Deck 18: The New South and the Trans-Mississippi West 1870-1890

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the story of the "Exodusters"to make the point that

A) religious imagery was important in the lonely lives of rural folk in the late nineteenth century.
B) hopes for the future in the South and West confronted realities of "colonial" economies built on exploited lands and peoples.
C) while the South suffered from floods and worn-out soil, westerners suffered from locust infestations and the Dust Bowl.
D) both the South and the Midwest lost population as blacks and whites alike joined the "Boomer" land rushes in the far West.

Answer 1

hopes for the future in the South and West confronted realities of "colonial" economies built on exploited lands and peoples.

Question 2

Which of the following best describes what the text means by the phrase "the Southern burden"?

A) a paralyzing thirst for revenge for the Civil War defeat
B) white guilt about slavery
C) an awkward system of low-paid labor
D) a characteristic speech pattern that northerners regarded as backward

Answer 2

an awkward system of low-paid labor

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT true about the post-Civil War southern economy?

A) The South's economy was poor, decentralized, and isolated.
B) Cotton remained the dominant southern product, despite falling prices.
C) Despite dreams of a "New South," industry never took hold in the South before 1900.
D) A capital shortage made tenant farms the prevailing pattern in southern agriculture.

Answer 3

Despite dreams of a "New South," industry never took hold in the South before 1900.

Question 4

All of the following were among developing industries in the New South EXCEPT

A) tobacco.
B) textiles.
C) steel mills.
D) oil refining.

Question 5

What new industries in the South typified the realities of post-Civil War economic life?

A) tobacco and banking
B) lumber and steel
C) milling and meatpacking
D) mining and ranching

Question 6

Which of the following does NOT help explain the South's persistent poverty?

A) a poor educational system, fostering a largely unskilled work force
B) an isolated and low-paid labor pool, primarily geared to farming
C) the unwillingness of northerners to invest any capital in the South
D) the fact that the South lagged so far behind the North in industrializing

Question 7

Which of the following brought stability and social order to the lives of southern rural folk?

A) hunting
B) drinking
C) religion
D) reform politics

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT true about the environment in the West?

A) Wood is scarce in most areas outside the Pacific Northwest.
B) Temperature extremes can be dramatic, except near the Pacific coast.
C) The Great Plains were for many millennia home to horses and bison, and to Indians who hunted bison on horseback.
D) The Great Plains were largely grasslands, requiring heavy investment before a profitable farm could be created.

Question 9

The Taos of New Mexico believed that each spring the pregnant earth issued new life. Which of the following is a custom they followed with respect to this belief?

A) conducted ritual birth ceremonies
B) held a spring festival of allied pueblos
C) made ceremonial sacrifices of small game animals
D) removed the hard shoes from their horses

Question 10

William Gilpin's vision for the West stressed _______, while John Wesley Powell argued _______.

A) that rain would come when the plains were plowed and planted; that water should be controlled by the community as a valued resource
B) that the abundant resources of the West should be rapidly developed; that the Indians of the West should be quickly subdued
C) that the Indians should be protected from white settlers; that the land should be protected from eastern capitalists
D) conservation of the land and its peoples; for exploitation of the land and its peoples

Question 11

In the wake of the Plains Indian wars, U.S. Indian policy changed from a policy of ________ (recognized as a failure by the 1880s) to a policy of ________ (an effort that also failed).

A) removing the tribes to the Great Plains; confining the tribes on reservations
B) promoting individual land ownership; pacifying the tribes by military means
C) concentrating tribes onto reservations; trying to integrate Indians into white society as farmers
D) defeating Indian war parties on the battlefield; breaking the power of tribal chieftains

Question 12

Western booms followed what typical pattern?

A) Initially, settlers showed respect for the environment; later immigrants practiced ruthless exploitation.
B) Initially, there was accommodation with the Indians; ultimately, a war of extermination was pursued.
C) Initially, homesteaders sought new farmlands; eventually, the cattle barons displaced the farmers.
D) Initially, individuals rushed in for quick profits; then, corporations moved in with hired labor.

Question 13

What was the difference between the racial labor identities of California and Texas?

A) California had Asian Americans, where Texas did not.
B) California had the Latino culture, where Texas had the Mexicanos culture.
C) Texas had Anglos, where California did not.
D) Texas and California had identical racial labor identities.

Question 14

The cattle boom on the Great Plains ended in part because

A) many ranchers preferred raising sheep.
B) too few people were willing to risk investment.
C) severe weather conditions and overproduction wiped out many ranchers.
D) new breeds of cattle made ranching less profitable.

Question 15

Who among the following was most notable for shaping perceptions of the West and linking it to the wider world?

A) William F. Cody
B) Chief Joseph
C) George Armstrong Custer
D) John Wesley Powell

Question 16

How were the cities of the urban West different than the cities of the East?

A) The largest were originally old Spanish towns.
B) They were actually more populous than those of the Northeast.
C) They grew outward instead of upward.
D) In the East, the poor typically lived at the city center, where in the West they lived on the periphery of the city.

Question 17

By 1887 Congress had become so alarmed at foreign ownership of western land that it enacted the

A) Homestead Act.
B) Alien Land Law.
C) Dawes Severalty Act.
D) America for Americans Law.

Question 18

Select the correct order in which the following territories became states, starting with the earliest.

A) Nebraska, Arizona, Utah
B) New Mexico, Nebraska, Utah
C) Utah, Nebraska, New Mexico
D) Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico

Question 19

In 1851, to open more land, federal officials instituted a policy of _______, in which tribes were forced to sign treaties limiting their hunting boundaries.

Question 20

The Sioux and the _______, allied for the first time, attacked Colonel Custer and approximately 600 men of the Seventh Cavalry, killing him and some 250 soldiers.

Question 21

The key to growth and development in the area west of the 98^th meridian has been _______.

Question 22

Through the ________ Act of 1862, a generous Congress granted western settlers their wish for free land.

Question 23

The Southwest had a distinct and complex development: just as the southern economy relied on the labor of African Americans, the Southwest grew on the labor of _______.

Question 24

How did the shortage of credit encourage the crop-lien and sharecropping systems?

Question 25

What was the doctrine of the "New South"?

Question 26

Explain the relationship between family size and the persistence of poverty in the South.

Question 27

How did the policies of segregation become entrenched in the South?

Question 28

Why did corporations in the West succeed more often than small entrepreneurs?

Question 29

Explain why Charles Crocker used Chinese labor on the western portion of the transcontinental railroad.

Question 30

What factors led to the rapid growth of the cattle business after the Civil War?

Question 31

What factors made it difficult for farmers to succeed on the western plains?

Question 32

Compare and contrast racial conflict in the South and the West.

Question 33

Explain why, despite its vast human and natural resources, the South experienced more severe poverty than the West.

Question 34

Explain how industrialization affected agriculture in the South and West.

Question 35

By comparing and contrasting the cultural values of whites and Indians, explain why it was so difficult for the two peoples to live together peacefully.

Question 36

Explain how the environment in the West forced people from the East to modify their way of life.

Question 37

In what ways was the role of religion similar in the South and West?