Unit+Eight--Enduring+Vision+Reading+Questions

Chapter 18: The Rise of Industrial America, 1865-1900


 * 1) Explain how the building of the nation's railroad network stimulated American industrialization and the growth of large corporations.
 * 2) Discuss government attempts to stop the growth of trusts and monopolies in the late nineteenth century. Why were these efforts ineffective?
 * 3) Briefly explain the new technology involved in the creation of flush toilets and indoor plumbing and the impact those had, both positive and negative, on American life.
 * 4) How were the objectives of the American Federation of Labor different from those of the earlier National Labor Union and Knights of Labor?
 * 5) What was the theme of Horatio Alger's novels? How realistic were these books in terms of late-nineteenth-century American experience?
 * 6) Explain what a conservative Social Darwinist would believe that government should do about poverty and exploitation of labor. How would the Social Darwinist justify such recommendations?

Chapter 19: Immigration, Urbanization, and Everyday Life, 1860-1900


 * 1) Explain the reasons for conflict between immigrants and native-born reformers in the late nineteenth century.
 * 2) What did Social Gospel ministers preach?
 * 3) How did department stores in the period 1860 to 1900 try to appeal to consumers?
 * 4) In what ways did the settlement house movement prepare the way for progressive reform in the early twentieth century?
 * 5) Why did Theodore Dreiser's //Sister Carrie//shock guardians of genteel culture in the Victorian Age?
 * 6) How did the middle and upper classes in the Victorian period explain why they were more economically successful than the working class?

Chapter 20: Politics and Expansion in an Industrializing Age, 1877-1900


 * 1) Discuss the causes of agrarian discontent in the period 1870 to 1897.
 * 2) Why did American farmers between the 1870s and 1897 generally favor issuing greenbacks and adopting free silver?
 * 3) Discuss the effects of the depression of 1893-1897 on national politics.
 * 4) Why did the Populists decide to endorse the 1896 Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, instead of nominating a member of their own party to run?
 * 5) Explain the relationship the United States established with Cuba after the Spanish-American War.
 * 6) Briefly explain the impact of new photoengraving technology on American journalism and politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.