1. American productivity increased in the 1840s and 1850s partly because a growing number of Americans worked
a. on railroads.
b. for themselves.
c. for the government.
d. in factories.
The answer is d. 80 percent of the nation’s population still lived in rural areas in 1860, but around 20 percent of the nation’s workers labored in factories. Factory workers were twice as productive as agricultural workers and made a significant contribution to the nation’s economic growth.
2. The use of steam power in manufacturing in the mid–1800s spread slowly because
a. human and animal power were still effective and widely used.
b. most manufacturers were afraid of new technology.
c. steam–powered machines were dangerous and unreliable.
d. of a scarcity of coal for use in fueling steam engines.
The answer is a. Steam began to be used as a source of energy in manufacturing in the early 1840s, but the transition was slow because of the continued usefulness of old manufacturing methods. In 1860, people and work animals still provided thirty times more energy for manufacturing than steam.
3. Farmers found that greater agricultural productivity was possible in the Midwest in part because
a. the region was relatively treeless.
b. farmers were free of eastern regulations restricting production.
c. Native Americans advised them on how to adapt their farming techniques to the plains environment.
d. the region was free from urban pollution.
The answer is a. As farmers pushed out onto the comparatively treeless prairie of the Midwest, they spent less time clearing land and more time planting and cultivating crops, which increased agricultural productivity. They also found richer soils that provided somewhat higher crop yields than eastern farms.
4. In addition to speeding transportation, railroads propelled the growth of the
a. gasoline industry.
b. timber and mining industries.
c. oil industry.
d. iron and telegraph industries.
The answer is d. In part because of the demand for wheels, axles, locomotives, rails, and heavy iron bridges, iron production grew five times faster than the population in the 1840s and 1850s. And in the decades after Samuel F. B. Morse first demonstrated the telegraph in 1844, more than fifty thousand miles of telegraph wire were strung across the United States, often alongside railroad tracks, greatly facilitating communications of all sorts and making trains safer and more efficient.
5. In the northern and western states, discrimination against women and free blacks in the half century after the American Revolution was
a. increasingly less common.
b. not a source of concern for most white men.
c. widely denounced by many white men as improper and unjust.
d. not discussed publicly.
The answer is b. Tens of thousands of women were stuck in low–paying jobs as seamstresses, laundresses, servants, factory hands, and teachers, with little hope of obtaining higher–paying jobs. Slavery was largely eliminated in the North and West by the middle of the nineteenth century, but free blacks were mostly relegated to dead–end jobs as laborers and servants. Most white men felt that such discrimination was normal and even just.
6. According to free–labor spokesmen, success was available
a. to anyone who worked hard.
b. only to those who had inherited wealth.
c. only to those who could obtain labor for free.
d. only to those who were willing to start out working for no wages.
The answer is a. Free–labor spokesmen pointed to examples of self–made men who had done well for themselves despite little education and few social advantages. They claimed that success was the result of hard work, self–reliance, and discipline.
7. The free–labor ideal argued that wage labor was
a. the first step toward independence.
b. a dead end.
c. more suitable for immigrant workers than for native–born white men.
d. a good career.
The answer is a. Free–labor proponents argued that the system made it possible for hired laborers to become independent property owners. As long as they were diligent and saved their earnings, wageworkers could accumulate enough wealth to go into business for themselves and eventually hire other laborers.
8. In keeping with the free–labor ideal, communities throughout the North and West funded
a. welfare programs.
b. cheap loans for small businesses.
c. saloons for workingmen.
d. public schools.
The answer is d. The free–labor ideal upheld an egalitarian vision of human potential. Its supporters believed that universal education could make it possible for each person to take advantage of opportunities; in response, communities supported public schools to make basic education available to young children.
9. The phrase manifest destiny referred to Americans’
a. sense of religious fervor.
b. support for the Democratic Party.
c. God–given right to conquer the West.
d. desire for more immigration.
The answer is c. According to John L. O’Sullivan, the journalist who coined the phrase manifest destiny, Americans had the duty to resist any foreign power that attempted to keep Americans from inhabiting the entire North American continent. O’Sullivan argued that American institutions and culture were so superior to all other forms of civilization as to grant Americans a God–given right to the land.
10. American claims to the Oregon Country, the vast region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, competed with those of
a. Great Britain.
b. Russia.
c. Spain.
d. France.
The answer is a. The United States and Great Britain each claimed the Oregon Country as its own. In 1818, the two countries agreed to a “joint occupation” that opened the area to settlement by citizens of both nations. By the 1840s, American expansionist fervor had propelled thousands of emigrants to make the arduous journey to Oregon.
