Deck 10: The Restless North

Question 1

By the 1850s most workers in the New England textile mills came from which of the following groups?

A) Dispossessed farmers
B) New England farm daughters
C) Free blacks
D) Female immigrants

Answer 1

Female immigrants

Question 2

Individual farmers in the new market economy of the 1800s

A) specialized in growing crops that could be sold for cash on the market.
B) started trading surplus crops with their neighbors.
C) were self-sufficient.
D) raised a wide variety of crops.

Answer 2

specialized in growing crops that could be sold for cash on the market.

Question 3

Which of the following acted as an impediment to industrial growth in the early nineteenth century?

A) The enactment of laws in many Northeastern states that outlawed corporations
B) Supreme Court decisions that were unfavorable to business interests
C) The absence of businessmen willing to take investment risks
D) The lack of cheap, quick transportation

Answer 3

The lack of cheap, quick transportation

Question 4

During the first half of the nineteenth century, internal improvements in the North

A) sometimes caused the degradation of the natural world.
B) were celebrated by all Americans as examples of their ingenuity and creativity as a people.
C) aided the northern fresh-water fishing industry by increasing the number of lakes and streams in which fish could thrive.
D) led to a significant increase in the number of mills by making water power more available and cheaper.

Question 5

Which of the following is a reason for the rapid manufacturing and commercial expansion experienced by the Northeast during the forty years following the War of 1812?

A) The unparalleled natural increase in the population of the North and South increased demand for manufactured products.
B) The federal government poured vast sums of money into the building of factories and the building of canals.
C) Internal improvements in the Northeast dramatically reduced transportation costs.
D) After the war most European nations refused to import goods to the United States, thus domestic manufacturing expanded rapidly in the Northeast to meet consumer demand.

Question 6

Which of the following can be attributed to the Erie Canal?

A) the decline of farming in the Northeast
B) the passage of the protective tariff
C) development of the New England textile industry
D) the decision of other states to build similarly large, though often less successful, canals

Question 7

After the War of 1812,

A) farmers in the North remained self-reliant and seldom participated in the emerging market economy.
B) more people in the North began to work for others in return for wages.
C) there seemed to be few economic differences between the North and the South.
D) the United States was immediately flooded with foreign imports, thus pushing many newly emerging domestic industries into bankruptcy.

Question 8

Which of the following best explains the deterioration of the working and living conditions of workers in New England textile mills in the 1830s and 1840s?

A) Living and working conditions deteriorated primarily because of the economic depression of the late 1830s.
B) Working and living conditions deteriorated primarily because of the growing labor surplus.
C) As the economy deteriorated, management's emphasis shifted from providing decent working and living conditions for the workers to maximizing profits.
D) Competition from English imports was the primary reason for the deterioration of working and living conditions.

Question 9

Some New England textile mill workers responded to their deteriorating working conditions in the 1830s by

A) organizing a nationwide product boycott.
B) lobbying state legislatures for a shorter workday.
C) engaging in sabotage against the machines.
D) organizing and going on strike.

Question 10

As evidenced by the formation of the Lowell Female Reform Association in 1844, female workers in New England textile mills had changed their methods of resistance to deteriorating working conditions. What new method were they using?

A) They organized a nationwide product boycott.
B) They called for the passage of state legislation to shorten the workday.
C) They engaged in sabotage against the machines.
D) They organized and went on strike.

Question 11

The labor parties formed in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts in the 1820s advocated which of the following?

A) An end to imprisonment for debt
B) A four-day work week
C) A pension plan guaranteed by employers
D) Free room and board for mill workers

Question 12

Which of the following was true of the nation's canals and railroads by the 1850s?

A) The national transportation network they created promoted a sense of national unity.
B) Construction was so haphazard that they hampered the emergence of a national marketplace.
C) They did little to unite the North and the South.
D) They had been completely financed by the federal government.

Question 13

To adequately staff the Lowell textile mill at Waltham, Massachusetts, mill managers first turned to

A) runaway slaves from the South.
B) newly arrived European immigrants.
C) young girls from New England farms.
D) farmers who could no longer support themselves through farming.

Question 14

By the 1850s, which of the following was a consequence of internal improvements in the North?

A) The canals and railroads built in the North only benefited factory owners and financiers.
B) The canals and railroads built in the North had a unifying effect by linking the Northeast with the Old Northwest.
C) The canals and railroads built in the North benefited the entire nation and helped to integrate both the South and the Old Northwest into the North's market economy.
D) The canals and railroads built in the North severely strained the economy of many Northern states, causing some of those states to declare their state treasuries bankrupt.

