Learning Curve: Chapter 20

What 1908 event prompted a meeting that eventually led to the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)?

A race riot in Springfield, Illinois, hometown of Abraham Lincoln

How did Woodrow Wilson address the instability of the banking system in the United States during his first term in office?

He created the Federal Reserve system.

How did Theodore Roosevelt, an unabashed believer in "Anglo-Saxon" superiority, incur the wrath of white supremacists during his presidency?

He invited African American Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House

Which statement delineates the critical difference between the Populists of the 1890s on the one hand and the established Democratic and Republican parties on the other?

Populists recognized the conflict between capital and labor.

White southerners perpetuated the existence of forced labor by blacks in the twentieth century through which of these practices?

convict leasing

In 1894, Ohioan Jacob Coxey made national headlines when he embarked upon what action?

A peaceful march on Washington, D.C.

Republicans regained control of both houses of Congress and the presidency in which year?

1888

The new income tax Congress passed in the first year of the Wilson administration affected what proportion of American households?

5 percent → The income tax of 1 to 7 percent applied to incomes of $4,000 or more. At a time when a white male wageworker typically made about $800 per year, this only affected about 5 percent of American households.

The Democratic Party included which planks in its platform for the 1896 presidential election?

A federal income tax on the wealthy → William Jennings Bryan embraced a platform that advocated free silver and adoption of a federal income tax on the wealthy.

Why did William Jennings Bryan lose the 1896 election?

A huge fundraising campaign by corporate leaders

Which description fits the meaning of the word liberal among Republicans of the 1870s?

A more limited and professional government

The Populists differed dramatically from the major parties in their support for what cause?

Activist government → The Populists, unlike other parties, wanted an activist government. Populists called for public ownership of railroad and telegraph systems, protection of land from monopoly and foreign ownership, a federal income tax on the rich, and a looser monetary policy to help borrowers.

During the Depression of 1894, many Americans pushed President Grover Cleveland to address the economic crisis by taking what step?

Adopting a free silver policy → Many Americans pressed the Cleveland administration during the 1890s to loosen the money supply by expanding federal coinage to include silver as well as gold. Free silver, they believed, would encourage borrowing and stimulate industry.

President Benjamin Harrison attempted to protect the voting rights of which group after his election in 1888?

African Americans

How did the National Child Labor Committee bring national attention to child welfare issues during the first decade of the twentieth century?

By hiring a photographer to document children's brutal working conditions

Which factor might have contributed to the image of Gilded Age presidents as colorless and ineffective?

All of them maneuvered in tight political competition.

This political cartoon from a 1904 issue of a popular magazine refers to the folktale "Jack the Giant Killer." The tiny figure represents President Theodore Roosevelt. Who are the giants in the cartoon supposed to represent?

American robber barons

something reform

An eight hour a day

The Adamson Act of 1916 achieved what reforms that workers had been demanding since the mid-nineteenth century?

An eight-hour day

How did southern Democrats seek to eliminate the threat posed by the Populist Party in the 1890s?

By stuffing ballot boxes

On what issue did Republicans oppose Democrats in the 1896 election?

Attacking free silver as being dangerous to the social order

Due to the influence of Ohio manufacturer Mark Hanna on the direction of the Republican Party in the late nineteenth century, what policy did Republicans follow?

Backing away from moral issues

Why did the United States lag behind Europe in implementing key social welfare programs during the first three decades of the twentieth century?

Business interests in the United States were exceptionally powerful.

Why did the Democratic Party try to distance itself from Democratic president Grover Cleveland in the midterm elections of 1894?

Cleveland had refused to expand the money supply with silver coins.

The reformers who maintained the "Solid South" after the end of Reconstruction were found primarily in which political party?

Democratic Party

Why did competitive politics in the South shift to the Democratic primaries after the introduction of poll taxes and literacy tests?

Disenfranchisement of blacks and many poor white voters eliminated the Democrats' opposition.

According to the 1913 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, what caused industrial violence?

Employers' antiunionism

Theodore Roosevelt faced which other minor party candidate in the U.S. presidential election of 1912?

Eugene V. Debs

This political cartoon printed during the presidential election of 1896 and featuring the Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan is designed to emphasize which pressing political issue of the day?

Free coinage of silver

In which political office had Theodore Roosevelt served before he became William McKinley's running mate in the U.S. presidential election of 1900?

Governor of New York

Which discriminatory policy was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the late 1890s?

Grandfather clauses

Which statement summarizes the state of electoral politics in the United States after Reconstruction?

High voter turnout and fierce partisan conflict → The collapse of Reconstruction ushered in a period of high voter turnout and fierce partisan conflict. Republicans and Democrats traded control of the Senate three times between 1880 and 1894, and control of the House five times. At the same time, heated party competition drew Americans into the fray. Proportionately more voters turned out in presidential elections from 1876 to 1892 than at any other time in American history.

