Unit 8 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 latenineteenth-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 Carrieshock 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.