Question 15

When Mary Ann Archbald produced cloth to sell for cash, her primary objective was to

A) gain money for the purchase of luxury items.
B) accumulate wealth.
C) gain economic independence for herself.
D) pay off her family's land debt.

Question 16

How did railroad construction in the South differ from railroads in the North?

A) Research clearly indicated that such investments would be of no economic benefit to the South.
B) The South erected large, national railroad lines.
C) The southern states believed that such construction should be the responsibility of the federal government.
D) Railroads in the South remained local.

Question 17

The development of a national railroad system was hampered by which of the following?

A) The absence of a national standard for track width
B) The public's fear concerning the safety of rail travel
C) The refusal of most financial institutions to grant loans for rail construction
D) The cost of both buying land and hiring the number of workers necessary to lay track over rough terrain

Question 18

In the mid-nineteenth century, where was the one place that northern and southern railroads connected?

A) Baltimore, Maryland
B) Bowling Green, Kentucky
C) Nashville, Tennessee
D) Richmond, Virginia

Question 19

Which of the following was true of factory work in the 1840s?

A) Workers in large factories continued to have a close personal relationship with the factory owner.
B) The shortage of labor meant that most factory workers had job security.
C) The flow of work was governed by bells or steam whistles that marked stop and start times.
D) Workers usually had far more opportunities for advancement than would have been true in pre-industrial artisan shops.

Question 20

The key to the American system of manufacturing was

A) the financial method used to finance plant expansion.
B) a unique method of corporate management.
C) the use of machine-tooled, interchangeable parts.
D) the vertical integration of companies.

Question 21

Which of the following is true of the labor movement during the 1840s?

A) It was made up primarily of socialists and anarchists.
B) It was successful in getting pension plans for many workers.
C) Its major achievement came when the courts relieved workers from the threat of conspiracy laws being used against them if they organized or engaged in strikes.
D) It demonstrated the unity present among workers.

Question 22

By the middle of the 1800s, which of the following cities had become the center of the meatpacking industry?

A) Boston
B) Cincinnati
C) New Orleans
D) New York

Question 23

Which of the following best represents the percentage of the white population that was foreign-born by 1860?

A) 80 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 30 percent
D) 15 percent

Question 24

Which of the following is true concerning the distribution of wealth in the United States between 1800 and 1860?

A) Wealth was distributed more equitably throughout society.
B) There was no significant change in the distribution of wealth during that time.
C) Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people.
D) There was a redistribution of wealth from the wealthiest families to middle-class families.

Question 25

Which of the following statements is true concerning the birthrate in America between 1800 and 1860?

A) The birthrate declined sharply among urban women and increased slightly among rural women.
B) The birthrate continued to increase, but more slowly than it had in the eighteenth century.
C) The birthrate declined, but more so among native-born Americans than among immigrant women.
D) The birthrate increased slightly among urban women and decreased sharply among rural women.

Question 26

Which of the following made urban expansion possible in early-nineteenth-century America?

A) Public transit
B) The power of cities to annex adjacent unincorporated areas
C) Donations of land to city governments
D) Removal of the Native Americans

Question 27

During the 1830s northeastern farmers faced which of the following problems?

A) The new labor-saving farm implements were unsuited to the area's terrain.
B) Severe drought struck the area.
C) Overproduction led to a dramatic decline in wheat and corn prices.
D) Many were overburdened with debt because of the acquisition of new land.

Question 28

Initially, the biggest market for readymade clothes was

A) women from wealthy families in the Northeast.
B) southern planters who bought such clothes for their slaves.
C) workers in textile mills.
D) businessmen working in Northeastern financial centers.

Question 29

The boom-and-bust economic cycles from 1815 to 1860 were the direct result of

A) droughts and resulting crop failures.
B) the development and expansion of the new market economy.
C) government intervention in the economy.
D) the nation's overdependence on foreign trade.

Question 30

Which of the following had become a feature in many middle-class homes by the 1840s and 1850s?

A) Dirt floors
B) Several servants
C) Indoor toilets
D) Homemade furniture

Question 31

In the 1840s and 1850s, much of the wealth in the hands of America's upper-class elite was based on

A) talent and talent alone.
B) their godliness in an imperfect world.
C) the fact that they had inherited money.
D) their ability to persevere in the face of hardships.

Question 32

During the nineteenth century,

A) overall family size increased in all regions of the country.
B) government at both the state and national level established social programs designed to alleviate poverty.
C) the number of single women in the United States increased significantly.
D) the gap between rich and poor in the United States narrowed.

