c. Twelve Years a Slave
d. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
e. Slavery as It Is
70. What issue enabled abolitionists to expand the appeal of their arguments to those who may not have cared
much about slavery?
a. free speech
b. economic growth
c. women’s rights
d. state’s rights
e. birthright citizenship
71. In his speech about the Fourth of July, how did Frederick Douglass critique the founding of the United States?
a. There was no hope for the United States because many of the founders were slaveowners.
b. The American Revolution was a good starting point for principles of freedom.
c. Religion needed to play a more significant role in the starting of the United States.
d. It was acceptable for Thomas Jefferson to be a slaveholder because he achieved many accomplishments.
e. The three-fifths clause helped slaves.
72. How did Frederick Douglass characterize celebrating the Fourth of July?
a. hypocritical
b. honorable
c. liberty-affirming
d. heretical
e. harmless
73. The gag rule
a. stated that newspapers could not print antislavery materials.
b. prevented Congress from hearing antislavery petitions.
c. denied women the right to speak in mixed-sex public gatherings.
d. prevented Congregational ministers from preaching against Catholics.
e. was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention to symbolize that women did not have a voice in politics.
74. The House of Representatives’ gag rule of 1836
a. sought to silence proslavery congressmen so that abolitionist petitions could be read.
b. convinced many northerners that slavery was incompatible with the democratic liberties of white
Americans.
c. prohibited the consideration of proslavery petitions.
d. is still in effect today.
e. was authored by former president John Quincy Adams.
75. Who in Congress worked tirelessly to end the gag rule?
a. Andrew Jackson
b. William Lloyd Garrison
c. Henry Clay
d. Abraham Lincoln
e. John Quincy Adams
76. The death of Elijah Lovejoy in 1837
a. convinced many northerners that slavery was incompatible with white Americans’ liberties.
b. resulted from his leading an anti-abolitionist mob that attacked William Lloyd Garrison.
c. demonstrated that fugitive slaves like Lovejoy faced great dangers while escaping from “slave catchers.”
d. was played up by temperance pamphleteers to show the hazards of alcoholism.
e. led Congress to adopt the gag rule to prevent the sort of heated arguments that caused his death.
77. The Declaration of Sentiments condemned the “injuries and usurpations” of
a. the Oneida community.
b. drunkenness.
c. the market economy.
d. men against women.
e. slave owners.
78. Frederick Douglass wrote, “When the true history of the antislavery cause shall be written, __________ will
occupy a large space in its pages.”
a. newspaper editors
b. black abolitionists
c. freed slaves
d. white abolitionists
e. women
79. Which statement is true regarding women in the abolition movement?
a. Most women abolitionists were atheists.
b. All abolitionists supported the right of women abolitionists to speak in public.
c. Much of the abolition movement’s grassroots strength derived from northern women.
d. Women abolitionists were rarely involved in other reform movements.
e. Most women abolitionists were from southern states.
80. Dorothea Dix devoted much time to the crusade for the
a. immediate abolition of slavery.
b. establishment of common schools in the South.
c. better treatment of convicted criminals in jail.
d. construction of humane mental hospitals for the insane.
e. right for women to vote in local school elections.
81. The Seneca Falls Convention’s Declaration of Sentiments was modeled after
a. the Declaration of Independence.
b. the U.S. Constitution.
c. Woman of the Nineteenth Century.
d. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
e. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes.
82. What does the Declaration of Sentiments accuse men of?
a. treating women as slaves
b. treating women as children
c. applying moral standards to women that they don’t follow themselves
d. refusing to share their lives fully with their wives
e. seeking to keep women dependent on men
83. The Seneca Falls Convention’s Declaration of Sentiments
a. did not demand voting rights for women because the participants were so divided on that issue.
b. was modeled on the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.
c. was written primarily by the Grimké sisters.
d. condemned the entire structure of inequality between men and women.
e. inspired Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to become abolitionists.
