Deck 13: Forging the National Economy

Question 1

Identify and state the historical significance of Cyrus Field.

Answer 1

Pioneered innovation in trans-Atlantic communication when he convinced Canada, the United States, and Great Britain to cooperate in laying a cable at ocean depth from Newfoundland, Canada to Ireland.

Question 2

Identify and state the historical significance of Samuel F. B. Morse.

Answer 2

Created a telegraph that innovated business communication.

Question 3

Identify and state the historical significance of Elias Howe.

Answer 3

Created the sewing machine, which revolutionized the clothing industry.

Question 4

rugged individualism

Question 5

Identify and state the historical significance of Isaac Singer.

Question 6

Identify and state the historical significance of Cyrus McCormick.

Question 7

All of the following gave rise to a more dynamic, market-oriented, national economy in early nineteenth-century America EXCEPT

A) the push west in search of cheap land.
B) government regulation of all major economic activity.
C) a vast number of European immigrants settling in the cities.
D) newly invented machinery.
E) better roads, faster steamboats, further-reaching canals, and tentacle-stretching railroads.

Question 8

Identify and state the historical significance of George Catlin.

Question 9

Identify and state the historical significance of Eli Whitney.

Question 10

ecological imperialism

Question 11

Identify and state the historical significance of Samuel Slater.

Question 12

Identify and state the historical significance of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Question 13

Identify and state the historical significance of the rendezvous system.

Question 14

Life on the frontier was

A) fairly comfortable for women but not for men.
B) downright grim for most pioneer families.
C) free of disease and premature death.
D) rarely portrayed in popular literature.
E) based on tight-knit communities.

Question 15

Identify and state the historical significance of Carl Schurz.

Question 16

Identify and state the historical significance of DeWitt Clinton.

Question 17

John Jacob Astor

Question 18

Pioneering Americans marooned by geography

A) never took the time to explore the beauty of the natural landscape.
B) grew to depend on other people for most of their basic needs.
C) abandoned the rugged individualism of colonial Americans.
D) never looked for any help beyond their immediate family.
E) were often ill-informed, superstitious, provincial, and fiercely individualistic.

Question 19

Identify and state the historical significance of Robert Fulton.

Question 20

Identify and state the historical significance of Catharine Beecher.

Question 21

The initial waves of Irish immigrants typically worked in all of the following occupations EXCEPT

A) domestic servants.
B) construction workers.
C) day laborers.
D) coopers.
E) saloon owners.

Question 22

Immigrants coming to the United States before 1860

A) depressed the economy due to their poverty.
B) found themselves involved in few cultural conflicts.
C) had little impact on society until after the Civil War.
D) settled mostly in the South.
E) helped to fuel economic expansion.

Question 23

When German immigrants came to the United States, they

A) often became Baptist or Methodists.
B) mixed well with other Americans.
C) remained mostly in the Northeast.
D) prospered with astonishing ease.
E) dropped most of their German customs.

Question 24

German immigrants to the United States

A) quickly became a powerful political force.
B) came to escape economic hardships and autocratic government.
C) were as poor as the Irish.
D) contributed little to American life.
E) were almost all Roman Catholics.

Question 25

The influx of immigrants to the United States tripled, then quadrupled, in the

A) 1810s and 1820s.
B) 1820s and 1830s.
C) 1830s and 1840s.
D) 1840s and 1850s.
E) 1850s and 1860s.

Question 26

All of the following are true statements about German immigrants EXCEPT

A) they typically settled in Northeast coastal cities.
B) they tended to be better educated than mainstream Americans.
C) they supported public schools, the arts, and music.
D) they championed freedom and fought to end slavery.
E) they settled in compact colonies to preserve their language and culture.

Question 27

When the Irish flocked to the United States in the 1840s, they stayed in the larger seaboard cities because they

A) preferred urban life.
B) were offered high-paying jobs.
C) were welcomed by the people living there.
D) were too poor to move west and buy land.
E) had experience in urban politics.

Question 28

In early 19^th-century America, the

A) annual population growth rate was much higher than in colonial days.
B) urban population was growing at an unprecedented rate.
C) birthrate was rapidly declining.
D) death rate was increasing.
E) United States had become the most populous nation in the western world.

Question 29

German immigrants in the early nineteenth century tended to

A) settle in eastern industrial cities.
B) return to Germany when they experienced difficult economic times in the United States.
C) become slave-owners.
D) join the temperance movement.
E) preserve their own language and culture.

Question 30

Those nativists who were frightened by the rapid influx of Irish immigrants organized in 1849

A) the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner.
B) the "Molly Maguires."
C) the Anti-Masonic party.
D) the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
E) the Ku Klux Klan.