Civil service reform became an important issue after what event associated with President James Garfield?

His assassination

What was the free coinage of silver, advocated by many in the 1890s, supposed to achieve?

Increase the money supply → Free coinage of silver was an inflationary measure designed to increase the money supply.

Which statement reflects President Woodrow Wilson's perspective when he took office in 1913?

Industrialization was the source of many social problems.

Why did the Populist Party threaten the foundations of southern politics?

It forged cross-racial ties in its push for agricultural and economic reform.

What was significant about the report issued by the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations in 1913?

It helped to set a new national agenda for American workers and unions.

Which Harvard-educated historian called for a talented tenth of educated blacks to develop a new strategy to achieve black equal rights?

W. E. B. Du Bois

Why was the income tax instituted during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson called a progressive tax?

It implemented tax rates that rose progressively along with income levels. → The term progressive tax refers to the fact that the new income tax was not a flat tax, but rather one that rose progressively with lower rates for lower incomes and higher rates for higher incomes.

Who was "the people's lawyer" recruited by the National Consumers' League to argue the Muller v. Oregon case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908?

Louis Brandeis

Why did the Supreme Court focus on women's labor rights in the early 1900s, especially in Muller v. Oregon (1908)?

Louis Brandeis wrote a brief that emphasized maternity.

Republicans who wanted limited government and strongly opposed corruption were called by what name?

Mugwumps

One of the National Consumers' League's greatest triumphs was the Supreme Court's decision in 1908 in which case?

Muller v. Oregon

The 1898 U.S. Supreme Court decision Williams v. Mississippi upheld the constitutionality of what laws?

Poll taxes and literacy tests → Williams v. Mississippi upheld the constitutionality of poll taxes and literacy tests. By 1908, every southern state had adopted such measures.

What did the Supreme Court rule in the case of Lochner v. New York (1905)?

New York State could not limit bakers' workdays due to their freedom of contract. → In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court elevated freedom of contract to a constitutional principle and ruled that the state of New York could not limit bakers' workdays to ten hours because it violated the bakers' rights to contract for longer workdays.

Which paradox describes the American political context in the decade following the election of 1896?

New antidemocratic restrictions created openings for democratic innovations. → It was ironic that as the United States passed legislation that limited the voting rights of immigrants and other "unfit" Americans, elite and middle-class reformers felt more comfortable increasing the power of the voters who remained. After imposing literacy tests and other restrictions of voting, the United States adopted the direct primary and the direct election of U.S. senators.

Theodore Roosevelt 1906

New powers

What did Theodore Roosevelt achieve when he persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass the Hepburn Act in 1906?

New powers for the Interstate Commerce Commission

How did the major political parties choose their nominees prior to the introduction of the direct primary around the turn of the century?

Party leaders chose them. → Prior to the direct primary, party leaders chose nominees, often in meetings that were closed to the public and most rank-and-file members. It was here that special interests exercised most influence on the political process.

The Woodrow Wilson administration secured passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 to achieve what goal?

Prevent trusts from curbing competition

What did the Interstate Commerce Commission have the authority to regulate as a result of passage of the Hepburn Act in 1906?

Railroad shipping rates

What were the Mugwumps of the late nineteenth century primarily concerned with?

Reforming corrupt politics

Why was the Lodge Bill, which could have been used to protect African American voting rights, defeated in 1890?

Republicans in the North and West voted against it.

What does this map of the presidential election of 1912 suggest about political parties in the United States at that time?

Roosevelt's impact on the Republican Party aided the Democrats' victory. → The map and table clearly show that, by dividing the votes of the Republican Party, Theodore Roosevelt's decision to run as the Progressive. If Taft's votes and Roosevelt's votes had gone to a single Republican candidate, Wilson would have lost the 1912 election.

In its 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, what did the Supreme Court rule?

Segregation was not discriminatory if blacks received accommodations equal to those of whites.

What 1890 piece of legislation sought to forbid any "combination . . . in restraint of trade"?

Sherman Antitrust Act

Where did many of the progressive ideas that were ultimately implemented in the United States at the federal level originate?

State governments → Along with grassroots organizations and the settlement movement, state governments served as seedbeds of progressivism. Theodore Roosevelt himself dubbed Wisconsin a "laboratory of democracy" because of its pioneering role in progressive policy-making.

What does this map reveal about the likely reason that some southern states accomplished black disfranchisement through constitutional change while others did so using narrower exclusionary methods?

States with the largest black populations banned black voting constitutionally, whereas whiter states did so in other ways.

This political cartoon was created by one of Bryan's critics. What symbols included in the image reveal the artist's negative message?

The collapsed buildings behind him

The U.S. Department of Labor created which of the following bureaus in 1912?