84. The Declaration of Sentiments states, “He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he
considers most honorable to himself.” Which of the following is an example of this claim?
a. A woman could not work as a lawyer while a man could.
b. Women were considered to be responsible for the attractiveness of the family home.
c. A woman who committed adultery was ostracized more than a man who did this same act.
d. Women had the primary responsibility for raising children.
e. Women were expected to wear elaborate and restrictive clothing.
85. Angelina and Sarah Grimké
a. supported Catharine Beecher’s efforts to expand political and social rights for women.
b. critiqued the prevailing notion of separate spheres for men and women.
c. were Pennsylvania-born Quakers whose religion compelled them to oppose slavery.
d. publicly defended the virtues of southern paternalism in lectures to southern women.
e. delivered many public lectures in which they detailed their escape from slavery.
86. The first to apply the abolitionist doctrine of universal freedom and equality to the status of women
a. were the Grimké sisters.
b. was Frederick Douglass.
c. was Susan B. Anthony.
d. were Henry Stanton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
e. was James G. Birney.
87. Which feminist expressed the idea that women and men should have equal opportunities to achieve “self–
fulfillment”?
a. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
b. Lucretia Mott
c. Sarah Grimké
d. Dorothea Dix
e. Margaret Fuller
88. What contribution did Sojourner Truth make to the women’s rights movement?
a. She organized the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.
b. She urged a focus on the plight of poor and working-class women.
c. She was the first American woman to lecture to mixed male and female audiences.
d. She publicly chastised prominent men who visited prostitutes.
e. She participated in the movement against Indian removal.
89. To whom can the following quotation be attributed? “I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights. My
doctrine, then is, that whatever it is morally right for man to do, it is morally right for woman to do.”
a. Catherine Beecher
b. Susan B. Anthony
c. Frances Wright
d. Angelina Grimké
e. Maria Stewart
90. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
a. established equal rights as the basis of the early women’s rights movement.
b. was a gathering of mostly working-class women.
c. focused entirely on the issue of women’s suffrage.
d. opposed the right to vote for women.
e. affirmed the cult of domesticity.
91. How did Margaret Fuller demonstrate that women could be leaders?
a. She headed the Brook Farm commune.
b. She presided over the convention at Seneca Falls.
c. She was elected to the state house.
d. She edited the New York Tribune.
e. She lived in Italy.
92. By saying all humans are “moral beings,” Angelina Grimké was in a way extending what concept?
a. John Winthrop’s concept of Massachusetts as a “city on a hill”
b. the Second Great Awakening idea that people had to choose whether they wanted salvation
c. John Locke’s idea that all men had natural rights
d. Thomas Jefferson’s concept that the United States was an “empire of liberty”
e. Thomas Paine’s belief that the American colonies could win their independence
93. What is the focus of Angelia Grimke’s letter in The Liberator of August 2, 1837?
a. the economic rights of women
b. the political rights of women
c. reproductive freedom
d. the social roles of men and women
e. domestic abuse
94. Catherine Beecher believed that
a. women needed to use militant tactics to obtain equal rights.
b. heaven had designated men superior and women as subordinate.
c. women should not try to influence men’s positions on issues in any way.
d. only men should be teachers.
e. women should petition Congress directly to enact change.
95. What prompted the debate between Catherine Beecher and the Grimké sisters?
a. Beecher did not like the idea of women taking a lead role in the abolition movement.
b. Beecher was proslavery and wanted to extend slavery.
c. The Grimkés thought the abolitionist movement was too radical.
d. The Grimkés did not like Beecher’s father, Lyman, who was a minister.
e. Frederick Douglass did not support women’s rights, which angered the Grimkés.
96. According to Catharine Beecher, how were women supposed to influence people on an issue?
a. work diligently
b. get a college education
c. demonstrate peace and love
d. learn how to shoot a gun
e. show the best way to do domestic duties
97. Which view of gender does Beecher describe in An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism?
a. Men and women are equals in the eyes of God.
b. Men and women do and should occupy separate spheres.
c. Men are actually the more dependent gender.
d. Men would be better abolitionists if they adopted “feminine” tools.
e. Slavery is a product of male society and would not exist if women were in leadership roles.
