CHAPTER 17:
A NEW SOUTH: ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND SOCIAL TRADITION, 1877–1900
Multiple Choice
1. For the last two decades of the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, the Republican
Party had the least success in the __________.
A) Midwest
B) West
C) South
D) Northeast
2. The term Solid South refers to __________.
A) reform groups that supported racial unity
B) the growing power of the Lower South in the national economy
C) the dominance of the Democratic Party in southern politics
D) the South’s commitment to balancing the wealth in the rural economy
3. Which statement about women in the New South is true?
A) Their new roles in southern life changed the prevailing views about the role of women.
B) They were unable to find work in textile mills, in city factories, or as servants.
C) Some women became less active in civic work and reform.
D) They organized clubs, preserved and promoted the memories of war, and lobbied for various causes.
4. Around the turn of the twentieth century, wages in the South __________.
A) were higher than those in the North
B) were about the same as those in the North
C) were lower than those in the North
D) could not be adequately measured
5. Important emerging industries in the New South included __________.
A) cattle ranching
B) processed chemicals
C) canning
D) tobacco, in the form of cigarettes
6. What modern-day commodity became successful in the South by the early 1900s?
A) Kleenex
B) Hershey candy bars
C) Ford automobiles
D) Coca-Cola
7. Houston became the largest city in the South in the early 1900s thanks to the __________ business.
A) textile
B) oil
C) lumber
D) cattle
8. Industrialism in the New South __________.
A) barely kept pace with the booming industrial economy of the North
B) developed with higher wages for workers when compared to the North
C) put the South at the forefront of the national economy by the early 1900s
D) dramatically increased consumer spending throughout the South
9. In the South, between 1870 and 1900, urban-area populations __________.
A) grew relatively quickly
B) grew very slowly
C) shrank slowly
D) shrank dramatically
10. Which of the following was true about the textile industry in the New South?
A) Good access to capital increased the quality of textiles.
B) The workforce in textile factories was largely poor and uneducated.
C) Most textile factories were located in the urban areas of the Upper South.
D) The consumer base for purchasing textiles in the South was strong.
11. How did the lumber industry typify the South’s economic development in the late 1800s?
A) It required advanced skills that were not available in the region.
B) It required little skilled work but devastated the environment.
C) It was an ongoing source of union and labor disputes.
D) It was dangerous work that put female workers in harm’s way.
12. Traditional southerners felt that urban development in the South was __________.
A) needed to uplift the lagging culture of the South
B) a benefit to increasing participation in organized religion
C) evidence of the continuing domination of the North
D) a positive development in the transformation toward an industrial economy
13. Low farm incomes in the New South resulted in __________.
A) a food shortage in the North
B) the creation of a labor force for new industries
C) legislation that dismantled the banking system of the South
D) most southerners moving into large cities
14. Many rural southerners objected to urbanization because they disliked __________.
A) the exploitation of women in the new cities
B) the technological advances that accompanied it
C) its contribution to the spread of socialist ideas in the Deep South
D) the changes it caused in individual and family life
15. After the Civil War, farmers from the South __________.
A) grew more cotton, but made less money
B) grew more food crops and less cotton
C) paid low prices for fertilizer and farm tools
D) enjoyed an increase in cotton prices
16. Which statement about cotton in the late 1800s of the New South is true?
A) It could not be used as collateral on loans.
B) Growing even more cotton would have bolstered sagging prices.
C) Fewer numbers of southern farmers began to cultivate cotton.
D) Many farmers chose growing cotton over diversification.
17. The main reason for low cotton prices in the 1890s was __________.
A) major wars in Europe that reduced foreign demand
B) overproduction
C) high export taxes enacted by Congress
D) too few farmers growing cotton
18. The members of the Colored Farmers’ Alliance __________.
A) were mostly tenant farmers and sharecroppers
B) were Democratic representatives in the United States Congress
C) were also involved in mobilizing the Socialist Party
D) aggressively backed a program that would end the credit system
19. The powerful Southern Farmers’ Alliance had its origins in __________.
A) Georgia
B) Texas
C) Nebraska
D) Mississippi
20. Which of the following made the most use of Christianity in pursuing its goals?
A) the Southern Farmers’ Alliance
B) the Grange
C) the Populist Party
D) the Redeemer Democrats
21. Which statement best describes the subtreasury plan?
A) using silver, rather than gold, to back the national currency
B) utilizing patronage to control key committees in state legislatures
C) storing cotton in warehouses in an effort to increase cotton prices
D) refusing to pay loans to protest the segregation of state institutions
22. The __________ Party formed from the Southern Farmers’ Alliance.
A) Populist
B) Democratic
C) Republican
D) American Constitution
23. Of the following, which is a true statement about southern farmers and their fight to improve their
circumstances from the 1870s to the 1890s?
A) They did not believe in bartering.
B) They marketed their cotton crops collectively.
C) They struggled to become better educated so they wouldn’t have to work the farm forever.
D) They lobbied against debt-stay laws.
24. Which description is the best portrayal of the Southern Farmers’ Alliance?
A) a political party that challenged Redeemer Democrats in the 1880s
B) a consensus group that promoted the urbanization of the South
C) an organization founded in traditional southern values and cooperative ventures
D) a political lobbying group that influenced and changed federal farming policies
25. The Colored Farmers’ Alliance staged a strike in their effort to __________.
A) gain equal status within the Democratic Party
B) boycott unfair prices set by manufacturers of jute
C) bring labor unions to factories in the industrial South
D) establish higher wages for cotton pickers
26. The Holiness movement and the Church of God were similar in the way they __________.
A) rejected secular evils and accepted women on an equal basis
B) combined religious fundamentalism with political activism on a federal level
C) supported religious fundamentalists as candidates for president
D) always refused to allow blacks to join their churches
27. A supporter of temperance believed that __________.
A) blacks deserved the right to vote
B) political activism was immoral
C) land should be equally distributed
D) consumption of alcohol was sinful
28. Unlike the privately sponsored settlement houses of the North, Wesley Houses were supported by
__________.
A) war bonds
B) the Methodist Church
C) community fundraisers
D) government funds
29. In what ways did the temperance movement give women a voice in public policy?
A) It gave women a say in matters of divorce.
