CHAPTER 17
Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad, 1890–1900
TEST BANK
Learning Objectives
1. Understand the origins and significance of Populism.
2. Explain how the liberty of blacks after 1877 gave way to legal segregation across the South.
3. Examine how the boundaries of American freedom grew narrower in this period.
4. Explain how the United States emerged as an imperial power in the 1890s.
Multiple Choice
1. Which of the following statements most accurately describes the significance of the 1892 strike in Homestead,
Pennsylvania?
a. The strikers’ defeat spelled the end of future union organization by skilled industrial workers.
b. Press scrutiny of the strike sent stock prices up for Carnegie Steel Company, suggesting that “all press is
good press” for corporate owners.
c. It reflected the belief of many working Americans that they were being denied economic independence and
self-governance.
d. Public outcry over the involvement of the state militia in crushing the strike prompted the resignation of
Pennsylvania’s governor.
e. The outcome made Americans look more violent than their British counterparts.
2. How did economic development in Brazil during and after the American Civil War affect the lives of southern
cotton farmers?
a. Brazilian demand for American cotton created new opportunities for southern cotton growers.
b. Poverty and crime in South America triggered a mass migration of cheap farm workers into the American
South where they replaced former slaves.
c. The expansion of Brazilian cotton cultivation lowered global prices and led to indebtedness and loss of land
for southern farmers.
d. The expansion of slavery in Brazil in the wake of American emancipation prompted southern farmers to
give up cotton cultivation for good.
e. Cheap Egyptian cotton allowed southerners to become the consumers of imported textiles.
3. Farmers believed that their plight derived from which of the following?
a. high freight rates charged by Atlantic shipping lines
b. excessive interest rates for loans from bankers
c. the low tariffs imposed by the federal government
d. the fiscal policy that increased the supply of money in the economy
e. the free and unlimited coinage of silver
4. The Farmers’ Alliance hoped to improve farmers’ economic situation by
a. creating a farming cooperative.
b. creating a system in which the government would loan them money at low interest rates.
c. getting loans from international banks.
d. lowering the selling prices of crops and therefore increasing demand.
e. finding private investors to fund new machinery.
5 Which statement about the People’s Party is correct?
a. It emerged from the Southern Citizens Councils in the 1890s and claimed to speak for all the “native
whites.”
b. It embarked on a remarkable effort toward radical socialism.
c. Its platform of 1892 remains a classic document of American bigotry, advocating racist ideas of the day
such as graduated income tax and increased democracy.
d. It emerged as an urban, middle-class vehicle for social, economic, and political reform.
e. It sought to rethink the relationship between freedom and government in order to address the crisis of the
1890s.
6. Populists intended to do which of the following?
a. create the foundations of a system based on communitarian cooperation
b. free America from foreign-born individuals
c. disfranchise blacks and women
d. restore economic opportunity
e. give back to Americans all the well-paying jobs occupied by immigrants
7. Why did Populists call for public ownership of the railroads?
a. to convince the government to invest more money in a better road network
b. because they wanted to destroy the American Railway Union
c. because they distrusted large and powerful corporations like those owning the railroads
d. because they believed the state should own key institutions and corporations
e. because farmers would be able to transport their crops at a lower cost
8. Which was part of the Populist platform?
a. a flat income tax
b. proportionate representation in the U.S. Senate
c. privatization of railroads
d. higher tariffs
e. workers’ right to form unions
9. How were the Populists forward-thinking?
a. They praised laissez-faire economics.
b. They supported the gold standard.
c. They opposed taxing the income of the wealthy.
d. They embraced new technologies, such as the telegraph.
e. They were against regulation.
10. How did Tom Watson interact with the Populist movement?
a. He told Populists not to question economic conditions.
b. He promoted an alliance between black and white farmers.
c. He gave a speech in Kansas that anticipated Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
d. He helped lead Coxey’s Army in Washington.
e. He encouraged segregation of the races in the South.