98. How did men react to the “bloomer” fashion in the 1850s?
a. The paid little notice to women’s apparel.
b. They thought it was ridiculous.
c. They criticized it as dangerously provocative.
d. They praised its functionality.
e. They advocated that both men and women should be wearing this apparel.
99. What was the purpose of the bloomer?
a. It was designed to make single women more physically attractive.
b. It was functional clothing that made work less restrictive.
c. It was made for stage performances in New York.
d. It was military garb for Union soldiers.
e. It was clothing for religious ceremonies.
100. Which state enacted a far-reaching law allowing married women to sign contracts and buy and sell property?
a. New Jersey
b. Massachusetts
c. Vermont
d. Pennsylvania
e. New York
101. The organized abolitionist movement split into two wings in 1840, largely over
a. whether to nominate William Lloyd Garrison or James G. Birney as the antislavery presidential candidate.
b. the question of abolitionists’ taking a public stand on the controversial gag rule.
c. whether African-Americans should be allowed to speak at mixed-race public events.
d. a dispute concerning the proper role of women in antislavery work.
e. disagreements concerning the endorsement of colonization.
102. The antislavery poet John Greenleaf Whittier compared reformer Abby Kelley to
a. Helen of Troy, who sowed the seeds of male destruction.
b. an Amazon, a mighty female warrior of Greek mythology.
c. Queen Elizabeth, who had ruled the British empire with such skill.
d. Molly Pitcher, the patriotic heroine of the American Revolution.
e. Joan of Arc, who led the armies of France into battle.
103. What was the greatest accomplishment of the abolitionists by 1840?
a. getting all slaves freed
b. helping free, on average, 5,000 slaves a year
c. getting Abraham Lincoln elected president
d. making slavery a prominent topic of conversation
e. gaining the right to vote for women
104. The __________ was established in hopes of making abolitionism a political movement.
a. Liberty Party
b. Whig Party
c. North Star Party
d. Republican Party
e. Afro-American Party
Matching
TEST 1
___ 1. Dorothea Dix
___ 2. Sarah Grimké
___ 3. William Lloyd Garrison
___ 4. Elijah Lovejoy
___ 5. Horace Mann
___ 6. David Walker
___ 7. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
___ 8. Theodore Weld
___ 9. Robert Owen
___ 10. Harriet Beecher Stowe
___ 11. Margaret Fuller
___ 12. Catharine Beecher
a. equated slavery with sin
b. The Liberator
c. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
d. accepted men as “the superior”
e. organized the Seneca Falls Convention
f. advocate for the mentally ill
g. leading educational reformer
h. An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
i. editor and martyr of the abolitionist movement
j. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes
k. New Harmony
l. Woman in the Nineteenth Century
TEST 2
___ 1. burned-over districts
___ 2. gag rule
___ 3. common schools
___ 4. temperance
___ 5. the Liberty Party
___ 6. Brook Farm
___ 7. Declaration of Sentiments
___ 8. “bloomer” costume
___ 9. American Colonization Society
___ 10. Washingtonian Society
___ 11. utopian
___ 12. Freedom’s Journal
a. made abolition a political movement
b. group of reformed drinkers
c. Seneca Falls Convention
d. New England transcendentalists
e. advocated blacks returning to Africa
f. tax-supported public schools
g. a vision for a perfect society
h. area of intensive revivals in New York and Ohio
i. preventing antislavery petitions to be heard in Congress
j. feminist style of dress
k. first U.S. black newspaper
l. movement against alcohol
True/False
1. Residents of the Utopian community in Oneida, New York, practiced celibacy.
2. The antebellum utopian communities were largely located in the Upper South.
3. The Shakers believed God had a dual personality, both male and female.
4. Brook Farm was one of the longest-lasting utopian communities of the nineteenth century.
5. Although it was an exciting miniature university, the transcendentalists’ Brook Farm community failed in part
because many of the intellectuals who participated disliked farm labor.
