CHAPTER 12 An Age of Reform, 1820–1840
TEST BANK
Learning Objectives
1. Identify the major movements and goals of antebellum reform.
2. Describe the different varieties of abolitionism.
3. Explain how abolitionism challenged barriers to racial equality and free speech.
4. Identify the diverse sources of the antebellum women’s rights movement and explain its significance.
Multiple Choice
1. In 1841, who wrote “In the history of the world, the doctrine of reform has never had such hope as at the
present hour.”
a. Ralph Waldo Emerson
b. Nathanial Hawthorne
c. John Humphrey Noyes
d. Alexis de Tocqueville
e. Margaret Fuller
2. What was the source of the term “utopia” as applied to utopian communities in America in the nineteenth
century?
a. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
b. John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
c. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
d. a sixteenth-century novel by Thomas More
e. the Bible
3. About how many people were living in Shaker communities in America during the movement’s peak?
a. 500
b. 5,000
c. 15,000
d. 50,000
e. 150,000
4. Abby Kelley
a. was one of the only female voices in the abolitionist movement.
b. demonstrated the interconnectedness of nineteenth-century reform movements.
c. was the first American woman to speak in public.
d. married a leading temperance advocate.
e. quit speaking publicly against slavery after her child was born.
5. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, what were the most important institutions for organizing Americans?
a. the state and federal governments
b. schools
c. political parties
d. voluntary associations
e. churches
6. How did Shaker communities differ from most other religions?
a. They lived in communities but took vows of silence.
b. They rejected singing and dancing as unholy.
c. They openly celebrated the accumulation of material goods.
d. They had only female leaders.
e. All members of the community practiced celibacy.
7. Which idea did John Humphrey Noyes profess?
a. Self-fulfillment came through self-discipline.
b. Education would equalize the conditions of humanity.
c. The perfectionist approach was an affront to true religion.
d. God has a dual personality, both male and female.
e. People could achieve a state of sinlessness.
8. Overall, how did utopian societies and worldly communities perceive women?
a. A woman’s place was in the home.
b. Women needed to serve in the military.
c. The prostitution of women was an example of free love.
d. Women should not participate in religious services.
e. Women needed to be treated as equals.
9. Most utopian reform communities
a. celebrated the individualism of the market revolution.
b. prioritized the right of private property and condemned communism.
c. glorified traditional gender relations.
d. tried to reorganize society on a cooperative basis.
e. believed the widening gap between rich and poor was natural and inevitable.
10. About __________ reform communities, often called utopian communities, were established in the United
States during the first half of the nineteenth century.
a. 20
b. 50
c. 100
d. 200
e. 500
11. The reform communities established in the years before the Civil War
a. followed all the laws but simply banned ownership of private property.
b. usually followed standard gender and marital relations.
c. made no effort to combat the growing disparity between rich and poor.
d. called themselves utopian because they knew that their efforts were likely to fail.
e. set out to reorganize society on a cooperative basis.
12. Which aspect of American society in the period between 1820 and 1840 is most opposite to the ideal expressed
by John Winthrop?
a. slavery
b. common schools
c. the temperance movement
d. Brook Farm
e. the Oneida community
13. Who founded the Shakers?
a. Joseph Smith
b. Ann Lee
c. Aimee McPherson
d. Louisa Alcott
e. Robert Matthews
14. Which statement about the Shakers is true?
a. They practiced “complex marriage.”
b. They received their name from a crazy dance they performed during high-society parties.
c. They hoped to create a model factory town.
d. They believed that women were spiritually equal to men.
e. They openly discussed sexual relations.
15. What inspired Noyes’s idea of achieving perfection?
a. religious revivals
b. Jefferson’s ideas on democracy
c. original sin
d. the Enlightenment
e. Calvin’s ideas on predestination
16. Which is true of Robert Owen?
a. He designed model communities called “phalanxes.”
b. He promoted a system of “complex marriage.”
c. He founded a model factory village that offered workers free public education.
d. He was the son of a U.S. congressman.
e. He resented the manual labor required in communal living.