11. Why did the Populist movement energize thousands of American women?
a. because the Populists supported women’s suffrage
b. because men were not interested in its platform
c. because it was the only coalition that allowed women to rally
d. because it promised to give women good jobs once Populist candidates were in office
e. because the women were paid to participate
12. The severe depression of 1893
a. was quickly over, and the economy was soon booming.
b. caused little, if any, hardship.
c. affected only factory workers.
d. was a period in which labor and capital looked for compromise.
e. led to increased conflict between capital and labor.
13. What role did the federal troops have in the Pullman Strike of 1894?
a. They represented the government and functioned as an overseer of the strike.
b. They worked as moderators between the strikers and the owners.
c. They were used as a backup plan in case the workers rioted.
d. They showed to support the strikers.
e. They stopped the strike by using force.
14. Which statement about Coxey’s Army is accurate?
a. They helped Cuban rebels in the Spanish-American War.
b. They broke up the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
c. They marched on Washington demanding economic relief.
d. They occupied a railroad center in Chicago during the Pullman Strike.
e. They defended missions in China from the Boxer Rebellion.
15. The 1894 Pullman Strike
a. ended with the arrival of Coxey’s Army, a private security agency hired by George Pullman.
b. crippled national rail service and triggered the arrest of union president Eugene V. Debs.
c. resulted in a rare compromise between the American Railway Union and Pullman Sleeping Cars.
d. received unexpected support from Attorney General Richard Olney, who believed in the rights of railroad
workers to a fair wage.
e. led to public disapproval of union president Eugene V. Debs.
16. William Jennings Bryan was the presidential candidate for which of the following groups?
a. Anti-Imperialist League
b. Populists and Democrats
c. Republicans and Democrats
d. Free Soil Party
e. Redeemers
17. William Jennings Bryan
a. called for the unrestricted minting of silver money.
b. angered Populists after giving a fiery convention speech denouncing the “free coinage” of silver.
c. failed to win enough support from the Democratic Party as the nominee for president in 1896.
d. entered politics late in life, after a successful career as a Methodist minister.
e. had a weak presidential campaign after he refused numerous speaking engagements.
18. Which of the following movements most influenced William Jennings Bryan?
a. Social Gospel
b. communism
c. Social Darwinism
d. Share Our Wealth program
e. Utopianism
19. Why were Populists initially cool toward Bryan?
a. He was a former Republican.
b. He had strong connections to eastern industrialists.
c. He was a weak speaker.
d. His many political ideas were too broad.
e. He was a Democrat.
20. Which statement about the 1896 election is correct?
a. William McKinley’s victory ushered in a political stalemate that persisted until 1920.
b. The Populist Party emerged after the election.
c. The election is considered the first modern presidential campaign.
d. Bryan’s campaign raised millions of dollars compared to McKinley’s.
e. William Jennings Bryan lost because he supported the gold standard.
21. What political office did William McKinley occupy prior to the election of 1896?
a. Nebraska congressman
b. Georgia senator
c. New York governor
d. Ohio governor
e. vice president
22. Republican presidential candidate William McKinley
a. lost the 1896 election.
b. promoted an inflationary process.
c. was popular in the rural areas.
d. won the 1896 election.
e. denounced corporate arrogance.
23. The Redeemers were formed by a coalition of
a. union workers and supervisors.
b. merchants, planters, and business entrepreneurs.
c. northern activists and new politicians.
d. factory female workers.
e. West Coast farmers.
24. Which institution was hardest hit by the Redeemers when they assumed power in the South?
a. women’s associations
b. hospitals and asylums
c. religious associations
d. prisons
e. public schools
25. With the Redeemers in power in the South,
a. Louisiana became the only state in the Union where white illiteracy rates decreased.
b. convict labor became a profitable venture for lumber companies.
c. taxes on white landowners increased in most southern states.
d. African-Americans gained representation in local and state offices.
e. state budgets ballooned to cover increasing expenses on military forces.
