Deck 9: The Market Revolution, 1800-1840

Question 1

The American Scholar (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new importance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual,-to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state;-tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, "that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom alone. . . .
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant.
Ideas in Emerson's passage are best exemplified by

A) the ideas of the Freemasons.
B) Thoreau's time at Walden.
C) ideas embedded in religious revivals.
D) the rise of nativism.

Answer 1

Thoreau's time at Walden.

Question 2

What was a factor in the nation's acquisition of Florida from Spain?

A) Andrew Jackson led an army to invade Florida, subsequently killing British agents.
B) Spain no longer mined for gold in Florida.
C) Abolitionists hoped to create a refuge for fugitive slaves.
D) Businessmen hoped soft sandy beaches would bring in tourist money.

Answer 2

Andrew Jackson led an army to invade Florida, subsequently killing British agents.

Question 3

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, what helped shape southern Ohio?

A) New England settlers who moved to Ohio.
B) Slaveholders from Kentucky.
C) Migrants from St. Louis.
D) Merchants from northern Ohio.

Answer 3

Slaveholders from Kentucky.

Question 4

From Abraham Lincoln's life, which would be an example from the old economy when compared to the newly transformed market economy?

A) Lincoln working as a lawyer for the Illinois Central Railroad.
B) Lincoln as a state legislator promoting river transportation.
C) Lincoln getting paid in cash and then purchasing clothing from a store.
D) Lincoln settling family debt by doing labor for the neighbor.

Question 5

The American Scholar (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new importance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual,-to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state;-tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, "that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom alone. . . .
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant.
Based on the passage above, which of the following concepts would Emerson regard as most contrary to his message?

A) the ideal of the yeoman farmer
B) the influence of classical Greek and Roman designs on architecture in America
C) artistic movements focused on American landscapes
D) reform movements that address the social ills in society

Question 6

The American Scholar (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new importance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual,-to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state;-tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, "that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom alone. . . .
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant.
The ideas expressed by Emerson inspired

A) the religious revivals that swept through the Northeast.
B) reform movements that addressed the social ills in society.
C) a market revolution predicated on industrial innovations.
D) utopian societies that concentrated on intellectual discourse.

Question 7

An advantage of water transportation over road transportation was that:

A) canals cost less to construct than roads.
B) canal construction was easier to do than road construction.
C) canal boats could haul much larger loads than wagons on roads.
D) the federal government preferred to fund canal projects over road transportation.

Question 8

The catalyst for the market revolution was a series of innovations in:

A) manufacturing.
B) transportation and communication.
C) banking and financing.
D) labor contracts.

Question 9

Most of the states that joined the Union in the six years immediately following the War of 1812 were located:

A) west of the Mississippi River.
B) in the Old Northwest.
C) west of the Appalachian Mountains.
D) in the Louisiana Purchase territory.

Question 10

What was the significance of Robert Fulton?

A) He was responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal.
B) His work in designing steamboats made upstream commerce possible.
C) His innovations led to the revolution in turnpike construction in the early nineteenth century.
D) As mayor of New York City, he worked to make that city a commercial center.

Question 11

What physical geographical feature in the Old Northwest served as an internal borderland?

A) The Ohio River.
B) Lake Erie.
C) The Mississippi River.
D) Lake Michigan.

Question 12

What was the biggest motivating factor in moving westward in the 1820s and 1830s?

A) Land was cheaper.
B) Gold existed just beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
C) Slaves could escape to safe havens.
D) Cotton could be grown in Ohio and Indiana.

Question 13

America's first commercial railroad was the:

A) Pennsylvania Railroad.
B) Union Pacific Railroad.
C) Reading Railroad.
D) Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Question 14

The Erie Canal gave which city primacy over competing ports in accessing trade with the Northwest?

A) Baltimore.
B) Philadelphia.
C) Boston.
D) New York.

Question 15

The Erie Canal:

A) was far longer than any other canal in the United States at that time.
B) attracted an influx of farmers migrating from Virginia and the Carolinas to the Northwest.
C) was strongly opposed by residents of Buffalo and Rochester, who feared their cities would lose business.
D) was championed by Pennsylvania governor William Findlay.

