Printer friendly version Print this page

Historical Text Archive © 1990 - 2024
Printer friendly version of: http://historicaltextarchive.org/sections.php?action=read&artid=600


US History Exam, Reconstruction-Progressivism

The best possible answers are marked with an asterisk (*).
1. With respect to Reconstruction goals, Radical Republicans differed from Conservative Republicans in that Radical Republicans wanted:
1. to restore the union
2. an easy peace
3. to abolish slavery
4. to give ex-slaves the vote*

2. Which of the following best describes Southern Black political power in the Radical Reconstruction period?
1. Blacks could vote and hold public office*
2. Blacks controlled most Southern legislatures
3. Black officeholders outnumbered white officeholders
4. Blacks were not permitted to vote during this period

3. The main purpose of "drawing the color line" was to:
1.restore political dominance to white Democrats*
2.enforce the Plessy v Ferguson decision
3. defeat the Red Shirts
4. advance the political interests of the carpetbaggers

4. Of the following, which was not a feature of the changing agriculture of the South after the Civil War?
1. the sharecropper system replaced the gang-labor system of slavery times
2. the proportion of farmers who were tenants increased
3. cotton became much less important*
4. the crop lien system became an important credit device

5. The most important force drawing individuals from the country to the city was:
1. more access to education
2. desire for more conveniences
3. electric light and trolleys
4. higher-paying jobs*

6. By the 1820s most immigrants were coming from:
1. northeastern Europe
2. southern and eastern Furope*
3. Ireland and Germany
4. England

7. The city bosses were strongly opposed, usually, by:
1. the mass of voters
2. construction contractors
3. the rich citizens
4. middle-class reformers*

8. The main reason why the poor usually supported the city bosses was that:
1. the boss provided them with real benefits*
2. they were too uninstructed in civics to vote for reformers
3. they were afraid of the bosses
4. none of these

9. Social Darwinism and classical economics (laissez-faire) agree that:
1. man descended from lower animals
2. socialism is the best way to run a country
3. free competition produces progress*
4. the government should ease the lot of the poor.
10. Of the following, which managed to last beyond the nineteenth century?
1. Knights of Labor
2. American Federation of Labor*
3. National Labor Union
4. 1 and 3
11. The Knights of Labor and the National labor union were similar in that both advocated:
1. the use of mass violence
2. social reform goals*
3. government ownership of all property
4. assassination of government leaders
12. The Homestead Strike and the Pullman strike were similar in that in both:
1. public opinion remained steadfastly on the side of the striking workers
2. the unions won the strike and were granted their demands
3. government officials strictly refused to interfere in a way that would help management or labor
4. none of these

The major reason for the delayed settlement of the Great Plains region was that the area:
1. seemed merely an extension of the same conditions found farther east
2. contained few areas suitable for grazing animals
3. was not organized into states until after the Civil War
4. seemed less attractive to early pioneers than California and Oregon*

14. The first "white" Americans to settle the last frontier area in considerable numbers were:
1. miners*
2. ranchers
3, farmers
4. buffalo hunters

15. The Plains Indians were a serious obstacle to settlement of the last frontier because
1. they had treaty rights that government could not change
2. they were already cultivating the best farming areas
3. they put up fierce: resistance to the theft of their lands*
4. they had wiped out the buffalo herd, which was the major source of food

16. Generally, farmers of the late nineteenth century blamed theirs economic problems on:
1. inadequate government support of agricultural science
2. poor farming practices by farmers
3. railroads, banks, speculators, and big business*
4. rising costs, created by mechanization

17. During most of the 1877-1888 period, control of the presidency and the two houses of Congress was usually:
1. in the hands of Republicans
2. in the hands of Democrats
3. divided between Republicans and Democrats*
4. held by various third parties

18. The Democrats and the Republicans in the presidential elections of 1880,1884, and 1888 disagreed fundamentally on the desirability of:
1. civil-service reform
2. complete free trade
3. laws against monopolies
4. none of these*

19. The farmers' alliances had their greatest strength in
1. the Northeast and the Middle West
2. the Southeast and the Northeast
3. the South and the Plains states*
4. the Pacific coast and the middle west

20. Generally, the Populist movement succeeded best in:
1. convincing white Southerners to cooperate politically with blacks
2. expressing the resentment of discontented wheat and cotton farmers*
3. capturing the support of the rising labor movement
4. convincing urban middle class Americans that the government should drop the gold standard.

21. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 had in common the fact that they:
1. convinced the Populists that they should give up.
2. were greatly strengthened by court interpretations in the few years after they were passed.
3. had little impact on the country's economy for several years after they were passed*
4. were intended to do away with the spoils system in politics.

22. The new Manifest Destiny of the 1890s differed from the traditional American expansionism in that it:
1. rejected the idea of gaining new territorial acquisitions
2. favored statehood for the Philippines
3. favored acquiring territories not intended for statehood*
4. was unconcerned with territorial expansion

23. The terms of the peace treaty that ended the Spanish-American War prove that the United States:
1. wanted to acquire an overseas empire*
2. fought only for the generous purpose of assuring Cuban independence
3. fought primarily to make Cuba an American possession
4. wanted to leave Spain a powerful role in the Western Hemisphere

24. The progressive movement is best defined as a:
1. tightly knit political party with a set of clear cut goals
2, a diffuse tendency to favor improvements in technology
3. a general political tendency to favor governmental reform and increased democracy*
4, subdivision of the conservative sector of American politics.

25. The two competing progressive philosophies in the 1912 presidential campaign were:
1. The single tax and social justice
2. urban progressivism and Charter reform
3. socialism and free enterprise
4. the New Nationalism and the New Freedom*

26. Industrial growth was stimulated by all of the following except:
1. an expanding and healthier labor force
2. the declining importance of agriculture*
3. a growing amount of capital investment
4. a spirit of inventiveness

27. All of the following were major national political issues during 1865-1896 except:
1. currency question
2. tariff
3. civil service reform
4. foreign policy*

28. Probably the most pressing, the most complicated, and the most hotly debated national issue during the 1890s was:
1. the currency question*
2. naval expenditures
3. the role of the press
4. the annexation of Hawaii

29. The Populists' programs
1. were very similar to those of organized labor
2. involved expanding the power of the government in the interests of the "common people"*
3. involved curtailing government regulation of the economy
4. were so impractical that none have ever been achieved

30. During Reconstruction, Mississippi was dominated by
1. illiterate blacks
2. Delta planters
3. representatives of the majority*
4. carpetbaggers

31. Black leadership during Reconstruction in Mississippi was
1. incompetent
2. no worse than pre-war white leadership*
3. marked by dishonesty
4. supported by the Ku Klux Klan

32. Economic developments after the Civil War
1. showed that private enterprise did not want laissez faire/free enterprise*
2, showed that private enterprise wanted laissez faire/free enterprise
3. saw agriculture become the most important economic activity
4. all of the above

33. During Reconstruction, the southern economy
1. remained predominantly agricultural
2. suffered from cash and capital shortages
3. lagged behind the nation in industrial growth
4. all of the above*

34. The Compromise of 1877
1. secured political rights for the freedmen
2. secured federal aid for southern railroads
3. compensated Tilden with a Cabinet post
4. secured withdrawal of troops from the South*

35. A change in the Plains Indians' way of life, which was a factor in their subjugation, was chiefly brought about by
1. the effectiveness of the U.S. army
2. the destruction of the buffalo*
3. the Union Pacific
4. the discovery of gold and the influx of miners

36. The Dawes Act
1. confined the Indians to tribal hunting grounds
2. prohibited slaughter of the buffalo
3. preserved tribal ways
4. attempted to make the Indiana into small farmers*

37. Not among the sources of public apprehension concerning big business was:
1. fear that great private wealth threatened republicanism
2. belief that monopoly meant unreasonable prices
3. belief that economic opportunity was being destroyed
4. the political ambitions of magnates like Carnegie and Rockefeller*

38. The following issues were all part of the Populist program of 1892 except:
1. free coinage of silver
2. civil service reform*
3. government ownership of railroads
4. a graduated income tax

39. The reform movements of the late nineteenth oentury were concerned with all of the following except:
1. urban poverty
2. working conditions
3. racial integration*
4.political corruption

40. Laissez faire/free enterprise economic philosophy assumed which of the following about the economy?
1. natural law governed economic relationships
2. competition and suffering produced social good
3. the virtuous and talented succeeded whereas the evil and lazy failed
4. all of the above.*