Question 33

During the early nineteenth century, many married and widowed working-class women

A) worked at specialized tasks in the new factories.
B) acquired secretarial skills and worked in urban offices.
C) became clerks in the new urban department stores.
D) sold their domestic skills for wages by working as laundresses, seamstresses, and cooks.

Question 34

Which of the following is a good example of the transition to a market economy?

A) Farmers in the West began to try to meet the demands of the marketplace by producing animals, dairy products, grain, and vegetables on a single family farm.
B) More and more farmers, especially in the West, began to turn to subsistence farming.
C) Farm women began to produce more dairy products to be sold in the market, and they then used their profits to buy factory-produced cloth.
D) Spinning and weaving at home became more and more important.

Question 35

Why did city governments eventually take over the task of supplying water to urban dwellers?

A) Private interests did not have the capital necessary to build adequate water supply systems.
B) Wealthy citizens demanded the extension of services to industry and business.
C) Cities were judged to be liable for illnesses and deaths caused by contaminated drinking water.
D) Arguments at neighborhood wells over water rights became a major source of violence and disorder.

Question 36

The Massachusetts case Commonwealth v. Hunt was important in which of the following respects?

A) It declared organized labor to be an illegal restraint of trade.
B) By ruling that it was constitutional for a state to use the militia to end labor disputes, it declared strikes to be illegal.
C) By ruling that a contract between a labor union and a factory owner was binding, it recognized the right of labor to bargain collectively.
D) It recognized the right of workers to organize and strike.

Question 37

How did New England farm families respond to competition from the West?

A) They gave up attempting to improve their livestock and turned to raising poultry.
B) They opened more land to the production of wheat and corn.
C) They began to raise livestock and to specialize in vegetable and fruit production.
D) They returned to subsistence farming.

Question 38

By the mid-1800s, what occupation was recognized as consistent with the domestic ideal and therefore as acceptable for a woman?

A) Nursing
B) Social work
C) Teaching
D) Secretarial work

Question 39

In the early nineteenth century, family planning was

A) becoming more common.
B) unknown.
C) confined to the rich.
D) generally regarded as immoral.

Question 40

A counting house was

A) the place where railroad companies planned their train schedules and freight rates.
B) the place where the paperwork for a merchant's commercial transactions was completed.
C) a corporation's central warehouse.
D) a bank.

Question 41

The "benevolent empire" refers to which of the following?

A) Reform associations in the 1830s and 1840s that were inspired by the Second Great Awakening
B) The international relief organizations in the United States that gave aid to the impoverished of the earth
C) A loosely-knit organization of northern factory owners dedicated to the abolition of slavery.
D) The slave society of the Cotton South

Question 42

The leader of the movement seeking to reform the treatment of the mentally ill was

A) Susan B. Anthony.
B) Dorothea Dix.
C) Sarah Grimké.
D) Lucretia Mott.

Question 43

The massive nineteenth-century influx of Irish immigrants into the United States was accompanied by

A) the passage of restrictive immigration laws.
B) legislation lengthening residency requirements for citizenship.
C) the growth of anti-Catholic sentiment.
D) a nationwide typhoid fever epidemic.

Question 44

The Second Great Awakening affected women in which of the following ways?

A) The movement adversely affected women by blaming them for the sins of American society.
B) The only impact the movement had on women was to reinforce the cult of domesticity.
C) By participating in organizations advocating moral reform, many women became politically involved for the first time.
D) Both the Episcopal and Methodist denominations allowed women to rise to the rank of bishop.

Question 45

During the 1830s and 1840s, wide distribution of pamphlets and periodicals was made possible by

A) the advent of Rural Free Delivery.
B) the establishment of the United States Postal Service.
C) parcel post delivery.
D) power printing presses and better transportation.

Question 46

Which of the following was true of minstrel shows in the 1830s and 1840s?

A) By ridiculing African Americans, they encouraged racial stereotyping.
B) They provided a forum through which whites and blacks could better understand and accept their cultural differences.
C) They served as the major entry point for African Americans into the entertainment industry.
D) By popularizing African American song and dance, they served to break down racial barriers.

Question 47

The financial resources for the spread of evangelical reform often came from

A) northern state governments.
B) the members of Masonic lodges.
C) wealthy industrialists and merchants.
D) groups associated with recent Catholic immigrants.

Question 48

Which of the following best states the free-labor ideology?

A) If you work hard and live a virtuous life, you will move up the social and economic ladder.
B) Life is full of hardships that, if endured, will build character.
C) Manual labor is beneath those of Anglo-Saxon heritage.
D) Slavery is morally wrong and should be abolished immediately.