26. Henry Grady promoted the idea of a New South based on
a. cotton factories.
b. racial equality.
c. increased commercial activities with the North.
d. industrial expansion and agricultural diversification.
e. unionized workers.
27. The black middle class in southern cities
a. mainly occupied supervisory positions in factories.
b. socialized with the white middle class.
c. worked as clerks and secretaries in offices.
d. worked as teachers and physicians and owned businesses serving the black community.
e. was formed overwhelmingly by women.
28. Why did the South fail to attract significant economic development in the wake of Reconstruction?
a. Northern investors stayed away, appalled by southern race relations.
b. Northerners considered a South without African-Americans in chains too risky for investment.
c. Investors looked for cheap labor and low taxes, but made few capital investments in the region.
d. Southern white supremacists tended to scare off northern capital industries.
e. Southern Klansmen scared away many interested investors.
29. The “Kansas Exodus” meant which of the following?
a. hope for blacks to escape racial violence in the South
b. the migration of 40,000 to 60,000 African-Americans out of Kansas
c. the eventual return of most black migrants to the South
d. Political equality was a child’s fantasy as unreal as The Wizard of Oz.
e. Many African-Americans stayed in Arkansas because they had found what they were looking for.
30. The term “exodus” in regard to the Kansas Exodus was derived from what?
a. slaves escaping through the Underground Railroad before the Civil War
b. immigrants leaving war-torn Europe
c. Russian refugees escaping the tsar’s pogroms
d. slaves escaping the Roman Empire
e. an Old Testament story in the Bible
31. Most female activists brought together by the National Association of Colored Women came from
a. poverty.
b. northern cities.
c. plantations.
d. the urban black middle class.
e. white aristocracy.
32. How did black women challenge the racial ideology of the Jim Crow South?
a. They formed their own secret militant organization.
b. They used their positions in domestic service for sabotage, pilfering, and revenge.
c. They insisted on the equal respectability of black women by working for “racial uplift.”
d. They stressed the supremacy of their men to counter claims that black families lacked patriarchal order.
e. African-American women’s organizations established gun clubs and shooting ranges to improve their skills
at self-defense.
33. By the end of the nineteenth century, African-American men in the South
a. were limited to holding local offices.
b. were forced out of politics.
c. continued to hold elective office with no restrictions.
d. joined the Democratic Party.
e. supported the redrawing of congressional district lines.
34. Which statement about the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South is correct?
a. White leaders presented disenfranchisement as a “good government” measure.
b. Between 1890 and 1906, all states enacted laws or constitutional provisions meant to eliminate the black
vote.
c. In passing various laws to restrict blacks from voting, southern elites were careful not to victimize poor
whites.
d. The elimination of black and many white voters was accomplished without the North being aware.
e. The Supreme Court upheld the grandfather clause.
35. Which of the following statements measures the effectiveness of the plan to disenfranchise blacks?
a. Republicans won the 1896 presidential election.
b. Not until the mid-twentieth century did black women gain voting rights.
c. As late as 1940, a very low percentage (3 percent) of adult black southerners were registered to vote.
d. During the Progressive era, black people were barred from participating in political debates
e. By 1920, more blacks lived in cities than in rural areas.
36. How did the North aid in the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South?
a. The North pushed not to include the South in the women’s suffrage amendment.
b. Northern senators acquiesced when Congress defeated a voting rights bill.
c. Northern politicians wanted to send troops to ensure that only poor whites could vote.
d. Northerners asked for the Fourteenth Amendment to be rescinded.
e. Northern politicians told blacks to move to the North if they wanted to vote.
37. Which statement about Albion W. Tourgée is accurate?
a. He was the leading Supreme Court voice pushing to uphold segregation of the races in the South.
b. He helped to start the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.
c. As a North Carolina judge, Tourgée insisted that segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
d. He opposed all Reconstruction policies in North Carolina as an obstructionist judge.
e. He was the lone dissenting voice on the Supreme Court condemning segregation.