B) It provided an opportunity to address concerns about trade.
C) It gave women a platform to speak intelligently about the criminal justice and educational systems.
D) It allowed women to advocate for more police to protect women and children.
30. Which of the following organizations was not exclusively female?
A) UDC
B) WCTU
C) NAACP
D) YWCA
31. Most southern women’s clubs supported which of the following strategies?
A) forming alliances with black women’s clubs in the South
B) fighting to improve working conditions for white women
C) forming alliances with men’s clubs
D) focusing efforts on improving conditions for male workers
32. When T. McCants Stewart, a black northerner, traveled to the South in 1885, he was __________.
A) assailed by a mob of whites in South Carolina
B) appalled by a lynching he helplessly observed
C) surprised by the equal treatment that blacks received
D) angered by the racial slurs he constantly heard
33. During the 1880s and 1890s, many young, white southerners __________.
A) became disenchanted with the Democratic Party
B) began to become involved in preserving the right to vote for black males
C) romanticized the heroes of the Civil War generation
D) were appalled by the racial violence of their parents’ generation
34. Which statement about lynchings in the South in the 1890s is true?
A) Lynchings decreased compared to the Reconstruction era.
B) Leaders of lynch mobs tended to come from the wealthy ruling class.
C) Lynchings and acts of violence against blacks increased dramatically.
D) The federal government began to aggressively attempt to end lynchings.
35. The killings of the owners of the People’s Grocery in 1892 stemmed from the fact that __________.
A) southern whites often resented blacks who became economically successful
B) the NAACP had effectively organized blacks in the South
C) the Supreme Court began to issue decisions that protected blacks’ rights
D) whites held stereotypes of black men desiring white women
36. In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court ruled __________.
A) segregation was constitutional if facilities were equal
B) laws cannot change racial instincts
C) segregation on rail cars in Louisiana was unconstitutional
D) no new laws of segregation could be passed without the Court’s approval
37. Jim Crow laws __________.
A) declared that vigilante acts of violence were constitutional
B) outlawed labor unions in the South
C) established segregation as an institution in southern states
D) promoted the goals of the Republican Party
38. The decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case __________.
A) placed segregation at the forefront of national political debate
B) led to the enactment of institutional segregation in both the North and the South
C) had little actual effect on legislative actions in the South
D) was issued with the unanimous support of the Court
39. Prior to disenfranchisement, blacks’ participation in the politics of the South was __________.
A) not a factor in state politics
B) active and influential
C) sporadic and weak
D) unimportant in local elections
40. The most commonly used form of disenfranchisement in the South was the __________.
A) grandfather clause
B) literacy test
C) poll tax
D) understanding clause
41. Grandfather clauses and poll taxes were used to __________.
A) stop blacks from migrating to the North
B) deny blacks the right to vote
C) equalize wealth between poor and wealthy farmers
D) exclude women from joining the Populist Party
42. In general, attempts to eliminate government use of the Confederate battle flag in the South
__________.
A) have garnered little attention from the media
B) have met with little success
C) showed that most white Southerners have little interest in the Confederate battle flag
D) have helped politicians who supported such attempts
43. D. W. Griffith’s successful film, Birth of a Nation, promoted an image of __________.
A) blacks as equal citizens
B) southerners and northerners working together
C) radicalism within the rural reform movement
D) a heroic Ku Klux Klan
44. One of the ways the black community responded to disenfranchisement and hate was __________.
A) by giving up on the right to vote
B) sabotage
C) violence
D) humor
45. Booker T. Washington emphasized __________.
A) vocational training as a way of establishing economic independence
B) the immediate rise of blacks into the professional class
C) the creation of interracial colleges and other public institutions
D) non-violent civil disobedience to gain legal reforms
46. In the Atlanta Compromise, Washington urged whites to provide education for blacks, and
__________.
A) called for blacks to run for political office in the South
B) urged blacks to accommodate themselves to segregation
C) abandoned his hopes that blacks could become part of the industrial labor force
D) denounced the powerful, white elite who dominated southern politics
47. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People __________.
A) was created by an act of Congress
B) was shunned by W. E. B. Du Bois
C) started out as an interracial organization
D) made economic opportunity for blacks its main focus
48. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, __________.
A) Washington laid out his plan of self-help
B) Du Bois attacked the stance of accommodation expressed by Washington
C) Washington expressed that blacks should not vote until they received proper education
D) Du Bois stated that southern whites were not needed for blacks to make social gains
49. Which of the following statements about W. E. B. Du Bois is true?
A) He strongly believed that southern whites could aid blacks.
B) He was the first African-American to earn a degree at Yale.
C) He stressed agricultural education as the major aspect of improving life for blacks.
D) He promoted pride in the strengths of African-American culture.
50. The era of the New South __________.
A) was very much like the South in the years before the Civil War
B) emerged as a time of growing economic opportunities for blacks and poor whites
C) saw a marked drop in the development of urban centers in the South
D) was characterized by the persistence of rural poverty and racial divisiveness
Essay Questions
51. What factors accounted for the quick appeal, and then the sudden fall, of the Populist Party in the
South?
52. In what ways was the activism of female reformers in the South both progressive and reactionary?
53. Compare and contrast the views of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois regarding strategies
that would achieve social progress for African Americans.