17. Which was a goal of education in the New Harmony community?
a. “Americanize” the children of immigrants
b. ensure strong Biblical knowledge and understanding
c. train children to place the common good above their own desires
d. teach the discipline needed to succeed in an industrial economy
e. train girls for positions as teachers and governesses
18. The Oneida community
a. allowed each member an equal vote in governing the community.
b. permitted all of its members to own private property.
c. banished any member who divulged any information about the community’s sexual practices.
d. invented the concept of birth control in America.
e. controlled which of its members would be allowed to reproduce.
19. In regard to utopian communities, how do spiritually oriented groups compare to societies with a worldly
orientation?
a. The spiritual groups emphasized secularism.
b. World-orientation groups had no dissension.
c. Both groups were anomalies that had little influence on the world.
d. Spiritual groups usually lasted for longer time periods.
e. World-orientation societies were more likely to regulate relations between the sexes.
20. Who influenced the start of Brook Farm?
a. Karl Marx
b. Herman Melville
c. Nathaniel Hawthorne
d. Robert Owen
e. Charles Fourier
21. Which of the following correctly pairs the reform community with the state in which it was located?
a. Brook Farm: Virginia
b. Oneida: Massachusetts
c. Zoar: Maine
d. New Harmony: Indiana
e. Modern Times: Tennessee
22. Although it lasted only a few years, the New Harmony community
a. demonstrated that workers could function without discipline.
b. influenced education reformers and women’s rights advocates.
c. popularized the abolitionist movement.
d. allowed Josiah Warren to prove his point about absolute individual freedom.
e. inspired the formation of more than a dozen offshoot communities by 1850.
23. How did the Catholic viewpoint differ from the Protestant viewpoint in the first half of the nineteenth century?
a. Catholics were more confident that their sense of morality applied to all Americans.
b. Protestants believed that people were predestined for good or evil.
c. Catholics emphasized individual independence.
d. Catholics viewed sin as an inescapable part of human society.
e. Protestants focused on the importance of family and community.
24. Utopian communities were unlikely to attract much support because most Americans
a. saw property ownership as key to economic independence, but nearly all the utopian communities
insisted that members give up their property.
b. feared the Communist Party that endorsed and, in some cases, sponsored these communities.
c. were Protestants, but all utopian communities required members to deny religious beliefs.
d. supported the industrial revolution, but most utopian communities turned away from industry in favor of an
agrarian lifestyle.
e. considered the utopian communities to be too materialistic and selfish.
25. Which of the following examples from modern life is in opposition to the goals of the American Tract Society?
a. Bibles available for purchase in a wide variety of languages
b. different Protestant faiths joining together to protest government policy
c. church services being aired on television
d. bars and restaurants being open on Sundays
e. churches running homeless shelters
26. How did reformers reconcile their desire to create moral order with their quest to enhance personal freedom?
a. They did not even try, because they had no intention of enhancing personal freedom.
b. They claimed that genuine liberty meant allowing others to eliminate those problems that might threaten
that liberty.
c. They argued that too many people were “slaves” to various sins and that freeing them from this enslavement
would enable them to compete economically.
d. They contended that self-discipline was so rare that someone had to step in and make sure that Americans
could enjoy the fruits of their labor.
e. They felt that eliminating temptations would lead to the natural liberty that Protestants had long considered
crucial to maintaining a good society.
27. What colonial-era approach did institutions such as orphanages and poorhouses replace?
a. workhouses and work camps
b. community– and family-based care for those in need
c. indefinite imprisonment
d. church-funded charity networks
e. squatter communities outside of cities and larger towns
28. How did the Second Great Awakening influence American society?
a. The movement led to most immigrants becoming Methodist and Baptist.
b. It led to women’s suffrage by the time of the Civil War.
c. The religious aspect led to alcohol being banned in the United States.
d. It inspired some to combat the sins of society, such as alcoholism.
e. The movement deemphasized self-control.
29. Burned-over districts were
a. areas in New York City where slaves had set fires.
b. in Louisiana, where slaves had burned cotton fields as a form of resistance.
c. regions where few evangelical Protestants lived (as though they had been burned out).
d. in Kansas and Nebraska, where fighting broke out over issues of slavery.
e. in New York and Ohio, where intense revivals occurred.
