Deck 12: Afire With Faith 1820-1850

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the story of Lyman Beecher and his offspring to make the point that

A) nineteenth-century preachers often stressed the wickedness of American society.
B) while the Beecher family stood for older values and tried to halt the rapid changes in American society, other Americans sought to harness change to bring about a more perfect society.
C) zealous evangelical Protestants sought to hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth through diverse strategies for reforming society.
D) Transcendentalist Beecher represented the more secular, Romantic side of a quest for an improved society that characterized America in the 1820s and 1830s.

Answer 1

zealous evangelical Protestants sought to hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth through diverse strategies for reforming society.

Question 2

Evangelicalism in the antebellum era was characterized by

A) an emphasis on the need for a conversion experience.
B) an emerging status as the dominant form of Catholicism in America.
C) an appeal primarily to slaves and former slaves.
D) a set of values in sharp conflict with those of the dominant secular culture.

Answer 2

an emphasis on the need for a conversion experience.

Question 3

The revivals spearheaded by Charles Finney during the Second Great Awakening upheld the doctrine that

A) men and women were predestined to salvation or damnation.
B) deliverance was available to all who were converted.
C) women should be religious leaders.
D) religion was a way to become wealthy.

Answer 3

deliverance was available to all who were converted.

Question 4

The ideal of domesticity

A) held that women's sphere was the home and family.
B) was opposed by the revivalists.
C) held that the government should ignore foreign policy and focus on internal development.
D) stressed the father's spiritual leadership in the home.

Question 5

The temperance movement was predominantly led by what group?

A) the Anti-Alcohol League
B) women
C) the clergy
D) politicians

Question 6

Which of the following was NOT a reason that women were highly prominent in the revivals?

A) Since the husband's domain was the household, women made the church their domain.
B) Marriage became more uncertain as it came to be based more on affection.
C) The church and its networks offered companionship and support in unpredictable times.
D) Involvement in the church gave young women respectability and a sense of purpose.

Question 7

Who supported women's education and argued that women exercised power as moral guardians of the nation's future?

A) Harriet Beecher Stowe
B) Catharine Beecher
C) Lyman Beecher
D) Isabella Beecher

Question 8

With respect to the middle-class family after 1820, ________ explains the decline in family size in general and in the birth rate.

A) parents' desire to improve the standard of living of themselves and their children
B) the lack of birth control methods
C) a more specific surgical method for obstetric care
D) a view of family more geared to functional usefulness than affection

Question 9

Evangelical black churches grew in the North even as they were being suppressed in the South after 1820. The most important of the new black independent churches was the

A) African Catholic Church of America.
B) American Baptist Church for Blacks.
C) African Methodist Episcopal Church.
D) African-American Baptist Church.

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT an accurate statement concerning the significance of the Second Great Awakening?

A) Evangelical Protestantism became the dominant form of Christianity in America.
B) It reinforced the sense of pessimism and guilt that was present in America at the time.
C) It emphasized the ability of anyone to attain salvation.
D) It reinforced the dominant American belief in equality and democracy.

Question 11

Romanticism

A) came from Europe as part of the Enlightenment.
B) was incompatible with the doctrines of the revivals.
C) considered emotion as the source of truth.
D) was a uniquely American cultural movement.

Question 12

Transcendentalism

A) was the theological foundation undergirding the revivals of the Second Great Awakening.
B) was based on the ideas of Nathaniel Taylor.
C) rejected individualism in favor of utopian communalism.
D) sought to rise above reason through individualist spiritual communion with nature.

Question 13

Some secular thinkers shared the Transcendentalists' view that ________ was corrupting American society.

A) acquisitiveness
B) competition
C) inequality
D) All these answers are correct.

Question 14

Which reform movement practiced the doctrine of "complex marriage"?

A) the temperance movement
B) abolitionism
C) the Oneida Community
D) the Shakers

Question 15

The Oneida Community

A) followed the teachings of Ann Lee.
B) was based on the principle of sexual equality.
C) was an extreme example of the doctrine of perfectionism.
D) was based on science and reason, not religion.

Question 16

Robert Owen recruited followers for his program to reform society by teaching that

A) human character was shaped by skull shape and size.
B) only a privileged few could be made perfect.
C) shared property and equality of work division would foster tolerant people.
D) individual self-reliance held the key to social progress.

Question 17

Which of the following is an accurate statement about Mormonism?

A) Like the liberal theology of Finney, Mormonism placed emphasis on predestination and proclaimed that salvation was available to only the Mormon believers.
B) Mormons believed in a strict separation of church and state.
C) Mormon culture upheld middle-class values such as hard work, thrift, and self-control.
D) Mormons taught that Christ would not return to the earth.

Question 18

Why was the loose network of antislavery sympathizers who conveyed runaway slaves north to freedom known as the Underground Railroad?

A) the route was primarily by subways in the major eastern cities
B) runaway slaves were directed by conductors from one "station" to the next
C) slaves traveled in secret compartments in Pullman sleeping cars, whose only access was from below the car
D) many of the segments north were through secret tunnels constructed to bypass major roads

Question 19

Seneca Falls, New York, was the site of

A) John Humphrey Noyes's utopian community.
B) Charles Grandison Finney's greatest revival.
C) the first major women's rights convention.
D) Prudence Crandall's school for black girls.