Question 31

Whether they were propertied or landless, immigrants were often enticed to leave their homelands by

A) letters from family or friends in the U.S., bragging about easy opportunities for wealth
B) advertisements from companies promising big salaries to those who emigrate.
C) greater prospects of finding a suitable wife in the West.
D) word that there was free land available in the West.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 32

Native-born Protestant Americans distrusted and resented the Irish immigrants for all of the following reasons except

A) the Irish immigrants were financially poor and initially struggled to make economic gains in American society.
B) the Irish immigrants were thought to love alcohol to excess.
C) the Irish immigrants were proudly and openly Roman Catholic.
D) the Irish immigrants constructed a network of parish schools that promoted and advanced Roman Catholicism in America.
E) the Irish immigrants were very slow to learn American English and mostly spoke Gaelic in their urban neighborhoods.

Question 33

Ireland's great export in the 1840s was

A) people.
B) potatoes.
C) wool.
D) whiskey.
E) music.

Question 34

George Catlin advocated

A) placing Indians on reservations.
B) efforts to protect America's endangered species.
C) continuing the rendezvous system.
D) keeping white settlers out of the West.
E) the preservation of nature as a national policy.

Question 35

Nearly ____ million Irish arrived in America between 1830 and 1860,.

A) 20
B) 2
C) 5
D) 8
E) 10

Question 36

The dramatic growth of American cities between 1800 and 1860

A) led to a lower death rate.
B) contributed to a decline in the birthrate.
C) resulted in unsanitary conditions in many communities.
D) forced the federal government to slow immigration.
E) sparked federal, state, and local governments to develop urban public transportation networks and an array of social services to manage this growth during this period.

Question 37

The sentiment of fear and opposition to open immigration was called

A) the cult of domesticity.
B) nativism.
C) racism.
D) rugged individualism.
E) patriotism.

Question 38

Native-born Protestant Americans feared that Catholic immigrants to the United States would

A) want to attend public schools with Protestants.
B) wrest control of the American Catholic Church from native-born English and Welsh Catholics.
C) outbreed, outvote, and eventually overwhelm politically, socially, and culturally the Protestant native-born citizens and culture of America.
D) assume control of the Know-Nothing party.
E) ignite internecine Catholic armed conflict within the United States.

Question 39

All of the following are true statements about the relationship between Irish immigrants and U.S. citizens EXCEPT

A) the Irish were seen as wage-depressing competitors for jobs by many Protestant American workers.
B) Nativist Americans from the middle and upper classes generally hated the Irish.
C) the Irish often saw signs on factory gates that said "No Irish Need Apply."
D) race riots between blacks and Irish were common.
E) Irish immigrants became fiercely supportive of the abolitionist cause.

Question 40

The overwhelming event for Ireland in the 1840s was

A) the rebellion against British rule and potato famine.
B) influx of immigrants from mostly Eastern European countries.
C) the granting of limited home rule to most of Ireland by Great Britain.
D) the migration from the countryside to the city.
E) the increasing use of English instead of Gaelic.

Question 41

All of the following are true statements about the workers in the Lowell factory system EXCEPT

A) they were virtually all New England farm girls.
B) they were carefully supervised on and off the job by watchful matrons.
C) they lived in company boardinghouses and were forbidden to form unions.
D) they worked a maximum five days a week for eight hours a day.
E) they labored under grueling working conditions.

Question 42

By the time of the fabled London World's Fair in 1851, American products were prominent among the world's commercial wonders, which included all of the following EXCEPT

A) Ford's automobile.
B) Goodyear's vulcanized rubber goods.
C) Colt's firearms.
D) Morse's telegraph.
E) McCormick's reaper.

Question 43

With the development of cash-crop agriculture in the trans-Allegheny West

A) subsistence farming became common.
B) farmers began to support the idea of slave labor.
C) farmers quickly faced mounting indebtedness.
D) the South could harvest a larger crop.
E) the issue of farm surpluses came to the fore.

Question 44

Early 19^th-century American families

A) were becoming more loosely knit and less affectionate.
B) usually included three generations in the same household.
C) taught their children to be unquestioningly obedient.
D) usually allowed parents to determine choice of marriage partners.
E) were getting smaller.

Question 45

Eli Whitney was instrumental in the invention of the

A) steamboat.
B) cotton gin.
C) railroad locomotive.
D) telegraph.
E) repeating revolver.

Question 46

A great deal of the cotton produced in the American South in the early 19^th century was

A) produced by free labor.
B) sold to New England textile mills.
C) grown on the Atlantic tidewater plains.
D) consumed by the southern textile industry.
E) exported to the Caribbean and West Indies for textile production.

