• America's Frontier West • The Plains Indian Wars • The Age of Big Business • Rise of Labor Unions • The Urbanization of America • Gilded Age Politics
The following multiple-choice questions are academically synonymous to those which appeared on the College Board Advanced Placement National Examination in United States History prior to 2015. They have been adapted from past National Exams, various College Board matter offering sample questions, and assorted APUSH review manuals widely available through common retail outlets. No item is an exact copy of any material previously published. The questions address political, social, economic, intellectual, and diplomatic history. While the multiple-choice format currently used by the College Board deviates from the conventional style, the items included here can nevertheless serve as effective learning support. This review set is intended for private use and educational purpose only and may not be sold or marketed in any manner.
DIRECTIONS: Using knowledge obtained through class lecture and assigned reading, coupled with the ability to reason logically, select the best response from among the four suggested completions for each statement.
The American Federation of Labor, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, organized:
workers and intellectuals into a labor party for political action
skilled workers in craft unions in order to achieve economic gains
all industries and agricultural workers into one giant union
unskilled laborers along industrial lines
In his "Acres of Diamonds" sermon, Russell Conwell expressed that:
poor people may attain happiness by living virtuous lives
Christians should embrace the serene and simple life of rural America
opportunity for wealth exists in every American's immediate pool of resources
the love of money is the root of all evil
All of the following were reasons for failure of the Populist Party except:
racism entrained the coalition of poor white and black farmers
the radical nature of its program alienated non-farming interests
western and southern farmers favored different political strategies
the prosperity of the early 1890s undermined public support for Populist economic reforms
President Grover Cleveland's response to the Pullman strike in 1894 was to:
intervene on the side of management under the pretense of unimpeded mail delivery
offer to serve as an arbitrator
decide on behalf of labor by ordering management to meet 75 percent or more of the workers' demands
follow a laissez-faire policy thereby allowing the crisis to resolve itself
The Sherman Act of 1890 was used primarily to:
break up business monopolies
regulate interstate railroads
promote economic expansion
curb labor unions
Frederick Jackson Turner's interpretation of the historical development of the United States focused on the importance of:
existence of cheap unsettled land
conflict between capitalists and workers
absence of a feudal aristocracy
traditional Western European culture
In the late nineteenth-century controversy over the social and religious implications of Darwinian theory, all of the following popular beliefs were felt to be threatened by Darwin except the:
concept of the deserving poor
accuracy of the Old Testament
uniqueness of humankind in nature
reality of change in the world
"A no-nonsense attitude toward public administration was reflected in his courage, integrity, and diligence. He valued principle more than adulation of the multitude. When once urged by party leaders to equivocate his stand on a particular issue while campaigning for re-election, he replied, 'What is the use of being elected or re-elected, unless you stand for something?' Of the average politicians who occupied the White House during the Gilded Age, his first term was probably the best." The President described is:
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
The most accurate of the statements below regarding the clothing industry of the late 1800s is:
"due to emphasis on domesticity, clothing manufacture became primarily a home industry"
"the United States began to import increasing quantities of clothing, thus numerous American industries experienced economic hardship"
"clothing became more affordable because the sewing machine enabled mass manufacture"
"discovery of new fabrics such as nylon and polyester led to more comfortable, functional, and affordable clothing"
The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was intended foremost to:
encourage factory and railroad construction near Indian reservations in order to stimulate stagnant economies among several tribes
suppress traditional Indian culture enforced by close governmental monitoring of sacred tribal ceremonies such as the Ghost Dance religion
eliminate tribal land ownership by granting plots to Indians as individual proprietors
provide a vast program of Christianization, education, and United States citizenship for western Indian tribes
The labor organization that endorsed the philosophy of "bread and butter" unionism by focusing on demands for higher wages, shorter hours, and improved working conditions was the:
Knights of Labor
American Federation of Labor
Industrial Workers of the World
National Labor Union
The formation of ethnic neighborhoods by immigrants in American cities:
prevented their advancement in the workplace
resulted from discriminatory restrictions
intensified a sense of incoherence with American values
tended to reinforce the cultural values of their previous societies
The late nineteenth-century political cartoon above is critical of:
government regulation of industry
labor union violence
unlimited immigration
corrupt big-city politicians
"This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren." The thoughts expressed in this passage are most characteristic of:
the Gospel of Wealth
founding principles of the Grange movement
the concept of Social Darwinism
individuals who favored free coinage of silver
During the closing decades of the 1800s, farmers expressed all of the following complaints except:
high freight charges
unrealistic interest rates