Question 16

Which of the following is true of Lafayette's 1824 visit to the United States?

A) He made a series of speeches supporting the emancipation of slaves.
B) Federalists strongly protested the visit because of Lafayette's connections with the French Revolution.
C) Southern states banned "persons of color" from ceremonies honoring him.
D) He negotiated a trade agreement that demonstrated the rising economic influence of the United States.

Question 17

Which improvement most dramatically increased the speed and lowered the expense of commerce in the first half of the nineteenth century?

A) The transcontinental railroad.
B) Canals and steamboats.
C) The factory system.
D) A system of federally financed roads.

Question 18

The American Scholar (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new importance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual,-to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state;-tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, "that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom alone. . . .
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant.
Emerson's writing exemplifies the ideas of Americans who worried about the consequences of

A) the market revolution and materialism.
B) the expansion of slavery.
C) the demise of public schooling.
D) foreign encroachment on American territory.

Question 19

The American railroad industry in the first half of the nineteenth century:

A) was exclusively in the North.
B) stimulated the coal mining industry.
C) was smaller in terms of total miles of track than the European rail system.
D) mainly connected one waterway to another waterway.

Question 20

Squatters:

A) set up farms on unoccupied land.
B) were corporate charters issued by states as contracts.
C) strung telegraph lines between poles.
D) set the dynamite as part of railroad construction crews.

Question 21

Compare immigration to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s to the present day. Is there a similarity?

A) Most immigrants in both time periods were from Mexico.
B) In both centuries, immigrants' primary motive was to escape religious persecution.
C) Most immigrants in both centuries sought better economic opportunities.
D) In both time periods, the primary group to arrive in America was children.

Question 22

The "American System of manufactures":

A) owed a great deal to Eli Terry's development of interchangeable parts in clockmaking.
B) originated among entrepreneurs in the Old Northwest before spreading to New England.
C) referred to the production of specialty handmade goods by highly skilled artisans.
D) was centered entirely on agricultural machinery.

Question 23

How did westward movement affect the South?

A) The lack of canals slowed down the use of slaves.
B) The plantation slave-based economy was replicated in Alabama and Mississippi.
C) Trade with the eastern United States was no longer seen as a priority.
D) The South developed a highly effective and large railroad system to transport goods from west to east.

Question 24

What sparked the rapid growth of Chicago from a small settlement in 1830 to America's fourth largest city by 1860?

A) The city became a major marketplace for cotton.
B) Railroads connected Chicago to numerous eastern marketplaces.
C) It was home to the most escaped slaves in the United States.
D) The city started to build the first skyscapers.

Question 25

Which statement is true about the difference between farming in the Old Northwest and the Northeast?

A) Farming in the Northeast needed slave labor.
B) Wheat farming in the Northeast made New York City the flour capital.
C) Old Northwest farms depended on the cotton gin.
D) Farming was done on a much bigger scale in the Old Northwest.

Question 26

The majority of the nearly 4 million immigrants that entered the United States between 1840 and 1860 were from:

A) England and Germany.
B) Germany and Ireland.
C) China and Ireland.
D) Mexico and England.

Question 27

What was an irony about the cotton gin?

A) Slaves did not really need it.
B) Most slaves did not know how to work it.
C) Cotton demand actually decreased.
D) The inventor of the machine was from the North.

Question 28

Which of the following was responsible for the first large-scale American factory, which was built in Massachusetts?

A) Henry Clay, whose sponsorship of a protective tariff made the factory economically viable.
B) The cutting off of British imports because of the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812.
C) Cyrus McCormick, who built the factory to produce his reaper.
D) The American victory in the War of 1812, which made the United States economically dominant in the Atlantic world.

Question 29

Which problem with cotton did Eli Whitney solve by inventing the cotton gin?

A) Whitney figured out how to remove the cotton-destroying boll weevil and thereby save the cotton crop.
B) Removing seeds from the cotton was a slow and painstaking task, but Whitney made it much easier and less labor-intensive.
C) Processing cotton required too many different pieces of equipment, but Whitney figured out how to change the equipment more easily and quickly, saving time and money.
D) Planting the cotton took too many hours to make its growth very profitable, but Whitney enabled planters to use a machine to speed the planting.

