Chapter 8: The Emergence of a Market Economy, 1815–1850
CORE OBJECTIVES
1. Describe how changes in transportation and communications altered the economic landscape
TRUE/FALSE
1. Before 1845, steamboats were used more for transportation on the ocean than on internal
waterways.
2. Between 1830 and 1850 more than 30,000 miles of railroad track were laid across America.
3. The most important advance in communications in the United States by the mid-1800s was
the telephone.
4. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin on a plantation in Georgia.
5. As late as 1860, three-fourths of the American people lived within twenty-five miles of the
Atlantic Ocean.
6. Using the new McCormick reaper, wheat farmers could harvest more than 20 times as much
wheat per day as by hand.
7. Church attendance, curfews, and limited contact with men were some of the enforced rules
for early women factory workers.
8. The first U.S. city to surpass 1 million inhabitants was Boston.
9. The greatest proportional influx of immigrants in the history of the United States came in
the 1820s.
10. Because they too had suffered discrimination, Irish immigrants tended to be sympathetic to
blacks.
11. Much of the growth of the Catholic Church in America in the mid–nineteenth century can
be attributed to immigration from Ireland.
12. The American party was based on nativism.
13. While the first labor unions formed on a national scale, by the 1830s more local trade
unions existed.
14. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, becoming an attorney or a physician required
little formal training.
15. The only professions readily available to women in the early nineteenth century were
teaching and nursing.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of the following does the textbook state was the first stage of a “market economy”?
a. Large-scale commercial agriculture
b. Construction of large factories
c. The adoption of “capitalism”
d. National economic independence
e. A balanced federal budget
2. Which of the following statements correctly describes steamboats?
a. They were commercially profitable by the 1790s.
b. They generally had at least twelve-foot drafts.
c. They enabled faster and cheaper two-way travel along major rivers.
d. They were usually built of steel.
e. They soon made railroads obsolete.
3. The Erie Canal was built primarily by which immigrant groups?
a. German and Irish
b. Irish and Czech
c. Czech and Italian
d. Italian and Polish
e. Polish and Chinese
4. Which of the following was an effect of opening the Erie Canal?
a. It connected Albany to the Gulf of Mexico.
b. It dramatically reduced freight rates.
c. It led to less canal construction in other parts of the country.
d. It decreased shipping through the port of New York.
e. It helped cause New York to go bankrupt due to its cost.
5. What was the major advantage of railroads over water transportation?
a. They offered year-round operation.
b. They were easier to build.
c. They could go uphill.
d. They were subsidized by the government.
e. They could cross international borders.
6. Railroads stimulated the economy not only by improving transportation but also by creating
a. connections to Canada and Mexico.
b. a huge demand for iron, wood, and other equipment.
c. access to markets on the West Coast.
d. access to markets in western Canada.
e. a transcontinental rail route by 1850.
7. The first clipper ship was named the
a. Liberty.
b. Agamemnon.
c. Enterprise.
d. Rainbow.
e. Tecumseh.
8. The __________ revolutionized transportation at sea during the 1840s.
a. steamboat
b. sail ship
c. submarine
d. clipper ship
e. screw-propelled ship
9. The advantage clipper ships had over traditional merchant vessels was their
a. greater cargo space.
b. speed.
c. ability to carry more passengers.
d. ability to sail upriver.
e. durability.
10. “Internal improvements” became a controversial issue because
a. too many might bankrupt the economy.
b. some questioned the constitutionality of using federal funds to finance roads, canals, etc.
c. they required a lot of foreign investment.
d. most Americans wanted to avoid urbanization.
e. immigrant labor was taking jobs from American citizens.
11. One way that the federal government assisted in the construction of railroads and canals was
by
a. awarding land grants to support transportation projects.
b. tax abatements.
c. tax refunds.
d. awarding construction contracts directly.
e. purchasing stock in transportation companies.
12. The most important advance in communications by the mid–nineteenth century was the
invention of the
a. telephone.
b. wireless radio signal.
c. telegraph.
d. short-wave radio frequency.
e. megaphone.
13. During the nineteenth century, Americans became known worldwide for their
a. relatively high levels of education.
b. lack of knowledge of the global community.
c. “practical” inventiveness.
d. lack of sophistication.
e. literary output.
14. What revolutionized cotton production in the South before the Civil War?
a. Slavery
b. The cotton gin
c. Tenant farming
d. Sharecropping
e. The plantation system
15. By 1860, what percentage of the U.S. population lived west of the Appalachians?
a. 10 percent
b. 15 percent
c. 25 percent
d. 35 percent
e. 50 percent
16. What did Cyrus McCormick invent that revolutionized wheat production?
a. The iron plow
b. The tractor
c. The mechanical reaper
d. The cotton gin
e. The railroad
17. __________ invented the steel plow, which is credited for transforming the Midwest and
Great Plains into farmland.
a. Eli Whitney
b. Ross Perot
c. John Deere
d. Samuel Clemens
e. Earl Wood
18. Some of the earliest American factories produced
a. shoes.
b. cotton textiles.
c. tobacco.
d. muskets.
e. cannons.
19. __________ stimulated the need for producing cloth domestically in the United States.
a. The War of 1812
b. Jefferson’s embargo of 1807
c. The Quasi-War
d. The Trail of Tears
e. The American Revolution