11. The majority of the Plains Indians were
a. dependent on fish and small game for food.
b. agricultural peoples.
c. nomadic and nonagricultural peoples.
d. evangelical Christians.
The answer is c. Taking advantage of the horses that the Spanish had introduced to North America in the sixteenth century, the Plains tribes became highly mobile buffalo hunters, relying on buffalo for most of their food, clothing, shelter, and fuel.
12. When westward–bound emigrants asked the federal government for more protection against the Plains Indians, it responded by
a. giving the emigrants weapons.
b. launching an attack on the Plains Indians at Fort Laramie.
c. jailing the Plains Indians.
d. initiating a policy of Indian concentration.
The answer is d. In response to white emigrants’ requests for protection on the Oregon Trail, the federal government called the Plains tribes to a conference at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. There they persuaded the chiefs to sign agreements that cleared a wide corridor for wagon trains by restricting Native Americans to specific areas that whites promised they would never violate. This was all part of the government’s new Indian policy of “concentration.”
13. Future Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner opposed President John Tyler’s plan to annex Texas because
a. he believed that annexation would be an expensive prospect for the United States.
b. he was concerned about the expansion of slavery into Texas.
c. he believed that annexation would most certainly lead to war.
d. he did not believe in manifest destiny.
The answer is b. When John Tyler proposed to annex Texas in April 1844, Charles Sumner called the plan “insidious” and suggested that Tyler intended to make the new territory into “great slaveholding states.” After such public outcry by Sumner and other Northerners, the Senate, concerned about sectional conflict, rejected the treaty.
14. War with Mexico was made certain by President Polk’s insistence on
a. annexing Texas.
b. annexing California.
c. ignoring Mexican diplomats.
d. acquiring all of Mexico’s northern provinces.
The answer is d. Polk was not satisfied with the annexation of Texas; he wanted the northern provinces of California and New Mexico as well and was furious when Mexico refused to sell him this land, which today encompasses California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado.
15. President Polk helped to spark the war with Mexico by ordering American troops to
a. Mexico City.
b. the Rio Grande.
c. the Nueces River.
d. Buena Vista.
The answer is b. The United States claimed that Texas stretched south all the way to the Rio Grande; Mexico placed the Texas border 150 miles to the north, at the Nueces River. When American troops advanced to the Rio Grande, they were, in the eyes of Mexicans, invading Mexico.
16. The war with Mexico
a. divided the nation.
b. was deeply unpopular in all sections of the country.
c. was immensely popular in all sections of the country.
d. ended more quickly than President Polk had anticipated.
The answer is a. Although there was an outpouring of support for the war effort, Northerners were not nearly as enthusiastic about the war as Southerners. Northern Whigs denounced the war in no uncertain terms as the bullying of a weak nation by a greedy and expansionist neighbor.
17. The reform movements of the 1840s and 1850s were based on the common belief that the era’s major social problems resulted from
a. psychological repression.
b. insufficient self–control.
c. economic injustice.
d. uncontrolled immigration.
The answer is b. The emphasis on self–discipline and individual effort that lay at the core of the free–labor ideal had ramifications for Americans’ understanding of social problems as well. Reformers believed that a lack of self–control lay at the root of most social difficulties, including alcoholism, poverty, and prostitution.
18. The transcendentalists were a group of New England writers who believed that people should
a. practice Buddhism.
b. look within themselves for truth and guidance.
c. embrace evangelical religion.
d. observe all social norms.
The answer is b. Transcendentalists felt that people should refuse to conform to the materialistic world or to the dogma of formal religion. Instead, each person should, as a solitary individual, set his or her own course by looking within for truth and guidance. Transcendentalism was an exaggerated form of the individualism that was typical of the era.
19. Utopian communities like those of the Fourierists wanted to
a. become models of perfection.
b. encourage a healthy amount of competition among community members.
c. foster industrialization.
d. foment a working–class rebellion.
The answer is a. Fourierists followed the teachings of Charles Fourier, a French critic of contemporary society. They wanted to encourage an alternative system that removed the evils of individualism and competition. In their communities, which they called phalanxes, Fourierists tried to replace competition with harmonious cooperation based on communal ownership of property, but the phalanxes rarely survived more than a couple of years.
20. The Oneida community was organized to allow members to practice
a. folk medicine.
b. intensive meditation.
c. vegetarianism.
d. complex marriage.
The answer is d. John Humphrey Noyes, the leader of Oneida, felt that society’s commitment to private property made people selfish and greedy and that the notion of private property derived from men’s conviction that their wives were their exclusive property. Therefore, he proposed a community in which sexual intercourse was allowed between any consenting man and woman, regardless of their marital status.
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