Question 30

How did the market revolution affect the lives of artisans?

A) Their lives changed little, because the economy allowed for plenty of room for specialized craftsmen.
B) New competition created opportunities for the specialized skills of artisans, so their numbers expanded.
C) Working in factories, they faced constant supervision as they used power-driven machinery.
D) They began working in factories, which they preferred to enduring years of apprenticeship under the old system.

Question 31

What is the significance of Eli Whitney's cotton gin?

A) The internal slave trade within the United States grew dramatically.
B) The Atlantic slave trade continued to bring slaves in large numbers to the United States up until 1860.
C) The Erie Canal became the primary waterway for shipping cotton.
D) Cotton production decreased dramatically for twenty-five years.

Question 32

The first industry to be shaped by the large factory system was:

A) textiles.
B) guns.
C) ironworks.
D) pottery.

Question 33

How did the market revolution change the way Americans conceived of time?

A) It led Congress to create time zones in 1823.
B) Clocks increasingly regulated the separation of work and leisure time.
C) Artisans began spending their lunch hours in political discussions rather than just taking breaks as they worked throughout the day.
D) It lengthened life expectancy because Americans no longer had to work from sunrise to sunset as they had on farms.

Question 34

Samuel Slater:

A) developed stone-crushing technology useful for road building.
B) established America's first factory.
C) invented the cotton gin.
D) established the Erie Canal.

Question 35

The "German triangle" in the mid-nineteenth century referred to:

A) a Baltimore neighborhood with a large German immigrant population.
B) the identifying patch German immigrants were forced to wear in some American cities.
C) Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee-cities with large German populations.
D) the special kind of ballot Democrats gave German-speaking voters.

Question 36

What encouraged the building of factories in coastal towns such as New Bedford and even large inland cities such as Chicago by the 1840s?

A) Such places generally had cheaper labor (usually consisting of African-Americans) than existed in the earlier, highly unionized factory towns such as Lowell and Pawtucket.
B) Under Henry Clay's American System, federal and state governments subsidized factories in those locations.
C) Steam power meant factories no longer had to be near waterfalls and rapids to generate the power.
D) Factory owners were attracted by the highly skilled labor pool of German immigrants who settled in those areas.

Question 37

What was the most important export from the United States by the mid-nineteenth century?

A) Tobacco.
B) Coal.
C) Timber.
D) Cotton.

Question 38

How did the market revolution affect western farming?

A) Cyrus McCormick's reaper slowed down the process of harvesting wheat.
B) Farmers in the Old Northwest used slave labor to expand their production.
C) Farmers in the West found markets in the East for their crops and livestock.
D) Farms in the eastern United States continued to grow more corn than in the West.

Question 39

In the first half of the nineteenth century, what city became known as "Porkopolis"?

A) New York.
B) Cincinnati.
C) St. Louis.
D) Chicago.

Question 40

Women who worked at the Lowell mills:

A) never had time to make friends.
B) commuted daily to work from their family farms.
C) quickly organized a union to strike for higher wages.
D) lived in closely supervised boardinghouses.

Question 41

Which of the following helped to increase the visibility and power of the Catholic Church in America in the mid-nineteenth century?

A) The fact that President Jackson was Catholic.
B) Minister Lyman Beecher's sermon preaching religious toleration was published and widely circulated.
C) Congressional passage of an Act of Religious Toleration that gave Catholics political rights.
D) The dramatic increase in the number of Italian Catholic immigrants.

Question 42

In the 1840s, nativists blamed immigrants for what?

A) Epidemics in American cities.
B) An increase in Protestant revivalism.
C) Urban crime and political corruption.
D) A decline in the sales of alcohol.

Question 43

Henry David Thoreau believed that:

A) economic independence was essential for freedom.
B) genuine freedom lay within the individual.
C) the market revolution brought freedom to many.
D) true freedom was not obtainable.