30. By 1840, the temperance movement in the United States had
a. united Americans of all classes and religions in a “war” against alcohol.
b. virtually disappeared.
c. convinced Congress to pass a national prohibition law.
d. made no measurable impact on Americans’ drinking habits.
e. encouraged a substantial decrease in the consumption of alcohol.
31. Reform movements of the 1820s and 1830s
a. mostly opposed the imposition of Protestant morality on society.
b. often drew inspiration from the Calvinist belief in predestination.
c. often drew inspiration from the Second Great Awakening’s perfectionism outlook.
d. generally advocated that individuals should be free to do as they pleased.
e. excluded women altogether.
32. Which statement is true of the temperance movement?
a. The Catholic Church started the temperance movement.
b. Americans universally applauded the efforts of the American Temperance Society.
c. German-Americans became the temperance movement’s biggest supporters.
d. Irish-Americans held most leadership positions in the American Temperance Society.
e. The American Temperance Society hoped to stop Americans from consuming alcohol altogether.
33. Which of the following did Horace Mann NOT propose as a goal of public schools?
a. ensure that children were disciplined in a consistent way
b. provide an avenue for social advancement
c. reduce class differences
d. reinforce social stability
e. create racial equality
34. What constituted the largest effort at institution building before the Civil War?
a. the establishment of common schools
b. the founding of orphanages in every large city
c. the spread of utopian communities
d. the proliferation of Protestant churches
e. the creation of asylums for the mentally ill
35. Members of which one of the following groups were generally opposed to the temperance movement?
a. Catholics
b. Protestants
c. women
d. Perfectionists
e. northern middle class
36. Which provided the first significant career opportunity for women in the nineteenth century?
a. common schools
b. abolitionist societies
c. newspapers
d. orphanages
e. Protestant churches
37. The American Tract Society was focused on
a. slavery.
b. drinking.
c. feminism.
d. suffrage.
e. religion.
38. What did reformers commonly believe about prisons and asylums?
a. That the persons entering these institutions would likely never leave them.
b. That they were not widely needed, and not many were built.
c. That they would be excellent holding centers for society’s undesirables.
d. That the persons in the facilities could be used as forced labor in factories.
e. That they could rehabilitate individuals and then release them back into society.
39. The proliferation of new institutions such as poorhouses and asylums for the insane during the antebellum era
demonstrated the
a. lengths to which the federal government would go to provide for the general well-being of its citizens.
b. power of the Democratic Party.
c. tension between liberation and control in the era’s reform movements.
d. expansion of liberty for those members of society who could not take care of themselves.
e. general economic prosperity of the nation.
40. Which is true of the “colonization” of freed slaves before 1830?
a. Some African-Americans emigrated to Liberia to enjoy rights they did not have in America.
b. Most African-Americans supported colonization.
c. Some white southerners sent aging slaves to Liberia as a reward for years of service.
d. Most white northerners opposed colonization.
e. The American Colonization Society was also a proslavery organization.
41. Advocates for building asylums, prisons, poorhouses, and orphanages
a. were mainly interested in keeping the insane, criminals, the destitute, and orphans away from the rest of
society.
b. believed that social ills once considered incurable could in fact be eliminated.
c. rejected the idea of perfectionism.
d. were seeking to re-create the institutions of colonial society.
e. were mainly interested in profiting from the fees paid to the institutions by the states.
42. What premise was shared between the policy of Indian removal and the colonization of former slaves?
a. America was fundamentally a white society.
b. The American government was committed to the best interest of all people.
c. The American public could not financially support all who lived there.
d. All those living on American’s soil had the right to new land.
e. America was a land of diversity and equality.
43. Which is true of the efforts of the Colonization Society?
a. They received little support from political leaders.
b. They were financially supported by William Lloyd Garrison.
c. They resulted in the creation of the free African nation of Ghana in 1835.
d. They were praised by the English writer Harriet Martineau.
e. They were scorned and opposed by most free African-Americans.
44. Common schools
a. had no connection to the emerging industrial economy.
b. were based on the idea that the elite should be educated in their own schools.
c. were opposed by labor unions that wanted children available to work.
d. existed in every northern state by the time of the Civil War.
e. proved as popular in the North as they were in the South.
45. Common schools
a. were intended to promote social equality.
b. taught students to question authority and reject time discipline.
c. only employed men as teachers.
d. were opposed by the labor movement.
e. were more prevalent in the South than the North.
