HIS – Ch. 12 – Flashcards
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To help facilitate the increase in U.S. agricultural productivity in the 1840s and 1850s, the federal government
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sold the land for as little as $1.25 an acre.
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Why did American manufacturers, unlike their European counterparts, invent labor-saving methods and devices during the first half of the nineteenth century?
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Workers were in limited supply and thus more expensive.
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Which region led the nation in manufacturing?
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New England
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By 1860, most of the nation's energy came from people and
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animals
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What was the effect of the growth of railroads in the 1850s?
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New industries, like telegraph communications, flourished.
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Who tended to benefit from America's impressive economic growth in the early nineteenth century?
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Native-born white men
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Supporters of the free-labor ideal claimed that the system
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allowed hired laborers to become self-employed.
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What did free-labor proponents believe about education?
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It offered another opportunity for Americans to achieve their potential.
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Which statement describes the economic status of Americans by 1860?
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Most Americans owned no land.
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Three-fourths of the almost 4.5 million immigrants who arrived between 1840 and 1860 came from either Ireland or
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Germany.
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Most German immigrants were the families of
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skilled tradesmen.
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What happened to most Irish immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1840s and 1850s?
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Most immigrants entered at the bottom rung of the free-labor ladder.
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What did New York journalist and armchair expansionist John L. O'Sullivan mean when he coined the term manifest destiny in 1845?
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Americans had the God-given right to expand their civilization across the continent.
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How did the United States and Great Britain resolve competing claims on the Oregon territory in 1818?
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The two nations decided on joint occupation.
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How did white settlers who traveled west in wagon trains during the mid-1800s bring devastation to the Plains Indians?
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Whites brought with them alcohol and deadly diseases.
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How did the government respond when westbound settlers asked for protection from the Plains Indians?
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The government built forts along the trail.
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What was the experience of most women who lived in Oregon?
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They worked tirelessly.
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Who led the Mormon exodus to the Great Salt Lake?
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Brigham Young
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Within ten years of arriving at the territory around the Great Salt Lake, the Mormon community
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developed an efficient irrigation system.
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Why were Mexico's northern borderlands vulnerable to American expansionists?
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The borderlands were sparsely populated.
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Who were the migrants who settled on the Texas land granted to Stephen F. Austin by Mexico in the 1820s?
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Southerners who brought cotton and slaves with them
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Why did Mexico outlaw the introduction of additional slaves in Texas in 1829?
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It hoped to discourage any more American settlers from coming to the area.
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Texans gained their independence from Mexico in 1836 after
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Sam Houston's army defeated Santa Anna's troops in a surprise attack.
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In the 1820s, Americans were beginning to trickle into thinly populated California; in an effort to increase Mexican migration to that area, the Mexican government
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granted huge estates to new Mexican settlers.
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Why did Congress refuse to annex Texas into the Union?
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Texas would come into the Union as a slave state.
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What was the dominant issue in the 1844 presidential election campaign?
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Territorial expansion
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President Tyler obtained approval for the annexation of Texas
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through a joint resolution of Congress.
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How was President Polk able to add Oregon to U.S. holdings?
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He renewed an old offer to divide Oregon along the forty-ninth parallel.
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When Mexico refused the Polk administration's offer to buy Mexico's northern territories, the United States realized manifest destiny would require
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military force.
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Which group was most outspoken in its opposition to war with Mexico?
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Whigs