The Children's Bureau

On what grounds did Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. dissent in the case of Lochner v. New York (1905)?

The notion of "freedom of contract" was a "legal fiction."

Which organization was created in 1909 to assist in the push for civil rights of African Americans throughout the United States?

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) → In 1908, a bloody race riot broke out in Springfield, Illinois, hometown of Abraham Lincoln. Appalled by the violence against blacks, New York settlement worker Mary White Ovington called together a small group of sympathetic progressives. Their meeting led in 1909 to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which worked for racial justice across the country.

Which organization assisted blacks living in northern cities?

The National Urban League → The Urban League assisted blacks living in the northern cities.

In a speech he gave in 1897, the rising political star Theodore Roosevelt said, "If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State. . . . It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence." What group was Roosevelt dismissing as "foolish and wicked" in this statement?

The Populist Party

What motivated southern states to establish literacy tests as a qualification for voting?

The Populists' threat to one-party rule

In this 1912 cartoon published during that year's presidential election, Theodore Roosevelt stands in the pool labeled "Teddyism" and William Howard Taft in the brown suit pulls on the elephant's tail. What does the elephant symbolize?

The Republican Party

Why did Woodrow Wilson win the election of 1912?

The Republican vote was divided between the incumbent and the Progressive Party challenger Theodore Roosevelt.

Which factor contributed to the instability of electoral politics in the United States in the two decades after Reconstruction?

The addition of seven new states to the union → Dizzying population growth that came from the addition of seven new western states—Montana, North and South Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah—to the union changed the size and shape of the House of Representatives and contributed to political instability in the period after Reconstruction.

Which factor contributed to the high rates of voter turnout in the presidential elections from 1876 to 1892?

The legacies of the Civil War

What was President James Garfield's 1881 assassination blamed on?

The negative impact of the spoils system

What was the name of the system in which government appointments were given to party loyalists in a victorious campaign?

The spoils system

Why did some Americans refer to the late nineteenth century as the Gilded Age?

The period's prosperous appearance rested upon widespread moral decay and poverty.

Why did Grover Cleveland arrange a secret deal to purchase gold from a syndicate of bankers led by John Pierpont Morgan in 1895?

The treasury's gold reserves were dwindling to a dangerous low.

How did Populists view the relationship between farmers and laborers in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century?

They considered farmers and laborers as natural allies. → Populists saw farmers and laborers as a producer class, allied against the forces of monopoly. Therefore, labor support was an important part of the Populists' goals.

Why did W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter meet with other African Americans at Niagara Falls in Canada to discuss racial equality in the United States?

They could not gain entrance into a U.S. hotel.

Which statement describes the impact of progressives on the United States by 1917?

They drew blueprints for a modern American state whose powers suited an industrial era.

Why did northern liberals oppose the Lodge Bill, President Benjamin Harrison's initiative to protect African American voters in the South in 1890?

They feared the law would mean too much democracy.

Why did the Republican Party bosses choose Theodore Roosevelt as William McKinley's vice president in the election of 1900?

They were hoping to silence this new political star.

Why did radical reformer Jacob Coxey of Ohio organize a march on Washington in 1894?

To demand that the government institute public works programs for the unemployed

What did Theodore Roosevelt threaten during the bitter 1902 coal strike to force mine owners to negotiate with the miners' union?

To nationalize the big coal companies → When mine owners refused to negotiate with the miners' unions in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt threatened to nationalize the big coal companies, which brought the owners to the negotiating table quickly.

For what crime was Jacob Coxey arrested when he and his marchers arrived on Capitol Hill in 1894?

Trespassing

These maps tell us that what state gained statehood between 1892 and 1896?

Utah

In the late nineteenth century, Democrats in the South tended to be from what group?

White native-born Protestants → Southern, native-born Protestant whites were most likely to be Democratic, in opposition to the Republican Party, which was composed mainly of northern, native-born Protestant whites and southern blacks. Northern Democrats included many white foreign-born and native-born Catholics.

Who was William McKinley's Democratic opponent in the 1896 election?

William Jennings Bryan

Which Supreme Court case, decided in 1898, upheld the disenfranchisement of blacks?

Williams v. Mississippi → In this case, decided in 1898, the Supreme Court sanctioned the use of literacy tests and poll taxes, which effectively disenfranchised blacks in the South. By 1908, every southern state had enacted these measures.

Republican Governor Robert La Follette helped pass important reform laws in which state?

Wisconsin

Before the implementation of a federal income tax in 1913, how did the U.S. government derive most of its revenue?

With high tariffs on imported goods

Theodore Roosevelt's policies toward large industries differed from those of his predecessor, William McKinley, and other Republicans in the previous twenty years in that Roosevelt

felt that monopolies were natural but needed government regulation.

This 1920 image of a lynched black man in Center, Texas, shows that to people at the time such events had become

normalized