OpenStax US History Chapter 19

Which of the following four elements was not essential for creating massive urban growth in late nineteenth-century America?

settlement houses

Which of the following did the settlement house movement offer as a means of relief for working-class women?

childcare

Which of the following four elements was not essential for creating massive urban growth in late nineteenth-century America?

settlement houses

Which of the following did the settlement house movement offer as a means of relief for working-class women?

childcare

What technological and economic factors combined to lead to the explosive growth of American cities at this time?

At the end of the nineteenth century, a confluence of events made urban life more desirable and more possible. Technologies such as electricity and the telephone allowed factories to build and grow in cities, and skyscrapers enabled the relatively small geographic areas to continue expanding. The new demand for workers spurred a massive influx of job-seekers from both rural areas of the United States and from eastern and southern Europe. Urban housing—as well as services such as transportation and sanitation—expanded accordingly, though cities struggled to cope with the surging demand. Together, technological innovations and an exploding population led American cities to grow as never before.

Why did African Americans consider moving from the rural South to the urban North following the Civil War?

To find wage-earning work

Which of the following is true of late nineteenth-century southern and eastern European immigrants, as opposed to their western and northern European predecessors?

Ellis Island was the first destination for most southern and eastern Europeans.

What made recent European immigrants the ready targets of more established city dwellers? What was the result of this discrimination?

Newer immigrants often had different appearances, spoke unfamiliar languages, and lived their lives—from the religions they practiced to the food they ate—in ways that were alien to many Americans. In all of city life’s more challenging aspects, from competition for jobs to overcrowding in scarce housing, immigrants became easy scapegoats. The Reverend Josiah Strong’s bestselling book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, fueled this discrimination. The American Protective Association, the chief political activist group promoting anti-immigration legislation, formed largely in response to Strong’s call.

Which of the following was a popular pastime for working-class urban dwellers?

amusement parks

Which of the following was a disadvantage of machine politics?

Taxpayers ultimately paid higher city taxes due to graft.

In what way did education play a crucial role in the emergence of the middle class?

Better public education and the explosion of high schools meant that the children of the middle class were better educated than any previous generation. While college had previously been mostly restricted to children of the upper class, the creation of land-grant colleges made college available on a wide scale. The curricula at these new colleges matched the needs of the middle class, offering practical professional training rather than the liberal arts focus that the Ivy League schools embraced. Thus, children of the emerging middle class were able to access the education and training needed to secure their place in the professional class for generations to come

Which of the following statements accurately represents Thorstein Veblen’s argument in The Theory of the Leisure Class?

The middle class was overly focused on its own comfort and consumption

Which of the following was not an element of realism?

social Darwinism

In what ways did writers, photographers, and visual artists begin to embrace more realistic subjects in their work? How were these responses to the advent of the industrial age and the rise of cities?

The growth of the industrial economy and the dramatic growth of cities created new, harsh realities that were often hidden from the public eye. Writers and artists, responding both to this fact and to the sentimentalism that characterized the writing and art of their predecessors, began to depict subjects that reflected the new truth. Photographers like Jacob Riis sought to present to the public the realities of working-class life and labor. Novelists began to portray true-to-life vignettes in their stories. Visual artists such as George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and Robert Henri formed the Ashcan School of Art, which depicted the often gritty realities of working-class city life, leisure, and entertainment.