Question 20

What was the essential conviction of William Lloyd Garrison about slavery?

A) It was a necessary evil that finally needed to be eliminated.
B) It was an economic drain on the emerging commercial economic system.
C) It was a contradiction to the ideals embodied in the Constitution.
D) It was a sin.

Question 21

Which of the following did NOT oppose Garrisonian abolitionism?

A) southerners, who drove antislavery sympathizers out of the South
B) northerners, who seized Garrison and killed Lovejoy
C) women, whom Garrison alienated when he refused to link the antislavery cause to women's rights
D) other abolitionists, whom Garrison alienated with his radical condemnation of political solutions

Question 22

The abolitionist movement split in 1840

A) because of Garrison's support for black rights.
B) because of Weld's failure to win over Beecher and Finney.
C) over the issue of women's rights.
D) over the issue of mixing religion and politics.

Question 23

What reform movement eventually led to the collapse of the Jacksonian party system in the 1850s?

A) abolitionism
B) temperance
C) evangelicalism
D) suffrage

Question 24

What reform movement won temporary political success through the Maine Law?

A) the anti-drinking crusade
B) the movement for public high schools
C) the campaign for women's suffrage
D) Fourierism

Question 25

What reform effort suffered a temporary political defeat through the gag rule?

A) the anti-drinking crusade
B) the abolitionist drive to petition Congress against slavery
C) the movement to improve prison conditions
D) Fourierism

Question 26

Crucial to the growth of the social reform impulse were the evangelical revivals of the 1820s and 1830s, led by

A) James Fenimore Cooper.
B) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
C) Charles Grandison Finney.
D) George Whitefield.

Question 27

Which of the following was an adherent of Unitarianism?

A) John Adams
B) Thomas Jefferson
C) John Quincy Adams
D) All these answers are correct.

Question 28

The writer generally identified as the leader of New England Transcendentalism (especially its individualist expression) was

A) James Fenimore Cooper.
B) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
C) Charles Grandison Finney.
D) Lyman Beecher.

Question 29

Who became most disillusioned with the U.S. Constitution and political system?

A) Horace Mann
B) Nathaniel Hawthorne
C) Lyman Beecher
D) William Lloyd Garrison

Question 30

________ was an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane and, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums.

A) Dorothea Dix
B) Elizabeth Stanton
C) Susan B. Anthony
D) Lucretia Mott

Question 31

________, a reaction against the Enlightenment, stressed individual intuition and feeling rather than reason as the means to truth.

Question 32

As a result of the ________, evangelical Protestantism became the dominant form of Christianity in America.

Question 33

The writer ________ preached such an extreme individualism that he lived by himself and contended, in an essay entitled "On Civil Disobedience,"that he could stand against the democratic majority.

Question 34

The ________ were a communitarian religious group founded by a woman and granting women equality and authority.

Question 35

The ________ was the popular name given to a network of contacts that helped runaway slaves, often guided by fellow escapees like Harriet Tubman, reach freedom in Canada.

Question 36

What is millennialism? How did millennialism encourage the cause of reform?

Question 37

What were Charles Finney's new measures? How did they strengthen revivalism?

Question 38

What was "true womanhood"? Describe how the concept became important during this period.

Question 39

Give three examples of how the middle-class family changed in this period. How was the middle-class family different from the family in earlier periods?

Question 40

Why did the temperance movement enjoy such widespread support? Among the reasons you list, which do you think was most important?

Question 41

How did revivalism help people adjust to the market?

Question 42

How did Romanticism contribute to American values? How did it strengthen the reform impulse?

Question 43

Describe the range of antislavery positions, and mention at least three people who exemplified those different positions.

Question 44

Consider the following: "Revival audiences responded to the call for reform partly because they were unsettled by the era's rapid social changes."Describe these social changes and how revivalism addressed them. Do you find the argument convincing? Why or why not?

Question 45

What was the "cult of domesticity"? Do you believe that ideal helped or hurt the position of women in American society? Support your argument with specific examples of how the new ideal affected women's lives.

Question 46

Give three examples of reform movements that turned to political action to accomplish their goals. Why did these movements turn to political action? How did this represent a departure from earlier ideals?

Question 47

List three utopian communities and three humanitarian reform movements in the Jacksonian era. Pick one from each group and compare their approaches to reform.

Question 48

Historians have seen the reform movements of the 1830s and 1840s as both conservative and radical. Give at least two specific examples of how aspects of the movement were conservative (how they upheld institutions and values). Then suggest at least two examples of how other aspects were radical (how they overturned institutions and values). On balance, was reform a greater force for change or for preservation?

Question 49

How do the activities of the Beecher family illustrate the tensions within the reform community? Discuss the activities of at least two of Lyman Beecher's children. How did their activities contrast with one another? How did their activities extend beyond the actions and goals of their father?