Deck 10: The Restless North, 1815-1860

Question 1

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

Answer 1

young girls from New England farms

Question 2

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

Answer 2

more people in the North began to work for others in return for wages

Question 3

What was the second largest city in population in both 1820 and 1860?

A) Chicago
B) New York
C) Philadelphia
D) Boston

Answer 3

Philadelphia

Question 4

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 5

What was the key to American manufacturing in the early nineteenth century?

A) The innovative financial systems that funded plant expansion.
B) The unique method of corporate management.
C) The use of machine-tooled, interchangeable parts.
D) The vertical integration of companies.

Question 6

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) An economic depression led management to focus more on profits than on providing decent working and living conditions for the workers.
D) Competition from English imports was the primary reason for the deterioration of working and living conditions.

Question 7

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 the clock.
D) Workers usually had far more opportunities for advancement than would have been true in pre-industrial artisan shops.

Question 8

If you were to visit a textile mill in New England in 1855, the workers there would most likely be:

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

Question 9

Which of the following was true of the nation's canals and railroads by 1860?

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 10

Which of the following was an economic consequence of the War of 1812?

A) The difficulty of moving troops and supplies during the war spurred interest in the building of a more reliable road system.
B) Sectional conflict became far more pronounced.
C) The federal government tried to pay its war debts by enacting the first income tax on American citizens.
D) The war acted to impede the emergence of domestic industries.

Question 11

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 in the face of 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 12

Why did Mary Ann Archbald produce cloth to sell for cash?

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

Question 13

Which of the following led to the boom in canal building in the 1820s and 1830s?

A) The success of the Erie Canal
B) The impact of the protective tariff
C) The development of the textile industry in New England
D) The provision of federal subsidies for canal construction

Question 14

Which of the following most hindered the development of a national railroad system?

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 15

Labor political parties in the United States first formed in which decade?

A) 1850s
B) 1870s
C) 1840s
D) 1820s

Question 16

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) Transportation costs were dramatically reduced as a result of extensive internal improvements.
D) After the war, most European nations refused to export goods to the United States, thus domestic manufacturing expanded rapidly in the Northeast to meet consumer demand.

Question 17

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 18

Which of the following is a reason that the South built fewer railroads than the North?

A) Research clearly indicated that such investments would be of no economic benefit to the South.
B) The South saw the industrial and transportation revolutions as threats to republican ideology.
C) The Southern states believed that such construction should be the responsibility of the federal government.
D) Southern states had smaller free populations so they collected fewer taxes and had less money to invest in railroads.

Question 19

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

Question 20

In 1860, what was the percentage of people living in urban areas?

A) 15 percent
B) 25 percent
C) 10 percent
D) 20 percent

Question 21

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 22

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 23

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 then used their profits to buy factory-produced cloth.
D) Spinning and weaving at home became more and more important.

Question 24

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 25

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 26

Initially, the biggest market for ready-made 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 27

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 28

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 29

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 30

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 31

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 previous 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 32

In which year did the "railroad era" in the United States begin?

A) 1830
B) 1820
C) 1860
D) 1833

Question 33

What was the significance of Commonwealth v. Hunt ?

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 34

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 35

In the 1850s, which of the following cities was the center of the clothing trade?

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

Question 36

During the 1830s, farmers in the Northeast were faced with 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 37

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 38

In the early nineteenth century, family planning was __________________.

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

Question 39

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 than in the previous century.
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 40

In the 1840s and 1850s, the wealth of members of the upper-class elite in America was often based on:

A) Talent
B) Religiosity
C) Inheritance or marriage
D) Work ethic

Question 41

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 42

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 gals

Question 43

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

A) By ridiculing African Americans, they stoked the fires of racism.
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 44

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 45

By which year, in response to Dorothea Dix's efforts, had twenty-eight of 33 states built public institutions for the mentally ill?

A) 1851
B) 1855
C) 1860
D) 1840

Question 46

Between 1820 and 1860, the population of free blacks in the United States _________________.

A) remained essentially constant
B) declined moderately
C) rose slightly
D) rose steadily

Question 47

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 48

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 49

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 50

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 51

Which of the following statements best expresses 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 52

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 53

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 54

What is the major canal that linked the Great Lakes to New York City, opening the upper Midwest to wider development?

A) Oswego Canal
B) Gowanus Canal
C) Chenango Canal
D) Erie Canal

Question 55

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

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

Question 56

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 offered harmony and shared values.
C) They enjoyed the vaudeville-like entertainment offered in the lodges.
D) The order emphasized equality among all people.

Question 57

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 58

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 59

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 60

In an effort to provide for the public safety of its citizens, New York City:

A) Began hiring its own police force in 1845
B) Encouraged citizens to arm themselves in the 1840s
C) Established a nine o'clock evening curfew in 1845
D) Installed gas lights on all streets in 1842

Question 61

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) moral idealism and the use of American settings and characters to address universal themes

Question 62

Most of the day-to-day conversion efforts by the American Anti-Slavery Society were undertaken by _________.

A) women
B) politicians
C) evangelists
D) African Americans

Question 63

Who was the founder of Mormon Church?

A) John Calvin
B) Joseph Smith
C) Martin Luther
D) Charles Parham

Question 64

During the 1830s and 1840s, wider distribution of books 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 65

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 66

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 67

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 68

William Lloyd Garrison

A) is considered the father of the Abolitionist movement.
B) was arrested for starting the fire of Pennsylvania Hall.
C) founded The Liberator.
D) mysteriously died after his publication of Appeal … to the Colored Citizens.

Question 69

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 70

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 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

Horace Mann advocated ______________.

A) free to the student, 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 73

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

Question 74

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 to Christ.

Question 75

The founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society was:

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

Question 76

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

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

Question 77

In 1851, which was the first state to ban alcohol except for medical purposes?

A) New Hampshire
B) Maine
C) Vermont
D) Massachusetts

Question 78

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 79

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 80

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.