38. Who was the lone dissenting justice in the Plessy v. Ferguson case?
a. Albion W. Tourgée
b. Tom Watson
c. Sam Hose
d. Albert Beveridge
e. John Marshall Harlan
39. The Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson
a. argued that segregated facilities did not discriminate.
b. was divided.
c. argued against the “dominant race.”
d. argued that segregated facilities violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
e. stated the constitution was color-blind.
40. An all-encompassing system of white domination in the South was achieved through
a. barring blacks from ever entering “whites only” railroad cars.
b. an exodus of over 90 percent of African-Americans northward.
c. businesses serving whites before blacks.
d. a growing number of white immigrants from Europe.
e. refusing business to black customers.
41. What term best describes the status of blacks brought about by a segregated South?
a. symbiotic
b. subservient
c. hopeful
d. totally isolated
e. free
42. Apart from the racial identity of victims, what typically triggered the lynch violence of southern white mobs?
a. the victim’s lack of education
b. the victim’s parenting style
c. the victim’s lack of employment
d. the victim’s alleged sexual conduct
e. the victim’s northern accent
43. Why did Ida B. Wells say the United States had no right to call itself the “land of the free”?
a. She was referring to the lynchings of innocent black men.
b. She was discussing the anti-immigrant sentiment in the South.
c. She was writing about the plight of Indians in the West.
d. She was criticizing America’s war against Spain.
e. She was examining working conditions for factory workers.
44. By 1900, in both the North and South:
a. history textbooks emphasized Reconstruction’s merits.
b. the role of black soldiers in ensuring Union victory in the Civil War was all but forgotten.
c. history texts portrayed African-Americans as happy in slavery.
d. African-Americans had largely solidified the political and economic gains made in Reconstruction.
e. history texts portrayed John Brown as a martyr and national hero.
45. Which of the following was Ida B. Wells’s purpose as a journalist and lecturer?
a. to promote gender equality
b. to denounce racial terrorism
c. to stop immigration
d. to travel the world
e. to endorse white supremacy
46. In her lecture “Lynch Law in all its Phases,” Wells denounced the stance of the government in relation to the
lynchings that were taking place in the South. What, according to her, was the government doing wrong?
a. allowing the mobs to lynch black people without punishment
b. secretly financing the mobs
c. sending troops to supervise the lynchings
d. rewarding the criminal behavior of the mobs
e. abolishing police supervision of the areas where lynchings took place
47. According to Wells, what was the solution to stop lynching?
a. to counteract the mobs with violence
b. to allow the public force to perform the lynching
c. to spark a moral debate among Protestants and Catholics
d. to awaken a public sentiment to repudiate it
e. to fine those involved in the lynchings
48. In “The Souls of Black Folk,” W. E. B. DuBois argues that blacks brought three gifts to America. What are the
“gifts” he is referring to?
a. song, sweat, and spirit
b. sacrifice, love, and understanding
c. hard work, family loyalty, eagerness to improve living standards
d. soul food, strong women, and investment
e. strength, passion, and ancient wisdom
49. In which of the following ways were the boundaries of freedom redrawn in the United States during the
nineteenth century?
a. The federal government expanded the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment dramatically.
b. Congress passed a law that granted all married women control over their wages.
c. The American Federation of Labor expanded its membership to include female workers and black workers.
d. Several states adopted literacy and residency requirements in order to restrict immigrant voting.
e. Congress passed an act to increase Chinese immigration.
50. Which of the following describes an effect of U.S. Chinese exclusion policies of the late nineteenth century?
a. Chinese discrimination victims were afraid to seek redress through the courts.
b. A 1986 Congressional resolution apologized for their exacerbation of racial discrimination.
c. In protest, some Chinese refused to carry required identification papers.
d. Eastern cities experienced a dramatic increase in Chinese immigration.
e. The Chinese Exclusion Act was terminated in 1902.
