Chapter Eighteen: The Industrial Society, 1850-1901

Practice Quiz:

1. American industrial growth was concentrated in the
a. Southwest
b. Northeast
c. Southeast
d. Midwest

2. Which of the following was NOT a factor in American industrial development?
a. an abundance of natural resources
b. a heavy influx of immigrants
c. new technological innovations
d. industrialization of the South after the Civil War

3. Why didn’t early American railroads actually link different regions to one another?
a. They did not have enough steel to make the tracks very long.
b. They were only built to bring goods from one city to another.
c. They had different schedules and incompatible gauges.
d. They were built with inferior equipment and were constantly breaking down.

4. The development of a national railroad system
a. provided needed jobs for an overabundant labor supply
b. had little effect on economic change in the late nineteenth century
c. led to an integrated national economy
d. was not completed until the early twentieth century

5. By 1894, American railroads
a. had difficulty finding capital to expand
b. suffered from competition and overexpansion
c. had consolidated into four major lines
d. were at the peak of their bargaining power

6. Which of the following individuals is INCORRECTLY associated with the industry he helped to found?
a. Andrew Carnegie – steel
b. J.P. Morgan – finance
c. Henry Bessemer – railroads
d. John Rockefeller – oil

7. Why did John D. Rockefeller reject competition among oil companies?
a. He believed that consolidation, not competition, created stronger companies.
b. He did not want to be forced to lower his prices to consumers.
c. He felt that other oil companies were inferior to his own.
d. He believed that competition would weaken his own company.

8. Which two were the most important developments of the late nineteenth century?
a. typewriter and calculating machine
b. telephone and electricity
c. telegraphs and processed meat
d. automobiles and assembly lines

9. What was the significance of Thomas Edison’s laboratory at Menlo Park?
a. It was where Edison first invented the telegraph.
b. It was the first modern research laboratory ever built.
c. It was the site of the first power station in New York.
d. It was where Edison first sent a message over telephone wires.

10. The development of advertising, brand names, chain stores, and mail order houses
a. brought Americans into a national market that joined by all parts of the country.
b. made Americans aware of needs they did not know they had.
c. turned Americans into a community of consumers.
d. all of the above.

11. What does it mean to say that some professions became “feminized” in the late 1800s?
a. Women were much better at certain jobs, such as nursing, and began to dominate those fields.
b. Men were no longer capable of doing certain jobs, since they were needed in industrial jobs, so women took their places.
c. Only married women were allowed to work at certain jobs since unmarried women would be leaving their jobs eventually to get married.
d. As more women took jobs in certain fields, men left them, and this lowered the status of these professions.

12. Which of the following best describes the early American Federation of Labor
a. an alliance of industrial unions that tried to improve wages and working conditions
b. an alliance of industrial unions that tried to change the economic system
c. an alliance of craft unions that tried to improve wages and working conditions
d. an alliance of craft unions that gave its workers a political voice

13. Which of the following best describes the Knights of Labor
a. a union of producers aimed at uplifting, utopian reform
b. a union of producers aimed only at improving wages and working conditions
c. a union of producers determined to make each man his own employer
d. a federation of craft unions aimed at making each man his own employer

14. Why did the Knights of Labor fail
a. It could not provide effective national leadership
b. It was unable to organize workers
c. It had no successful strikes
d. Terence Powderly was imprisoned.

15. The great strike of 1877, in which more than 100 people died, involved
a. steel workers
b. railroad workers
c. oil workers
d. textile workers

16. What was the result of the Homestead Strike?
a. It forced management to meet the workers’ demands.
b. It was resolved through negotiations and bargaining.
c. It showed how industrialization brought with it social upheaval and class tensions.
d. It proved that, much like the incident at Haymarket Square, peaceful demonstrations can strengthen the labor movement.