Question 47

The underlying basis for modern mass production was

A) unionized labor.
B) Supreme Court rulings that favored laissez-faire.
C) the use of interchangeable parts.
D) the principle of limited liability.
E) the passing of protective tariffs.

Question 48

As a result of the development of the cotton gin

A) slavery revived and expanded.
B) American industry bought more southern cotton than did British manufacturers.
C) slavery declined in the importance of the development of the South's economy.
D) the South diversified its economy.
E) the textile industry moved to the South.

Question 49

One of the primary goals of the child-centered family of the early-mid 1800s was to

A) raise children who were obedient to authority.
B) allow parents to spoil their children.
C) raise independent individuals who would become responsible citizens of the American republic.
D) increase the average number of children per family to five per household.
E) preserve childhood innocence.

Question 50

One reason that the condition of a significant segment of adult wage earners improved was

A) legal support gained by unions from the U.S. Supreme Court.
B) the passage of minimum wage laws.
C) the passage of laws restricting the use of strikebreakers.
D) the enactment of immigration restrictions.
E) the enfranchisement of the laboring man.

Question 51

The early factory system distributed its economic benefits

A) mostly to the owners.
B) evenly among factory owners, factory managers, and factory workers.
C) primarily in the South and West.
D) to workers represented by unions.
E) to overseas investors.

Question 52

The cult of domesticity

A) was especially strong among rural women.
B) resulted in more pregnancies for women.
C) restricted women's moral influence on the family.
D) glorified the traditional role of women as homemakers.
E) All of these choices are correct.

Question 53

In the case of Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), the supreme court of Massachusetts ruled that

A) corporations were unconstitutional.
B) labor unions were not illegal conspiracies in Massachusetts provided that their strategies and tactics were honorable and peaceful.
C) labor strikes were illegal as violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
D) the Boston Associates' employment of young women in their factories was inhumane.
E) the state could regulate factory wages and working conditions.

Question 54

Identify the following statement that is FALSE.

A) Land was cheap in America; this helped fuel the immigration flux in the 1840s and 1850s.
B) Money for capital investment was not plentiful in pioneering America and required an influx of foreign capital during the Industrial Revolution.
C) Foreign capital was dependent upon security in property rights, sufficient infrastructure, an adequate work force, and political stability.
D) Even though capital was lacking, raw materials were widely developed and discovered in America from colonial times through the 1840s.
E) The United States had a difficult time producing goods of high quality and cheap cost to compete with mass-produced European products from colonial times until the 1840s and 1850s.

Question 55

The American workforce in the early nineteenth century was characterized by

A) substantial employment of women and children in factories.
B) strikes by workers that were few in number but usually effective.
C) a general lengthening of the workday from 10 to 14 hours.
D) extensive union activity among workers.
E) reliance on the system of apprentices and masters.

Question 56

The effect of early 19^th-century industrialization on the trans-Allegheny West was to encourage

A) specialized, cash-crop agriculture.
B) slavery in the trans-Allegheny West.
C) self-sufficient farming.
D) farmers to abandon agriculture and sell their land to move to cities for better economic opportunities.
E) higher tariffs.

Question 57

The first major transportation project in the United States, which ran 62 miles and was completed in the 1790s, that proved to be a stimulus for western economic developments was the

A) Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
B) National (Cumberland) Road.
C) Erie Canal.
D) St. Lawrence Seaway.
E) Lancaster Turnpike.

Question 58

The American phase of the industrial revolution first blossomed

A) on southern plantations.
B) in the New England textile industry.
C) in rapidly growing Chicago.
D) in railroads and ship building.
E) in coal and iron mining regions.

Question 59

Most of the cotton produced in the American South after the invention of the cotton gin was

A) produced by free labor.
B) sold to England for production of textiles in their mills.
C) grown on the tidewater plains.
D) consumed by the southern textile industry.
E) of the long-staple variety.

Question 60

The "Father of the Factory System" in the United States was

A) Robert Fulton.
B) Samuel F. B. Morse.
C) Eli Whitney.
D) Samuel Slater.
E) Francis Cabot Lowell.

Question 61

In the new continental economy, each region specialized in a particular economic activity: the South ____ for export; the West grew grains and livestock to feed ____; and the East ____ for the other two regions.

A) raised grain, southern slaves, processed meat
B) grew cotton, southern slaves, made machines and textiles
C) grew cotton, eastern factory workers, made machines and textiles
D) raised grain, eastern factory workers, made furniture and tools
E) processed meat, southern slaves, raised grain

Question 62

Compare and contrast the social and economic development of the Northeast with that of the West. What were some of the reasons that caused those differences in development?