rising commodity prices
excessive storage costs
The principle involvement of Jacob Riis in the reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was his effort to:
establish special homes for juvenile delinquents
bar obscene materials from the United States postal system
publicize poor housing and sanitation in urban tenements
encourage legislation to end prostitution
Between 1890 and 1914, the greatest number of immigrants to the United States came from:
Northern and Western Europe
Southern and Eastern Europe
Latin America
Southeast Asia
The election campaign tactic known as "waving the bloody shirt" attempted to reap political gain from lingering animosities of the:
disastrous Triangle shirtwaist factory fire
violent Haymarket Square demonstration
death and destruction of the Civil War
Crédit Mobilier affair and other improprieties of the Grant administration
The most persistent problem facing municipalities in the United States throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century was:
deteriorating public transportation
inadequate water and sewer systems
reduction in the number of manufacturing jobs
decreasing municipal tax bases
The 1880s book that aroused the American conscience and spurred congressional action regarding treatment of American Indians was entitled:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
A Century of Dishonor
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Last of the Mohicans
All of the following factors led to a rather abrupt end for the cattle drive bonanza except:
collapse of eastern beef prices due to overproduction
steady disappearance of grassland necessary to sustain long drives
the searing 1886 summer sandwiched between two bitter winters
poorly-conceived legislation which placed excessive restrictions on long-haul railroads
Demands for "free and unlimited coinage of silver" and "graduated income tax" appeared in the platform of the:
Populist Party
Constitutional Union Party
Greenback Party
Free Soil Party
In the late nineteenth century, the American labor movement was:
involved in a number of violent strikes
confined to factory workers
protected from employer harassment by federal law and policy
controlled by immigrant socialists and anarchists
Lester Frank Ward believed the best means to socio-economic unity and happiness was through:
active governmental planning
belief in Christian principles
free market competition
powerful labor unions
One consequence caused by the shift to sharecropping and the crop lien system in the late nineteenth-century South was:
major redistribution of land ownership
cyclical debt and depression for southern tenant farmers
greater diversification of crops
rise in cotton yields per acre from antebellum production levels
All of the following are true of railroad expansion in the latter 1800s except that it:
opened new territories to commercial agriculture
accelerated the growth of some older cities and created new ones
was financed by private corporations without government assistance
led to new managerial forms and techniques
Slavic immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries settled primarily in midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh because:
housing was better and food cheaper in the newer cities of the Midwest
immigration authorities subsidized rail fares for westward immigrants
ethnic and religious prejudice was less widespread in the Midwest than in eastern cities
midwestern steel, meatpacking, and other mass production industries offered many unskilled jobs
America's political cartoonist extraordinaire of the late 1800s was:
John Trumbull
Frederic Remington
Thomas Nast
Mathew Brady
The rise of organized sports during the late 1800s occurred largely because:
more and more employers realized the importance of physical activity in maximizing productive spirit among workers
numerous labor-saving devices created substantial increase in leisure time
the new wave of European immigrants brought certain recreational activities with them from their native lands that soon became popular in America
city reformers sought to relieve working-class boredom and reduce urban crime
City bosses and urban political machines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
promoted prohibition of alcohol and and abolition of prostitution
favored reforms enabling the urban middle class to participate more effectively in politics
encouraged racial integration of residential neighborhoods
provided some welfare for poor immigrants in exchange for political support
Many settlement house workers of the late 1800s engaged in all of the following activities except:
publishing reports on deplorable inner-city housing conditions
organizing women workers into labor unions
teaching classes on cooking and dressmaking
offering literacy and language classes for immigrants
The most appropriate title suggested by the cartoon above in its portrayal of John Davison Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie is:
"Smooth Operators"
"Captains of Industry"
"Business Tycoons"
"Caretakers of Society"
The late-1800s Ghost Dance movement among western Indian tribes included all of the following components except:
use of magic to shield Indians from bullets fired from whites' weapons
belief that the end of the world was imminent
rejection of alcohol and other trappings of white culture
non-violent subjugation of white Americans
The major contributing factor to the declining death rate in American cities near the end of the nineteenth century was:
many municipalities began to provide free limited medical care
fewer immigrants and poor people were moving to the cities at that time
better recreation facilities allowed for an overall healthier American public
cities built sewers and supplied purified water
"Everybody is talkin' these days about...growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft....There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin': 'I seen my opportunities and I took 'em.'" This statement best reflects the historical legacy of all of the following politicians except:
