Deck 12: The Sections Go Their Own Ways

Question 1

The most important southern crop in the 1840s and 1850s was

A) tobacco.
B) wheat.
C) sugar cane.
D) cotton.

Answer 1

cotton.

Question 2

Which of the following statements about slavery as an economic institution in the 1840s and 1850s is true?

A) The price of slaves rose dramatically from 1820.
B) The domestic slave trade almost disappeared in these years.
C) The slave trade had little impact on slaves' lives.
D) Ownership of slaves became more widespread than in 1820.

Answer 2

The price of slaves rose dramatically from 1820.

Question 3

Which of the following statements about the "second great migration" of blacks is false?

A) The westward shift in cotton cultivation was a contributing factor.
B) It affected an enormous number of blacks, but not nearly as many as were originally taken from Africa.
C) Sellers could get several hundred dollars more per slave in the Deep South.
D) Slaves were transferred from the seaboard to areas surrounding the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.

Answer 3

It affected an enormous number of blacks, but not nearly as many as were originally taken from Africa.

Question 4

By 1830, the black population in ____________ exceeded the white population.

A) Georgia
B) Virginia
C) Mississippi
D) Alabama

Question 5

There was a tendency throughout the antebellum period for the ownership of slaves to become

A) more concentrated.
B) more urban.
C) less concentrated.
D) less urban.

Question 6

On the eve of the Civil War, about ________ of white southern families owned at least one slave.

A) 75%
B) 50%
C) 25%
D) 10%

Question 7

By the middle of the nineteenth century much of the South's cotton trade was controlled by

A) New York capitalists.
B) English merchants.
C) Charleston bankers.
D) Richmond textile companies.

Question 8

Which of the following statements is a true depiction of this era?

A) Most children, black and white, were raised by white servants.
B) Slaveholding families rejected paternalism.
C) Plantations were quite similar to northern farms.
D) Plantations produced most of their own clothing and food.

Question 9

What was family life like for typical southern planters in the early nineteenth century?

A) Plantation wives were supposed to be "ladies" with few responsibilities.
B) Husbands and wives had rigidly defined separate spheres.
C) Slaveholding families were unlike northern families with similar status.
D) Children (black and white) were raised by white servants.

Question 10

The United States is the only place in the Western Hemisphere

A) that continued to legally import slave labor after 1808.
B) where black life expectancy was the same as white life expectancy.
C) where black families were not allowed to cohabitate.
D) where the slave population grew by natural increase.

Question 11

As a social institution, slavery in the United States

A) encouraged owners to maximize their profits by working slaves to death so that new slaves needed to be constantly imported to keep the institution from disappearing.
B) guaranteed slaves numerous legal and civil rights which whites respected.
C) is difficult to generalize about because a key factor in the institution was the behavior of individual masters, which varied greatly.
D) totally destroyed anything resembling family relationships among slaves.

Question 12

What happened to the institution of slavery as slaves became more valuable and as northern opposition to slavery grew more vocal?

A) Slave owners became more lenient toward their slaves.
B) The system of slavery hardened perceptibly.
C) Neither trend had any effect upon slavery.
D) Slave owners began to move more actively to emancipate slaves and colonize them in Africa.

Question 13

In the 1830s, Nat Turner gained notoriety as the leader of the

A) scientific agriculture movement in the South.
B) antislavery forces in New England.
C) most sensational slave uprising in the early nineteenth century.
D) secessionist wing of the Southern Democrats.

Question 14

What happened to southern interest in abolishing slavery after Nat Turner's revolt in 1831?

A) It grew gradually due to the influence of abolitionism.
B) Southern ministers became more militant in their sermons denouncing the evils of slavery.
C) Southern states made it increasingly difficult for masters to free their slaves.
D) Because new slaves continued to be imported from Africa, it did not matter if some were freed who were already in America.

Question 15

The existence of what southern institution explains why the South had few cities and little industry?

A) established religion
B) slavery
C) tenant farming
D) sharecropping

Question 16

Southern whites reacted to free blacks by

A) educating them to be useful and responsible citizens.
B) viewing them as no possible threat to slavery.
C) wanting to be rid of them, but trying only half-heartedly to expel them.
D) strictly enforcing laws requiring free blacks to emigrate.

Question 17

The former slave who preached resistance to slavery and planned a major slave uprising in Charleston was

A) David Walker.
B) James Hamlet.
C) Nat Turner.
D) Denmark Vesey.