Question 44

In an 1837 case involving the Charles River in Massachusetts, Chief Justice Roger Taney:

A) declared that the community had a legitimate interest in promoting transportation and prosperity.
B) held that adding a second bridge over the river violated the charter rights of the company that built the first bridge.
C) granted Robert Fulton's steamboat company a monopoly in the ferry business on the river.
D) issued an opinion in which the U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time, overturned a state law.

Question 45

According to John O'Sullivan, the "manifest destiny" of the United States to occupy North America could be traced to:

A) the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
B) a divine mission.
C) the Adams-Onís Treaty.
D) the Bible.

Question 46

What did Harriet Noble conclude about her family's move from New York to Michigan after the War of 1812?

A) It was more dangerous in the Old West because of numerous Indian threats.
B) Rugged living in the West made her children better prepared to face life.
C) She was incapable of doing the work of men.
D) She believed the French in Detroit were noble.

Question 47

Who were the two most prominent members of the transcendentalist movement?

A) Orestes Brownson and Karl Marx.
B) Cyrus McCormick and John Deere.
C) Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
D) Lydia Maria Child and Harriet Noble.

Question 48

What was a result of the Second Great Awakening?

A) The Second Great Awakening popularized Deism.
B) Charles Grandison Finney was pressured to leave the eastern United States.
C) The Second Great Awakening complemented the idea of self-reliance.
D) The Second Great Awakening led to the Baptists losing a majority of their parishioners, who switched to Catholicism.

Question 49

Which statement about corporations was true in the first half of the nineteenth century?

A) Most Americans favored corporate charters with special privileges.
B) The corporation was only a small part of the new market economy.
C) Charters from the government strictly controlled corporations.
D) Corporations were able to raise far more capital than the traditional forms of enterprise.

Question 50

In today's society, who best resembles Henry David Thoreau's ideas from his stay at Walden?

A) A pro-war demonstrator.
B) A hermit growing an organic garden.
C) An Amish community raising a barn.
D) A hippie-like commune that makes its own clothes.

Question 51

In Gibbons v. Ogden, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that:

A) the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional.
B) Congress had the authority to create the Bank of the United States.
C) New York could not grant a monopoly on steamboat navigation between New York and New Jersey.
D) corporations were illegal because their potential to become monopolistic posed a threat to individual free enterprise.

Question 52

The Book of Mormon states that:

A) Joseph Smith was divine.
B) the second coming of Christ would occur in Europe.
C) Native Americans were descended from people from the Middle East.
D) Joseph Smith's visions were untrue.

Question 53

Besides religious phrases, what did Charles Grandison Finney emphasize in his sermons?

A) People needed to improve themselves economically.
B) People had to make choices in their lives similar to making political decisions.
C) Themes from classical Greek literature.
D) People needed to make strategic moves in their lives, like a military commander.

Question 54

According to the Mormons, who was God's prophet?

A) Joseph Smith.
B) Charles Grandison Finney.
C) John Jacob Astor.
D) Orestes Brownson.

Question 55

How did Mormonism challenge societal norms?

A) The Mormon leadership wanted to allow women in leadership positions.
B) The Mormons conducted marriages in different ways.
C) The Mormons believed that Jesus Christ never existed.
D) The Mormons believed the Native Americans came from East Asia and brought Buddhism.

Question 56

During the first half of the nineteenth century, individualism:

A) came under attack from Henry David Thoreau.
B) was defined in a way that distinguished it completely from the idea of privacy.
C) hampered efforts to spread democracy because it reduced interest in suffrage.
D) was rooted in the idea of self-sufficiency.

Question 57

In response to the market revolution:

A) the legal system worked with local governments to find better ways to regulate entrepreneurs.
B) Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that legislatures could not alter or rescind charters and contracts that previous legislatures had created.
C) local judges protected businessmen from paying property damages associated with factory construction and from workers seeking to unionize.
D) Massachusetts Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw held in Commonwealth v. Hunt that workers had no right to organize.

Question 58

The transcendentalist movement:

A) emphasized individual judgment, not tradition.
B) is also known as the Second Great Awakening.
C) stressed teamwork in order to industrialize.
D) was largely based in the South.