6. Owen promoted communitarianism so that workers received the full value of their labor.
7. Nineteenth-century institutions such as poorhouses and insane asylums were grounded in a perfectionist ideal.
8. The American Temperance Society directed its efforts at the drunkards but not the occasional drinker.
9. To members of the North’s emerging middle-class culture, reform became a badge of respectability.
10. In general, Catholics supported the temperance movement.
11. The question of slavery dominated public life in America from the time of the Revolution until the Civil War.
12. Institutions like jails, mental hospitals, and public schools were inspired by the conviction that those who passed
through their doors could eventually be released to become productive, self-disciplined citizens.
13. Relocating to the colony of Liberia was a dream of most free blacks in the 1820s and 1830s.
14. By 1860, all but two states had established tax-supported school systems for their children.
15. English writer Harriet Martineau criticized the idea of sending ex-slaves to another country or kingdom.
16. With his abolitionist writings, David Walker employed both secular and religious language.
17. Nearly all abolitionists, despite their militant language, rejected violence as a means of ending slavery.
18. Abolitionists agreed with the labor movement’s argument that workers were subjugated to “wage slavery.”
19. Abolitionists consciously identified their movement with the heritage of the American Revolution.
20. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when published, went virtually unknown for two decades but then
became popular in the 1850s.
21. Black abolitionists developed an understanding of freedom that went well beyond that of most of their white
contemporaries.
22. Mob attacks and attempts to limit abolitionists’ freedom of speech convinced many northerners that slavery was
incompatible with the democratic liberties of white Americans.
23. Dorothea Dix advocated for better treatment of the mentally insane.
24. As women began to take an active role in abolition, public speaking for women became socially acceptable to
most Americans.
25. The participants at Seneca Falls embraced the identification of the home as the women’s “sphere.”
26. None of the women who played leading roles in the women’s rights movement in the nineteenth century were
married.
27. The drop in the birth rate during the nineteenth century is evidence of women’s power in the home.
28. The abolitionist movement split following the appointment of Abby Kelley to an office within the American
Anti-Slavery Society.
29. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman influenced future women’s rights leaders.
Short Answer
Identify and give the historical significance of each of the following terms, events, and people in a paragraph or two.
Essay
1. The various reform and utopian communities that sprang up throughout America during the first part of the
nineteenth century typically understood the meaning of freedom differently from mainstream Americans. Analyze
the various meanings these groups gave to the word “freedom” and compare those meanings with the ones given
by mainstream America. Your essay ought to give the reader a sense of what these communities were rejecting
about mainstream society.
2. The abolitionists’ greatest achievement lay in shattering the conspiracy of silence that had sought to preserve
national unity by suppressing public debate over slavery. Explain how the abolitionists achieved this and comment
on how successful the movement was or was not.
3. Explain how the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening popularized the outlook known as
perfectionism, which held that both individuals and society at large were capable of indefinite improvement.
How did this idea of perfectionism relate to the various reform movements that arose in the antebellum period?
4. One person’s reform in some cases may be considered an attack on another person’s vital interests. Describe how
the antebellum reform movements—particularly temperance, colonization, abolition, and women’s rights—
involved conflict between different sets of ideas and interests.
5. To what extent was Theodore Weld’s argument about the sinfulness of slavery not only radical but also necessary
for the popularization of immediate abolition?
6. Do you agree with the assertion that blacks viewed freedom in a different way than did whites? Defend or reject
this idea using examples from the text.
7. Abolitionists fought for the right to debate slavery openly and without reprisal. Analyze what led them to elevate
“free opinion” to a central place in what William Lloyd Garrison called the “gospel of freedom.”
8. Frederick Douglass wrote, “When the true history of the antislavery cause shall be written, women will occupy a
large space in its pages.” Was Douglass correct? Explain the role women played in the abolitionist movement. Then
analyze how that experience influenced the feminist movement.
9. What were the women at Seneca Falls advocating? Be sure to explain how they understood freedom and liberty.
What methods were the feminists using to promote their cause?
10. Analyze the Grimké-Beecher debate over the role of women in the abolitionist movement. How did each see
women’s place in society? With examples, explain whose views are more realized in today’s world.