46. By 1860, what was true about common schools?
a. Every state had established a tax-supported school system.
b. Every southern state had established a tax-supported school system.
c. Northern school systems received support from labor organizations, factory owners, and middle-class
reformers.
d. The common school system had collapsed due to opposition from parents.
e. The common school system had collapsed due to competition from private schools.
47. Who wrote, “I will not equivocate—I will not excuse— I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard”?
a. Frederick Douglass
b. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
c. Margaret Fuller
d. Horace Mann
e. William Lloyd Garrison
48. How did abolitionists expand on the Christmas holiday in the decades before the Civil War?
a. They refused to celebrate Christmas with gifts until abolition was achieved.
b. They sent anonymous gifts to slaves throughout the South.
c. They helped to create the idea of a Christmas shopping season.
d. They encouraged slaveowners to teach slaves about Christmas.
e. They created the custom of putting up a Christmas tree.
49. What was the significance of Theodore Weld’s arguments concerning slavery?
a. By equating slavery with sin, he made abolition seem urgent.
b. By equating blacks with Africans, he inspired the creation of the Colonization Society.
c. By critiquing slavery using the language of natural rights, he created a new politically based argument for
abolition.
d. By suggesting that slavery was economically inefficient, he presented it as doomed to failure.
e. By sharing his experiences as a slave in an eloquent and intelligent manner, he undermined the idea that
blacks were intellectually inferior.
50. Which of the following was pioneered by abolitionist societies?
a. the use of the telegraph
b. fund-raising through charity fairs
c. the printing of tracts and pamphlets
d. speaking tours
e. the Underground Railroad
51. How did the abolitionist movement that arose in the 1830s compare to earlier antislavery efforts?
a. The two movements were quite similar in every way; the later one was simply more known because more
people were literate by the 1830s.
b. The later movement drew much more on the religious conviction that slavery was an unparalleled sin and
needed to be destroyed immediately.
c. Earlier opponents of slavery had called for immediate emancipation, but the later group devised a plan for
gradual emancipation that won broader support.
d. The later movement banned participation by African-Americans because it feared that their involvement
would cause a backlash.
e. The movement of the 1830s introduced the idea of colonizing freed slaves outside the United States, which
proved immensely popular with southern whites.
52. The North Carolina–born free black whose An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World won widespread
attention was
a. David Walker.
b. William Lloyd Garrison.
c. Lewis Tappan.
d. Wendell Phillips.
e. Theodore Weld.
53. The new breed of abolitionists that arose in the 1830s
a. supported a gradual end to slavery.
b. characterized slaveholders as blameless.
c. called for immediate abolition of slavery and equal rights for all African-Americans.
d. called for immediate abolition of slavery and deportation of African-Americans.
e. were free of the racism that pervaded American society.
54. Which tactic did abolitionists use most often in the 1820s and 1840s?
a. funding and arming slaves who were willing to rebel against their owners
b. presenting slavery as morally wrong
c. presenting slavery as an economic threat to northern states
d. funding candidates who promised to enact abolitionist agendas
e. convincing slave owners to voluntarily free their slaves
55. William Lloyd Garrison
a. secretly financed Nat Turner’s Rebellion.
b. began publishing his newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, in 1831, but moved it to friendlier territory two
years later.
c. attracted little support from fellow abolitionists, but historians have discovered his importance.
d. suggested that the North dissolve the Union to free itself of any connection to slavery.
e. published American Slavery as It Is, an influential pamphlet.
56. William Lloyd Garrison argued in Thoughts on African Colonization that
a. blacks could never fully achieve equality in America and would be happier in Africa.
b. because slaves were uneducated, it was necessary to educate them in America before sending them to
Africa.
c. blacks were not “strangers” in America to be shipped abroad but should be recognized as a permanent part
of American society.
d. colonization should be subsidized through a tax on cotton.
e. because blacks had no political experience, Garrison himself ought to be appointed governor of the African
colony.
