In 1904, a Boston newspaper stated, “In the United States of today, everyone is middle
class. The resort to force, the wild talk of the nineties are over. Everyone is busily,
happily getting ahead.” What was the focus of the “wild talk of the nineties”?
a. futuristic technological advances
b. advances in industrialization
c. war and conquest
d. morality and religion
e. social, economic, and racial reforms
Politically, which of the following was the case in the 1870s and 1880s?
a. The Republicans dominated the South.
b. The Democrats dominated the North.
c. National elections were usually decided in the biggest states, such as Virginia.
d. The influence of the Civil War generation was fading.
e. Nationally the two parties were evenly balanced in strength.
The Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 resulted in __________.
a. war between Spain and Portugal
b. Portuguese control of Brazil
c. English control of Canada
d. French control of Martinique
e. the withdrawal of the Spanish from the New World
Which event marked the end of the military phase of the war?
a. the capture of New York City by French forces
b. Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga
c. the British evacuation of Boston
d. Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown
e. the destruction of a British army at the Battle of New Orleans
In which colony were African Americans most able to preserve their African identity?
a. New Jersey
b. South Carolina
c. Pennsylvania
d. New York
e. North Carolina
Which of the following was a founder of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association?
a. Rheta Childe Dorr
b. John H. Kellogg
c. Susan B. Anthony
d. Charlotte Gilman
e. Rebecca Ablowitz
Black Codes seemed like another form of slavery to African Americans because they
__________.
a. severely limited the legal and economic rights of blacks
b. forced many blacks to work for whites for free
c. made employment for blacks a crime
d. restricted blacks to the plantations where they had formerly been enslaved
e. encouraged whites to join the militia in order to suppress rights for blacks
Why did Eisenhower send 1,000 paratroopers to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957?
a. to ensure that black students could attend a desegregated school
b. to quell a violent race riot resulting from the desegregation of the military
c. to investigate a planned terrorist attack from the Soviet Union
d. to protect a top secret chemical weapon on its way to Washington, DC
e. to arrest hundreds of alleged segregationist activists and supporters
Lyndon Johnson’s reform program was called the __________.
a. Fair Deal
b. New Frontier
c. Great Society
d. Great Future
e. Morning in America
The growth of American industry in the 1830s and 1840s was influenced by the
__________.
a. lack of quality craftsmen
b. development of mass production
c. discovery of oil in Pennsylvania
d. rejection of agricultural jobs by youth
e. increase in immigrants from eastern Europe and Asia
The proposed new Constitution of 1787 called for the election of a president by
__________.
a. a direct vote of the people
b. the state legislatures
c. an electoral college
d. the federal congress
e. the Senate
The European philosopher whose ideas supported the theory of state sovereignty was
__________.
a. Locke
b. Montesquieu
c. Voltaire
d. Machiavelli
e. Rousseau
Most southern planters considered their slaves to be __________.
a. hard-working and industrious
b. children who required constant supervision
c. skilled and motivated
d. dangerous malcontents
e. mere property
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Northern Securities case __________.
a. paved the way for several other antitrust actions
b. had little effect on the problem of trusts overall
c. was opposed by Roosevelt himself
d. affected only the smaller American trusts
e. was a unanimous decision
Grover Cleveland __________.
a. increased federal activities
b. was committed to higher tariffs
c. curtailed federal activities
d. brought dishonor to the Democratic party
e. was reelected in a landslide in 1888
A component of the Contract with America was __________.
a. universal health care coverage
b. a restriction on campaign donations by lobbyists
c. term limits for members of Congress
d. requiring drug tests for welfare benefits
e. a lower-class tax cut
The invention that permitted the great expansion of cotton cultivation was the
__________.
a. railroad
b. cotton gin
c. cotton reaper
d. steel plow
e. mechanical seed planter
The factor most responsible for the growth of the colonial population between 1700 and
1770 was the __________.
a. natural reproduction of colonial families
b. great wave of immigration during that period
c. program of forced migration instituted by the monarchy
d. dramatic upsurge in the importation of slaves
e. intermarriage between settlers and Native Americans
What does the following quotation mean with regard to western migration: “The quest
for something new would take place in the context of the very familiar”?
a. Families would only migrate to the West after they had sent an individual ahead who
would report back to them.
b. People only migrated in family groups if they already had family established out
West.
c. Families tended to travel back and forth between their old homes and their new
homes until they felt entirely comfortable out West.
d. Most families who traveled to the West had experience with migration before, and
thus the trip was nothing new to them.
e. People made every effort to keep their migration experience as familiar as possible,
including traveling in family groups.