Question 59

Which denomination enjoyed the largest membership in the United States by the 1840s?

A) Methodist.
B) Roman Catholic.
C) Quaker.
D) Presbyterian.

Question 60

In the essay "Factory Life as It Is by an Operative," how does the writer assess her world?

A) She marveled at the technology in the factory.
B) She did not appreciate what had happened to the artisans.
C) She believed it was best to keep quiet about her work.
D) She saw the wealthy as hypocrites.

Question 61

What did Noah Webster's American Dictionary define as "a state of exemption from the power or control of another"?

A) Masculinity.
B) Individualism.
C) Artisanship.
D) Freedom.

Question 62

The women who protested during the Shoemakers' Strike in Lynn compared their condition to that of:

A) indentured servants.
B) slaves.
C) Irish immigrants.
D) religious dissenters.

Question 63

The cult of domesticity:

A) received very little support, which is why people referred to it as a cult, or a small fringe group.
B) represented a significant break with the idea of republican motherhood.
C) was based on the idea that women should be less dependent upon men.
D) led to a decline in birthrates.

Question 64

What helped to encourage Richard Allen to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church?

A) Refused admission to Princeton Seminary because of his color, he decided to set up his own religious organization.
B) He was forcibly removed from praying at the altar rail at his former place of worship.
C) He wanted to see an integrated church that combined the elements he admired most in the Methodist and Episcopal denominations.
D) Frederick Douglass gave him a generous grant to establish a new church.

Question 65

According to nineteenth-century American society, who would be a good representative of the "cult of domesticity"?

A) A "spinster."
B) A single woman factory worker.
C) A housewife.
D) A prostitute.

Question 66

Compare and contrast the changes brought about by the Market Revolution in the Northeast, the West, and the South, analyzing both similarities and differences during the period 1800-1840.

Question 67

John Jacob Astor, who seemed to exemplify the "self-made man":

A) turned out to be a fraud, for it was discovered he counterfeited much of his fortune.
B) used his great wealth to finance the North during the Civil War.
C) made huge profits from distributing the machines built by Thomas Rodgers.
D) became wealthy by trading goods between the United States and China.

Question 68

The Workingman's Parties would praise what twenty-first-century activity?

A) Technology is used to replace workers in a factory.
B) The president orders strikers to return to work.
C) The federal minimum wage is raised.
D) A company downsizes to bring in more profit.

Question 69

During the first half of the nineteenth century, free black Americans:

A) could not, under federal law, obtain public land.
B) found, as whites did, that the West offered the best opportunities for economic advancement.
C) rose in economic status, but more slowly than whites.
D) joined with white artisans in biracial unions that successfully struck for higher wages.

Question 70

The role of a white middle-class woman in antebellum America was primarily to:

A) pursue a college education.
B) take a job outside the home to supplement the family's disposable income.
C) have as large a family as possible.
D) focus her energies on the home and children.

Question 71

Explain how innovations in technology changed Americans' sense of national identity between 1800 and 1860.

Question 72

In 1829, Lydia Maria Child wrote a popular book called:

A) The Frugal Housewife.
B) The Feminine Mystique.
C) National Mother, Virtuous Wife.
D) Save a Penny for the Family.

Question 73

The idea of leveling the playing field between worker and management was best personified in the writings of which American?

A) Karl Marx.
B) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
C) Orestes Brownson.
D) Henry David Thoreau.

Question 74

In his essay "The Laboring Classes," Orestes Brownson argued that:

A) wealth and labor were at war.
B) each worker's problems had to be understood individually.
C) government was the cause of workers' problems.
D) workers were lazy and easily tempted by alcohol.

Question 75

Explain how innovations in technology changed the daily lives of Americans involved in agriculture between 1800 and 1860.

Question 76

What came to be redefined as a personal moral quality associated more and more closely with women?

A) Freedom.
B) Liberty.
C) Virtue.
D) Family.

Question 77

Racism in the North resulted in:

A) limited economic opportunities for African-Americans.
B) more opportunities for land for Native Americans.
C) a reestablishment of slavery.
D) African-Americans being the majority of factory workers.