Deck 29: Defining a Nation: American National Identity and the Challenge of Civil War

Question 1

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was inspired by

A) stories told by her father's slaves.
B) the death and burial of her young son.
C) public speeches of Frederick Douglass.
D) a narrative told by Sojourner Truth.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

In A Harvest of Death,Gettysburg,PA,July 1863,Timothy O'Sullivan and Alexander Gardener deliberately blurred the foreground and background to

A) conceal the still-raging battle.
B) allow families to identify their dead.
C) make the setting look more sublime.
D) draw attention to the central corpses.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

During the Civil War,Winslow Homer work on assignment as

A) a literary journalist.
B) an illustrator.
C) a photographer.
D) a medic.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What other movement did Sojourner Truth and others view as part of the abolitionist movement?

A) Transcendentalism
B) democracy
C) child labor reform
D) women's rights

Question 5

Herman Melville's differed from the other Transcendentalists in his view that nature

A) offers an antidote to civilization.
B) distracts man from important tasks.
C) is to be tamed, not preserved.
D) must be exploited for personal gain.

Question 6

The first American to enjoy an international literary reputation was

A) John Winthrop.
B) Herman Melville.
C) Mark Twain.
D) Washington Irving.

Question 7

In Herman Melville's Moby Dick,the white whale seems to symbolize

A) a vanishing way of life.
B) the Promethean hero's natural image.
C) the natural world's uncontrollable elements.
D) an evil force that must be dominated.

Question 8

Some people found Louis Agassiz's theory of origin more appealing than Charles Darwin's,because Agassiz

A) offered a Christian idea.
B) explained white superiority.
C) explained natural selection.
D) offered a godless theory.

Question 9

Henry David Thoreau began his Walden Pond experiment to

A) escape imprisonment.
B) live simply.
C) write a book.
D) preserve nature.

Question 10

In The Veteran in a New Field,Winslow Homer creates a sense of optimism by

A) showing an army jacket thrown to the ground.
B) portraying the farmer turning his back on war.
C) bathing the scene in glowing golden light.
D) rejecting the artistic conventions that pervaded before the war.

Question 11

One of the effects of Stephen Foster's plantation melodies was to

A) humanize African Americans.
B) romanticize the South.
C) popularize African American musical beats.
D) mock African American dialect

Question 12

According to Washington Irving's two most famous stories,"Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the image of American productivity was the

A) cultivated farm.
B) wilderness.
C) Hudson River.
D) railroad.

Question 13

In 1826,when Thomas Cole painted Kaaterskill Falls,the site had

A) a state park.
B) a tourist hotel.
C) a train station.
D) an Indian reservation.

Question 14

Frederick Douglass eventually broke away from the Anti-Slavery Society out of

A) concern that their doctrine would dissolve the Union.
B) disgust with their exploitation of him as an intelligent African American.
C) concern that they were becoming too militant.
D) disillusionment with their talk but lack of action to help slaves.

Question 15

In his study of slaves in South Carolina,Harvard professor Louis Agassiz aimed to prove that

A) all races were equal.
B) slavery decreased brain size.
C) Africans were inferior to whites.
D) Africans and whites should interbreed.

Question 16

Henry David Thoreau was imprisoned briefly for

A) refusing to pay a poll tax.
B) speaking against slavery.
C) burning down his Walden cabin.
D) refusing to serve in the U.S. Army.

Question 17

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson,transcendentalism's fundamental principle was

A) the spirit's oneness with nature.
B) obedience to religious laws.
C) following the political order of the day.
D) the balance of faith and commerce.

Question 18

What about America attracted artist Thomas Cole that he claimed had "long since been destroyed or modified" in Europe?

A) the Noble Savage
B) creativity
C) the wilderness
D) farm life

Question 19

All of the following are characteristics of Hudson River School paintings EXCEPT

A) fidelity to nature.
B) overt political messages.
C) nostalgia for vanishing wilderness.
D) emphasis on the drama of light.

Question 20

How did the American Civil War change the nature of warfare?

A) It allowed different races to fight together.
B) It witnessed former fellow countrymen fighting each other.
C) Its battlefields were on civilians' properties.
D) It was mechanized and impersonal, without pageantry.

Question 21

Why,in 1877,did Southern African Americans lose many of the freedoms they had gained from the Civil War?

A) Jim Crow organized the Ku Klux Klan.
B) The newly elected president was a Southerner.
C) The Supreme Court struck down the Emancipation Act.
D) Union troops withdrew from the South.

Question 22

Some modern readers find the racist language of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn offensive.
Basing your claim on at least two clearly defined and supported points,argue whether the book should be edited to exclude such language.

Question 23

Compare the depiction of slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin to that in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Question 24

Why does Huckleberry Finn decide not to turn in the runaway slave Jim for a reward?

A) Huck would be arrested for property theft.
B) Jim threatens to kill Huck if he turns him in.
C) Huck has learned to appreciate Jim's humanity.
D) Miss Watson would send Huck to an orphanage.

Question 25

Describe Winslow Homer's A Visit from the Old Mistress,identifying and explaining the details that emphasize the divide between the Old and the New South.

Question 26

Identify two slave narratives,and analyze how they and their authors contributed to the abolitionist movement.

Question 27

List,describe,and illustrate two ways photography changed Americans' views on war.

Question 28

Define Emerson's Transcendentalist beliefs,and show how his friend Thoreau lived what Emerson preached.

Question 29

Explain Louis Agassiz's theory about the different races and its appeal to many
Americans.

Question 30

Both Britain and France sided with the South prior to the Civil War,because

A) the South was home to many people of British and French descent.
B) those countries associated the North with nationalist ideology.
C) the economies of those countries depended on Southern cotton.
D) the governments of those countries maintained important seaports in the South.

Question 31

Explain how artists such as Thomas Cole and Asher Durand portrayed America at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Question 32

In A Visit from the Old Mistress,Winslow Homer portrays the old mistress dressed in black and the former slaves in white to

A) celebrate the new equality of the races.
B) heighten the tension of the scene.
C) show the disparity in wealth between them.
D) balance the colors of his composition.

Question 33

The triumph of Huckleberry Finn lies in the

A) arrival at a state of near equality through modifications in speech.
B) mutual compassion between Miss Watson and Aunt Sally.
C) justice served to the most racist characters.
D) emergent appreciation of Jim's humanity.

Question 34

Describe the American minstrel show,focusing on how it fostered stereotypes of Southern
African Americans.