In his health care program, President Lyndon Johnson secured __________.
a. free health care for all Americans
b. the Medicare program for the elderly
c. more rights for private insurance companies
d. a restriction on health benefits for welfare recipients
e. a free prescription drug program
The first great practitioner of evangelical Calvinism was __________.
a. Samuel John Mills
b. Lyman Beecher
c. Nathaniel Taylor
d. Horace Mann
e. Charles G. Finney
In what way was the Spanish-American War fought by small-town America?
a. Most of the volunteer soldiers were from small towns across the United States.
b. There were so many volunteers that each unit of soldiers was like a small town in
size and function.
c. The Navy and Army found that men worked better if they knew someone in their
unit, so they created a buddy system, pairing men from small towns.
d. Soldiers were organized into National Guard units by town, so they preserved their
relations from their towns.
e. All of America was involved in the war effort, making uniforms, saving metal,
conserving food; the war was won by people back home in small towns.
In the new industrial system, workers __________.
a. found a safer working environment
b. took greater pride in their workmanship
c. found many choices of jobs available
d. noticed little change in their work environment
e. frequently faced repetitive and boring work tasks
Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa __________.
a. worked to persuade the Indians of the Indiana Territory to hold onto their tribal
cultures and their land
b. represented themselves as tribal leaders and sold off huge tracts of land for whiskey
and trinkets
c. led an Indian rebellion that was crushed by Andrew Jackson at the Battle of
Horseshoe Bend
d. accepted President Jefferson’s promise of a vast Indian reservation west of the
Mississippi River
e. developed a written language for the Shawnees and worked for gradual assimilation
into white culture
The Truman Doctrine stated that American policy would be to __________.
a. remain isolated from European and Asian affairs
b. take a more active part in rebuilding the war-ravaged Soviet economy
c. use military force to defend China against Soviet aggression
d. support free peoples who were resisting the Soviet Union or its surrogates
e. help create democratic governments in the emerging nations of Africa
What difficulty did Jefferson face in purchasing the Louisiana Territory?
a. possible confrontation with Great Britain
b. lack of support from the American people
c. the constitutionality of his actions
d. whether to accept foreign citizens on the land
e. finding $15 million in the federal budget
Andrew Johnson believed that Reconstruction should __________.
a. guarantee that the southern ruling class would not return to power
b. return the South to its prewar system, minus slavery
c. treat the South as a conquered nation
d. guarantee the political and civil rights of the freedmen
e. go ahead as Lincoln had planned
What caused a riot in South Central Los Angeles in which 53 people were killed?
a. the government’s response to the Tiananmen Square massacre
b. the court’s acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King
c. the government’s failure to respond to the Hurricane Katrina disaster
d. the American invasion of Iraq
e. the fall of the Berlin Wall
Which of the following is the international oil organization that was most responsible
for raising petroleum prices in the 1970s?
a. ACT UP
b. OPEC
c. SALT
d. SDI
e. ERA
What were Johnson’s feelings about committing the United States to the war in
Vietnam?
a. He worried about the consequences of either withdrawal or invasion, so he
committed to a large-scale but limited military intervention.
b. He worried about the consequences of being too cautious, so he committed the
American military to an all-out invasion of North Vietnam.
c. He was worried about the consequences of a U.S. troop presence, so he withdrew
troops to Taiwan and Japan while he reconsidered his options.
d. He worried about the spread of communism, so he committed American troops to
two fronts, both Vietnam and Europe.
e. He was worried about domestic unrest in the United States, so he decided he could
not commit more than 10,000 troops to the effort.
Why did the Mexican”American war last much longer than expected?
a. The Americans lacked the resources to attack in earnest.
b. The Americans lost a string of important battles.
c. Severe weather slowed the American advance.
d. The Mexicans were better prepared to battle in the Mexican terrain.
e. The Mexicans stubbornly refused to make peace despite military defeats.