Question 63

The turnpikes, canals, and steamboats were new transportation links that generally encouraged

A) lowering of freight rates.
B) economic growth.
C) rising land values.
D) migration of peoples.
E) states' rights.

Question 64

Construction of the Erie Canal

A) forced some New England farmers to move or change occupations.
B) showed how long-established local markets could survive a continental economy.
C) helped farmers so much that industrialization was slowed.
D) was completed without any financial support or expenditures from the state of New York.
E) created political tensions between the Northeast and the Midwest.

Question 65

Most early railroads in the United States were built in the

A) North.
B) Old South.
C) lower Mississippi Valley.
D) Far West.
E) Appalachian Mountains.

Question 66

Clipper ships and the Pony Express had in common

A) the use of the most advanced technology available in the transportation and communication realms, respectively.
B) providing initially unparalleled speedy, efficient service to businesses that outpaced their respective competitors.
C) a brief existence as the preferred modes of transportation and communication, respectively, for businesses.
D) providing their respective services at a very low cost for those businesses and individuals.
E) support from the state governments and the federal government.

Question 67

By 1850, America's factory system was mass producing for widespread sale within the country and for export of

A) textiles.
B) boots and shoes.
C) firearms.
D) steel.
E) sewing machines.

Question 68

The growth of early 19^th-century American manufacturing was stimulated by the

A) War of 1812.
B) Peace of Ghent.
C) Louisiana Purchase.
D) Embargo Act of 1807 and the related Non-Intercourse Act of 1809.
E) rise of the Know-Nothing Party.

Question 69

In general, ____ tended to bind the West and South together, while ____ and ____ connected West to East.

A) steamboats, canals, railroads
B) railroads, canals, steamboats
C) canals, steamboats, turnpikes
D) turnpikes, steamboats, canals
E) turnpikes, railroads, steamboats

Question 70

he growth of industry and the factory system in the United States was slowed by

A) the high price of land.
B) the scarcity of labor.
C) limited investment capital.
D) a small domestic market.
E) weak incentives for new technology.

Question 71

Advances in manufacturing and transportation brought

A) the slow death of cash-crop farming for food production for both domestic and foreign markets.
B) more prosperity and opportunity to most Americans.
C) innumerable cases of rags-to-riches economic mobility for ordinary Americans.
D) increased immigration from Europe to the United States.
E) economic reliance on the export of manufactured goods.

Question 72

The canal era of American history began in 1817 with the construction of the

A) Ontario Canal connecting New York and Canada (British North America).
B) James River and Kanasha Canal from Virginia to Ohio.
C) Wabash Canal in Indiana.
D) Suez Canal in Illinois.
E) Erie Canal in New York.

Question 73

The concentration of capital for investment in large-scale enterprises in the early 19^th century was promoted by the

A) wider acceptance of the principle of limited liability.
B) introduction of state corporate tax laws.
C) legalization of labor unions.
D) passage of state free incorporation laws.
E) lowering of the capital gains tax.

Question 74

All of the following were legal questions raised as a result of the new market economy EXCEPT

A) how tightly should patents protect inventions?
B) should the government regulate monopolies?
C) can a democratic government still support slavery?
D) who should own these new technologies?
E) who should own the new transportation network?

Question 75

Compared with canals, railroads

A) were more expensive than canals to construct.
B) transported freight more slowly.
C) faced much less political opposition by vested economic interests.
D) required less technological obstacles to overcome to construct and operate them safely.
E) could be built almost anywhere with sufficient financial capital.

Question 76

America's early 19^th-century population was notable for its

A) restlessness.
B) wastefulness.
C) youthfulness.
D) aggressiveness.
E) thoughtfulness.

Question 77

The Northeast became the center of early 19^th-century American industry because it had

A) a superior transportation system.
B) abundant water power.
C) its narrow belt of stony soil made farming difficult and hence manufacturing attractive.
D) a local supply of raw materials used in manufacturing.
E) a relatively large labor supply.

Question 78

Western road building in the early 1800s faced all of the following problems EXCEPT

A) the expense.
B) states' rights advocates' opposition.
C) eastern states' opposition.
D) rigorous economic competition from steamboat traffic, which undermined the argument for improved and more connecting western roads.
E) wartime interruptions.

Question 79

Factors encouraging the growth of immigration rates in the first half of the 19^th century included the

A) rapid growth rate of the European population.
B) perception of America as the land of freedom and opportunity.
C) introduction of transoceanic steamships.
D) economic and political turmoil in Europe.
E) religious oppression by European state churches.

Question 80

The major application for steamboats transporting freight and passengers in the United States was on

A) New England streams.
B) western and southern rivers.
C) the Great Lakes.
D) the Gulf of Mexico.
E) coastal waterways.