Question 18

The slave Isabella

A) never had to worry about having any of her children sold away from her.
B) was treated decently and fairly by the whites who claimed to own her.
C) became a leading anti-slavery feminist and changed her name to Sojourner Truth.
D) was a religious skeptic who was contemptuous of the religious ferment around her.

Question 19

Slavery warped southern whites by

A) encouraging poor whites to work for someone else to earn a stake to buy some land.
B) allowing them too much leisure time.
C) causing basically decent people to commit countless petty cruelties.
D) encouraging southern slave owners to develop strong emotional bonds with people that they treated as mere possessions.

Question 20

Manufacturing in the antebellum South was

A) discouraged by the lack of raw materials.
B) impossible because of the shortage of water power.
C) virtually non-existent because of the lack of northern investment.
D) developing on a small scale, but was discouraged by the temper of southern society.

Question 21

On the eve of the Civil War, the South produced less than ________ of the total manufactured goods in the United States.

A) 15 percent
B) 30 percent
C) 40 percent
D) 50 percent

Question 22

The most obvious change in the North in the decades before the Civil War was the

A) decline of the whaling industry.
B) rapid expansion of industry.
C) halt of emigration from Europe.
D) rapid expansion of unionization among unskilled workers.

Question 23

The use of steam

A) made previous uses of water power obsolete.
B) caused longer railroad lines to be built.
C) competed with the use of coal in developing factories.
D) allowed for greater flexibility in locating factories.

Question 24

From 1825 to 1850 American industry was

A) remarkably receptive to technological change.
B) devastated by cheaper products from England.
C) slow to adopt the newest inventions.
D) heavily subsidized by the federal government.

Question 25

By the 1850s the United States led the world in manufacturing

A) steel, iron, and aluminum.
B) heavy industrial machinery.
C) goods produced with precision instruments.
D) both woolen and cotton textiles.

Question 26

What was the effect of immigrant workers on the textile factory system in New England?

A) It advanced camaraderie among the varying nationalities.
B) It caused a shift in the labor force, as immigrants replaced women as workers.
C) There was little to no effect, as factory owners believed young farm women were the most efficient textile workers.
D) It was a boon to factory owners who were in need of more skilled workers to run their machines.

Question 27

Most of the industrial workers in the mid-nineteenth century

A) lived in clean, modern company housing.
B) were quick to join labor unions and demand decent wages.
C) lived in the crowded, squalid slums springing up in major cities.
D) were able to have small vegetable gardens and a few chickens.

Question 28

In the new industrial slums of the 1850s, most factory workers were able to survive because

A) the owners provided free housing.
B) they formed strong unions to demand higher wages.
C) they had a few chickens and small vegetable gardens.
D) their wives and children also worked in the factories.

Question 29

In Commonwealth v. Hunt, Massachusetts courts first established the legality of

A) the ten-hour day.
B) mechanic's lien laws.
C) child labor laws.
D) labor unions.

Question 30

Between 1820 and the Civil War, which of the following could be said about the trend toward general unionization?

A) There was no trend toward general unionization.
B) There was a positive trend toward general unionization.
C) It was greatly aided by the Panic of 1857.
D) The nationalization of the union movement was in full swing.

Question 31

The growth of American unions in the antebellum era was retarded by

A) widespread employment of women and children in unskilled jobs.
B) workers' class consciousness of themselves as an industrial proletariat.
C) traditional European values shared by many immigrants.
D) the lack of opportunity for most workers to better their lives.

Question 32

According to the text, the major paradox of American society before the Civil War was that most Americans continued to

A) believe in egalitarian democracy, even though society was becoming more stratified and the economic and social distances between the top and bottom of society were growing.
B) claim they were Christians, even though the percentage who were active church members was declining dramatically.
C) vote and have faith in the national government, despite how it almost entirely avoided the divisive sectional issues of the day.
D) think of themselves as immigrants having deep connections with Europe, even though they no longer retained any ties of culture and language with the country from which their ancestors emigrated.

Question 33

Clipper ships designed by Donald McKay were popular because they

A) carried bulky loads, the mainstay of commerce.
B) were superior to British steamships.
C) carried specialty goods, the mainstay of commerce.
D) provided fast oceanic transportation.