57. By 1840, how many northerners had joined abolitionist organizations?
a. 1,000
b. 10,000
c. 100,000
d. 1,000,000
e. 10,000,000
58. How did abolitionists portray those working in northern factories?
a. as wage slaves
b. as complicit in a slave-based economy
c. as traitors to the ideal of liberty
d. as the embodiment of freedom
e. as potential abolitionists
59. How did the crusade against slavery affect American understandings of citizenship?
a. It led to state laws defining a citizen as white.
b. It promoted the idea of birthright citizenship.
c. It undermined the movement to decrease property qualifications for voting.
d. It led to a violent debate in Congress regarding the citizenship of free blacks in the North.
e. It created resentment toward immigrants seeking naturalization.
60. Which is a tactic that free blacks used in the decades before the Civil War to press for citizenship rights?
a. They created and ratified a symbolic constitution that outlawed slavery.
b. They led boycotts of streetcar companies.
c. They challenged discriminatory laws in court.
d. The led marches through the streets of Washington, DC.
e. They published letters to the editor in leading newspapers.
61. How did the views of William Lloyd Garrison differ from those of Frederick Douglass?
a. Garrison favored abolition but not equal rights for African-Americans.
b. Douglass did not think women should play a role in abolitionism.
c. Douglass urged ex-slaves to settle in African colonies.
d. Garrison favored a gradual end to slavery.
e. Garrison described the Constitution as an evil document.
62. Who expressed the view that the U.S. Constitution did not protect slavery?
a. Frederick Douglass
b. William Lloyd Garrison
c. Harriet Beecher Stowe
d. Elijah Lovejoy
e. John Quincy Adams
63. What was the significance of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
a. It used accounts from southern newspapers to condemn the practice of slavery.
b. It retold the story of the American Revolution with a focus on black Americans.
c. It was the first major novel authored by an ex-slave.
d. It presented slaves and slave owners in equally sympathetic terms.
e. It portrayed slaves as sympathetic and fully human characters.
64. Which phrase best describes the abolitionists’ concept of freedom?
a. The right to personal liberty is natural and absolute, regardless of race.
b. Individuals should be free of control by any institutions, including government.
c. Personal freedom derives from the ownership of productive property.
d. Freedom requires that local communities have the right to govern themselves without outside interference.
e. Social hierarchy is natural and elite rulers can best preserve a free society.
65. Which of the following strategies did abolitionists use to counter the racism of their time?
a. They argued against the pseudoscientific claim that blacks were inherently inferior.
b. They performed the compositions of the ex-slave Henry Highland Garnet.
c. They praised Haiti, the scene of the famous slave revolts of the 1790s and 1800s, as a model society.
d. They campaigned to make January 1, the anniversary of the end of the international slave trade, a national
holiday.
e. They nominated Frederick Douglass for president in 1852.
66. How did the abolitionists link themselves to the nation’s Revolutionary heritage?
a. They seized on the preamble to the Declaration of Independence as an attack against slavery.
b. They cracked the Liberty Bell to signify that the bonds of liberty were breaking under the weight of slavery.
c. They used mob action, just as the revolutionaries had when they attacked such disagreeable measures as the
Stamp Act.
d. They reminded audiences constantly that the main issue the Sons of Liberty and similar groups had invoked
was liberty.
e. They made a heroic figure of Crispus Attucks, the African-American who died at the Boston Massacre.
67. The role of African-Americans in the abolitionist movement
a. was limited to the writings and speeches of Frederick Douglass.
b. included helping to finance William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper.
c. showed that the movement was free from the racism that characterized American society.
d. was limited because the American Anti-Slavery Society banned them from its board of directors.
e. grew over time until, by the 1850s, the movement was dominated by blacks.
68. Which statement is true about black abolitionists?
a. Many formerly enslaved people published accounts of their lives in bondage, which together convinced
thousands of northerners of the immorality of slavery.
b. The American Anti-Slavery Society excluded black abolitionists entirely.
c. White abolitionists shared key decision-making posts equally with black abolitionists.
d. Black abolitionists celebrated the Fourth of July holiday in order to promote the idea that the United States
represented the progress of freedom.
e. Black abolitionists were a small minority of the subscribers to William Lloyd Garrison’s journal The
Liberator.
69. Which book was to some extent modeled on the autobiography of fugitive slave Josiah Henson?
a. An Appeal to Reason
b. Society in America