DIRECTIONS:