Question 34

In the 1840s, American shipbuilders lost the advantages they had held in construction since colonial times because of the

A) shortage of quality lumber in the United States.
B) superior British iron technology.
C) development of the steam engine.
D) inefficiency of the clipper ship.

Question 35

The first railroad to begin operating in the United States was the ________ Railroad.

A) Boston and Worcester
B) Charleston-Hamburg
C) Baltimore and Ohio
D) New York and Erie

Question 36

Before 1860, about three-fourths of all the money invested in railroads came from

A) private investors.
B) state governments.
C) municipal governments.
D) direct congressional appropriations.

Question 37

Public aid for railroad financing before 1860

A) did not occur.
B) paid for about three-fourths of all railroad constructions.
C) took many forms including loans, investments, and special exemptions.
D) was strongly resisted by almost all levels of government.

Question 38

Before the Civil War, the railroad that benefited most from federal support for line construction was the ________ Railroad.

A) Illinois Central
B) New York Central
C) Baltimore and Ohio
D) Rock Island Line

Question 39

One negative byproduct of railroad construction in the mid-1900s was

A) crooked practices by those more interested in making money than the development of the rail lines.
B) the shortage of the necessary natural resources such as iron and steel.
C) the refusal of Congress to approve federal land grants.
D) the decrease in private funding after the federal government began providing money for construction.

Question 40

According to the map "Railroads, 1860," there was a relative lack of railroads

A) in the North.
B) in the Old Northwest.
C) for larger cities.
D) in the South.

Question 41

Developed by John Deere, the first tool that helped to ease the labor shortage in the Mississippi Valley was the

A) steam thresher.
B) steel plowshare.
C) dairy centrifuge.
D) combine.

Question 42

Cyrus Hall McCormick played the leading role in perfecting the

A) scythe.
B) iron plowshare.
C) mechanical reaper.
D) corn planter.

Question 43

The businesses which transformed the economy by encouraging regional concentration of industry and by employing large numbers of salaried managers and developing complex internal structures were the

A) canals.
B) railroads.
C) textile mills.
D) banks.

Question 44

In the mid-nineteenth century, the strongest competition for the railroad came from

A) steamboats.
B) turnpikes.
C) river barges.
D) canals.

Question 45

An economic cause of increasing sectional conflict on the eve of the Civil War was the decreasing importance of the

A) canal system.
B) cotton crop on the foreign market.
C) southern wheat crop.
D) Mississippi River.

Question 46

The South was particularly backward in railroad construction because it

A) had a scattered population.
B) used slave labor.
C) had too many large cities.
D) did not have seasonal fluctuations in its freight traffic.

Question 47

The fundamental cause of the South's lack of railroad construction was the

A) competition from already-existing canals.
B) attitude of its leaders who were not interested in investing in commerce or industry.
C) heavy concentration of the southern population in coastal cities.
D) irrational caution of its leaders after their initial heavy investments in commerce and industry lost millions of dollars.

Question 48

Between the mid-1840s and the mid-1850s, the American economy

A) experienced one of the most remarkable periods of growth in the history of the world.
B) continued to stagnate as the result of the Panic of 1837.
C) reflected the general mood of caution and pessimism.
D) suffered a series of severe depressions which halted and reversed previous economic progress.

Question 49

Marriages among southern slaves were legally recognized by white society.

Question 50

Most slaveowners discouraged Christianity among slaves because they feared it would encourage slave rebellions.

Question 51

The rapid growth of manufacturing from 1820 to 1850 was stimulated by many forces and had mixed results.

Question 52

The most significant effect of rapid industrialization on American life was how it changed the character of the workforce.

Question 53

In the early nineteenth century, the middle-class majority spearheaded numerous reforms to help the urban, unskilled poor.

Question 54

The city most dramatically affected by the railroad growth of the 1850s was Chicago.

Question 55

Compared to other sections, the upper Mississippi Valley was relatively untouched by the Panic of 1857.

Question 56

Explain how economic and social forces drove the North and South apart in the early nineteenth century.

Question 57

Describe the life of slaves on a "typical" southern plantation. Examine both the sociological and psychological aspects of slavery.

Question 58

Summarize the economic, sociological, and psychological effects of slavery on southern white society.

Question 59

Explain how industrialization revolutionized America's society and economy in the early nineteenth century. Analyze how well Americans coped with these changes.

Question 60

Summarize how the railroads transformed America's economy and society in the early nineteenth century. Analyze any effects railroads had on sectional tensions.