from both private philanthropists and government.
C) Marginal groups like women and immigrants looked to education as a way to get ahead.
D) Literacy dropped sharply.

Question 24

Frances Willard led the Victorian campaign against

A) alcohol.
B) pornography.
C) poverty.
D) child labor.

Question 25

Establishment of "normal schools"and the rise of new nursing and law schools reflected a trend toward

A) public-supported education replacing private colleges.
B) practical and professional training.
C) the narrowing of educational opportunities for women.
D) the impact of the new field of psychology.

Question 26

New outlets for selling consumer goods included

A) the mail-order catalog for rural residents.
B) the department store that catered to the working class.
C) the home grown cottage store for city dwellers.
D) the outlying shopping center for middle-class commuters living at the end of the streetcar lines.

Question 27

Which of the following activities became a craze during the Victorian era, representing a mixed activity that could be enjoyed together by men and women?

A) driving autos
B) river boating
C) baseball
D) cycling

Question 28

The Red Stockings from Cincinnati became, in 1869, the first

A) traveling religious revival show.
B) Indian rights organization.
C) professional baseball team.
D) department store chain.

Question 29

The city that became the gateway to the West and dominant hub for the nation's whole midsection, and also became an agent for ecological change, was ________.

Question 30

In 1900, the largest city on the Pacific Coast was ________.

Question 31

Always at the center of immigrant life in their neighborhoods within the American city were the houses of ________.

Question 32

The ________ tenement was an innovative urban housing design, at first hailed as a helpful innovation, which turned out to be a dangerous blight on the cityscape.

Question 33

In an age of fragmented and decentralized municipal government, the ________ provided the centralization and services that people needed.

Question 34

The most notorious of the corrupt city politicians and, thanks to Thomas Nast's cartoons, the ultimate symbol for graft and waste in municipal government was New York's Boss William ________.

Question 35

One religious response to the city was to take the message of the Christian gospel to the poorest people there; the most prominent leader of these urban revivals was ________.

Question 36

Certain religious thinkers like Washington Gladden sought to refocus the Christian gospel message toward attacking the flaws and injustices in society rather than just trying to convert individuals; this movement became known as the ________.

Question 37

Late-nineteenth-century patterns of American middle-class taste and morality were labeled, somewhat oddly, ________-named for Britain's long-reigning queen.

Question 38

Ready-made consumer products for the urban middle class were available at the new ________, palaces of consumption conveniently located on streetcar lines for the lady who wanted to "go downtown"in an afternoon.

Question 39

While ________ had been the exclusive leisure-time activity for rich people before the Victorian era, by the late nineteenth century middle-class Americans were also engaging in it.

Question 40

________ was the name given to a new form of middle-class mass theatrical entertainment that featured a series of stage acts-moderate and moral so as to reinforce genteel values.

Question 41

The artist who painted the mural entitled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science was ________.

Question 42

What brought about the modern city, and what factors accounted for the urban explosion of the late nineteenth century?

Question 43

Who were the "new"immigrants and how did they differ from "old"immigrants?

Question 44

Describe immigrant life in the city.

Question 45

What geographic look did modern cities take, and how did they continue to function as they grew to enormous size?

Question 46

Describe the origins and functioning of boss rule.

Question 47

What were the "Social Gospel"and the settlement house?

Question 48

What does the term "Victorian"mean, and how did it affect the development of urban middle-class life?

Question 49

What roles did education perform in the late nineteenth century?

Question 50

What was the impact of city life on women and African Americans?

Question 51

To what extent were the "new"immigrants pushed out of their native countries or "pulled"to America? Why did so many return to their native countries, and why were Jews the major exception to this trend?

Question 52

Why did well-defined ethnic communities develop in American cities? What factors explain the relatively quick pace of assimilation among the children of immigrants?

Question 53

How did some urban housing reforms of the late nineteenth century eventually add to urban blight?

Question 54

In what sense did boss rule revolutionize city government? What was the price paid for the boss system? Do you think the costs were worth the benefits?

Question 55

How did mass consumption practices and mass entertainment activities help to tie the nation together in the late nineteenth century?