51. How did the Civil War come to be remembered by the 1890s?
a. as a turning point toward racial equality
b. as a war of “brother against brother”
c. as the war that liberated blacks from slavery
d. as an act of bravery on the part of white solders
e. as a patriotic act on the part of black soldiers
52. What explains the appeal of the Lost Cause mythology for Southern whites in the late nineteenth century?
a. It helped blacks cope with their new working conditions.
b. It portrayed the Civil War as a trivial event.
c. It alleviated the burden of slavery.
d. It allowed them to negate the fact they had lost the war.
e. It allowed southern governments to preserve white supremacy while coping with defeat.
53. On what grounds did Justice David J. Brewer dissent from the majority opinion in the case of Fong Yue Ting
(1893), which authorized the federal government to expel Chinese aliens without due process of law?
a. He argued that the Chinese were mostly decent and honorable and worthy of Americans’ respect.
b. Brewer worried that a similar rationale could be used in the future to subvert the rights to due process of
other people.
c. He explained that Chinese immigrants should be expelled on grounds of the Naturalization Act, not the
Fourteenth Amendment.
d. He reasoned that the Constitution of the United States had never applied to any group of immigrants.
e. He argued that the United States would suffer serious disadvantages in foreign trade and diplomacy under
this precedent.
54. What was the focus of Yick Wo v. Hopkins?
a. a lynching of a Chinese man in California
b. upholding business opportunities through the Fourteenth Amendment
c. segregated schools in California
d. expelling Chinese immigrants without due process
e. awarding citizenship to Chinese immigrants through the Fourteenth Amendment
55. “New immigrants”
a. arrived mostly from southern and eastern Europe.
b. arrived in large numbers from China.
c. stayed in the United States for a few months and soon returned to their home countries.
d. sought jobs as farmers.
e. were highly educated.
56. In the 1890s, 3.5 million immigrants arrived in the United States. Where did most of them come from?
a. Ireland, England, and Wales
b. Germany and France
c. China
d. South America
e. Southern and Eastern Europe
57. In his Atlanta speech of 1895, Booker T. Washington
a. called for political equality.
b. encouraged blacks to adjust to segregation.
c. opposed vocational education for blacks.
d. fought against segregation.
e. continued the abolitionist political tradition.
58. What did Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute emphasize?
a. civil rights issues
b. professional job education
c. vocational job education
d. black separatism
e. graduate school programs
59. The Immigration Restriction League
a. blamed “new” immigrants for urban crime and poverty.
b. preferred “new” immigrants over the “old” ones.
c. wanted to ban immigrants coming from non–English-speaking nations.
d. aimed to restrict all immigration.
e. restricted immigrants’ rights to create their own religious institutions.
60. The Immigration Restriction League was formed by
a. southern planters.
b. professionals from Boston.
c. Republicans.
d. white women.
e. a group of lawyers from the West.
61. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
a. excluded Chinese immigrants from supervisory positions.
b. excluded Chinese immigrants from entering the country.
c. excluded Chinese immigrants from the possibility of becoming naturalized citizens.
d. took away Chinese women’s voting rights.
e. excluded Chinese immigrants from owning land.
62. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court ruled that Asian descendants born on U.S. soil became
U.S. citizens at birth. In what regulation did they base this decision?
a. Chinese Exclusion Act
b. Fourteenth Amendment
c. Thirteenth Amendment
d. U.S. Constitution
e. Civil Rights Act
63. The American Federation of Labor’s founder, Samuel Gompers, used the idea of “freedom of contract” to
a. argue against interference by judges with workers’ right to organize unions.
b. argue for the right of workers to form political parties to shape government.
c. argue for direct confrontation between unions and corporations.
d. justify the exclusion of women and blacks from the American Federation of Labor.
e. explain the American Federation of Labor’s policy of admitting unskilled workers to its union.
64. The ascendancy of the American Federation of Labor during the 1890s reflected
a. the increasing radicalism of the American labor movement.
b. the increasing social conscience in the American population overall.
c. a shift from broad reform goals to more limited goals.
d. the success of the political lobbying efforts of labor organizers.