Tocqueville's America
1820-1850


"No novelty in the United States struck me more vividly . . . than the equality of conditions."
     

  CONTENT OUTLINE


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  QUICK QUESTIONS

  1. The majority of textile mill workers during the 1830s were
    1. immigrants.
    2. women.
    3. skilled craftsmen.
    4. children.

  2. At the time it was completed, the Erie Canal was
    1. essentially already obsolete.
    2. long overdue as a replacement for railroads as the major means of transportation in America.
    3. the greatest construction project yet undertaken by Americans.
    4. too poorly engineered to handle the current traffic flow.

  3. The nativist movement desired to
    1. enact more restrictive immigration laws.
    2. return designated lands to certain Indian tribes.
    3. increase aid to education.
    4. remove recently enacted labor laws.

  4. In the middle-class family during this era, the role of women changed from
    1. helpmate to workmate.
    2. income producer to income consumer.
    3. family head to subservient mate.
    4. passive domestic to radical feminist.

  5. Which statement does not reflect Alexis de Tocqueville's impressions of America?
    1. "There were fewer distinctions between the rich and the poor than in Europe."
    2. "Americans generally kept aloof from organizations and charities."
    3. "Women were assuming more authority over day-to-day household affairs because almost all men were working outside the home."
    4. "Americans were restless, and in particular, were moving westward."

  EXTENDED RESPONSE

1.  Discuss the emergence of the "cult of domesticity" in nineteenth-century America
     and its impact on women and the family.

2.  Discuss the causes, characteristics, and consequences of the Second Great
     Awakening.

3.  "In the first half of the nineteenth century, the American cultural and intellectual
     community contributed to the development of a distinctive American national
     consciousness." Assess the validity of this statement.

4.  "American reform movements between 1820 and 1860 reflected both optimistic and
     pessimistic views of human nature and society." Assess the validity of this statement
     in reference to reform movements in three of the following areas—penitentiaries;
     education; women's rights; temperance; abolitions of slavery; utopian experiments.

5.  Select three of the following social reformers and give an account of their activites
     and contributions within their particular cause—Horace Mann; Dorothea Lynde Dix;
     Frederick Douglass; Susan B. Anthony; Sojourner Truth; William Lloyd Garrison;
     Elizabeth Cady Stanton.


Stephen Foster's "Oh, Susanna"   by Pete Seeger