Question 49

What prompted the massive migration of Irish to the United States in the 1840s?

A) The Irish civil war
B) The potato famine in Ireland
C) The Anglo-Irish war
D) Religious persecution in Ireland

Question 50

Which of the following is true of free blacks in the North in the 1840s and 1850s?

A) They gained the right to vote.
B) They gained the right to attend public schools, which previously had been for whites only.
C) They generally suffered from political, social, and economic discrimination.
D) Black men generally found jobs far more easily than did black women.

Question 51

The social reform movements associated with the Second Great Awakening began in

A) the mountainous areas of Virginia and North Carolina.
B) the Burned-Over District of western New York.
C) western Kentucky.
D) the Cotton South.

Question 52

The first state to ban the use of alcohol except for medicinal purposes was

A) Maine.
B) Massachusetts.
C) South Carolina.
D) Vermont.

Question 53

Which of the following was the most effective means by which reform associations of the 1830s and 1840s spread their message?

A) Rallies in major northern cities
B) Gatherings in the private homes of urban residents
C) Itinerant preachers
D) Mass production and distribution of newspapers and pamphlets

Question 54

How did members of the northern middle class respond to what they perceived to be moral decline in the North's largest cities?

A) They pushed city officials to establish police forces.
B) They used their own money to erect gas lights on streets in many cities.
C) They formed neighborhood associations whose members patrolled city streets at night.
D) They urged city governments to ban the purchase of handguns.

Question 55

Which of the following was a reason for the emergence of temperance as a major issue in the 1840s and 1850s?

A) Alcohol became a symbol of evil because of its association with Sabbath violations, abusive husbands, and poor work habits.
B) It was revealed that organized crime was involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol.
C) Revelations about the health and mental problems of infants born to alcoholic mothers caused public concern.
D) Newspaper reporters documented and publicized widespread alcohol abuse within the Senate and House of Representatives.

Question 56

Which of the following statements is most consistent with the ideas preached by Charles G. Finney?

A) All humans are condemned to misery because of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
B) All souls are predestined to either heaven or hell.
C) The United States, like Sodom and Gomorrah, will be destroyed by God because of the depravity of its citizens.
D) Because sin is avoidable, anyone can achieve salvation.

Question 57

Which of the following correctly characterizes the penny press?

A) Penny newspapers were affiliated with a political party and relied on politicians for a great deal of their content.
B) The penny press had no hired reporters, and their content was based solely on readers' letters.
C) Rather than relying on subscriptions and political contributions for their revenue, penny newspapers were sold by newsboys on the street and earned money from advertising.
D) Penny newspapers catered primarily to wealthy urbanites and covered mostly financial and commercial news.

Question 58

Which of the following is associated with the youth culture that developed in New York City in the 1840s?

A) Zoot suiters
B) The Beats
C) The Chelsea Youth Brigade
D) Bowery boys and girls

Question 59

In contrast to Irish immigrants, German immigrants to the United States

A) were not as likely to be subjected to negative stereotyping.
B) were all of the Protestant faith.
C) found it very difficult to find employment.
D) usually stayed for a few years and then returned home.

Question 60

Why were middle- and upper-class city dwellers drawn to the Masonic order in the early nineteenth century?

A) They found its informality and absence of ritual attractive.
B) The order's elaborate code of deference between ranks offered members an escape from the disorderliness of the urban environment.
C) They enjoyed the vaudeville-like entertainment offered in the lodges.
D) The order emphasized equality among all people.

Question 61

The founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society was

A) Martin Delany.
B) William Lloyd Garrison.
C) Arthur Tappan.
D) Theodore Weld.

Question 62

This person is considered the "prime mover" of the American Renaissance and the center of the transcendental movement.

A) James Fenimore Cooper
B) Ralph Waldo Emerson
C) Nathaniel Hawthorne
D) Herman Melville

Question 63

Which of the following is true of the Brook Farm community?

A) The community's leaders encouraged the use of hallucinogenic drugs to achieve pure thought.
B) The community's members believed that Jesus had returned and that the Last Judgment had begun.
C) The residents rejected formal education and intellectual endeavors.
D) The community's members believed that the spiritual transcends the worldly.

Question 64

Horace Mann advocated

A) free, tax-supported education.
B) that teachers should concentrate on imparting the moral lessons to be learned from a study of the classics.
C) that education was a private, family concern and not the concern of the state.
D) religious indoctrination in state-supported schools.

Question 65

Most of the efforts undertaken by the American Antislavery Society to spread the abolitionist message and to gather signatures on antislavery petitions were undertaken by

A) women.
B) politicians.
C) evangelical leaders.
D) men from the Quaker communities in the Northeast.

Question 66

The literature associated with the American Renaissance is characterized by

A) a realistic portrayal of life in an urban environment.
B) the portrayal of figures engaged in ruthless power struggles.
C) a rejection of the concepts embodied in the European romantic movement.
D) the use of American settings and characters to address universal themes.

Question 67

What did the people associated with the Shaker community, the Mormon community, and Brook Farm have in common?

A) They wanted to establish a more communal environment to replace the excessive individualism associated with the emergence of a market economy.
B) They wanted to withdraw completely from civilized society.
C) They wanted to return to a state of nature.
D) They wanted to establish societies based on Biblical law.

Question 68

Which of the following touched the lives of more Americans than any other reform movement?

A) The temperance movement
B) The antigambling movement
C) The public education movement
D) The antiprostitution movement

Question 69

Which of the following statements is most consistent with the beliefs of Horace Mann?

A) Misery and crime can be ended through universal education.
B) Men are superior to women as teachers because they command obedience and discipline from their pupils.
C) The teaching of Christian religious principles should be the central focus of education.
D) Formal education should be reserved for the talented tenth, and vocational training should be available to the masses.

Question 70

The Shakers were founded by

A) Charles Finney.
B) Ann Lee.
C) Lucretia Mott.
D) Lucy Wright.

Question 71

In the pamphlet entitled Appeal...to the Colored Citizens, David Walker

A) encouraged slaves in the South to engage in passive resistance against their white masters.
B) informed slaves of the opportunities to escape through the network of people collectively known as the Underground Railroad.
C) advocated the violent overthrow of the institution of slavery.
D) called upon runaway slaves in the North to band together and invade the South.

Question 72

Which of the following best expresses the belief of William Lloyd Garrison?

A) Slavery must be ended gradually.
B) A political solution is necessary to bring an end to slavery.
C) To end slavery, we must convince either the Whig party or the Democratic party to include an antislavery plank in their national platform.
D) Slavery can be ended by winning over the hearts of slavery owners and slavery supporters.

Question 73

The most prominent and uncompromising advocate of immediate abolition during the 1830s and 1840s was

A) James G. Birney.
B) Henry Highland Garnet.
C) William Lloyd Garrison.
D) Elijah P. Lovejoy.

Question 74

Which of the following is true concerning the involvement of free blacks in the abolitionist movement during the nation's earliest years?

A) Free blacks established their own independent abolitionist activities, including extending aid to fugitive slaves.
B) Free blacks did not speak in favor of abolition until a minority of whites had advocated the immediate end to slavery.
C) Free blacks, like antislavery whites, recognized William Lloyd Garrison as the nation's most representative abolitionist.
D) Free blacks were too busy trying to cope with a racist society to become concerned with those still enslaved.

Question 75

Which of the following is true of the American Anti-Slavery Society?

A) The organization's leaders and its members were united in their belief in women's rights.
B) The organization welcomed men and women of all races and all social classes.
C) The organization based its call for an end to slavery exclusively on economic arguments.
D) The organization called for a political solution that would bring a gradual end to slavery.

Question 76

Which of the following is true of James G. Birney?

A) Birney was an ardent supporter of the women's rights movement.
B) Birney called for the colonization of African Americans.
C) Birney rejected the belief that there was a political solution to ending slavery.
D) Birney was an immediatist who rejected moral suasion in favor of political action to achieve the goal of ending slavery.

Question 77

Which of the following is true of advocates of the "common school" movement?

A) They advocated teacher training and a lengthening of the school year.
B) They proposed that the state should assume responsibility for teaching lower-class children, but that upper- and middle-class children should be educated at home or in private institutions.
C) They advocated the building of state-supported technical and vocational schools.
D) They proposed that institutions of higher learning should be free to all who wanted to attend.

Question 78

After having been arrested and jailed for treason, Joseph Smith

A) wrote the Book of Mormon.
B) renounced the Mormon religion.
C) escaped from prison and led his followers to the Great Salt Lake Valley.
D) was murdered by opponents.

Question 79

The Liberty Party was formed by

A) the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
B) the American Colonization Society.
C) William Lloyd Garrison.
D) Frederick Douglass.

Question 80

Which of the following was the largest of the communal utopian experiments in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century?

A) Brook Haven
B) The Davidians
C) The Shakers
D) New Harmony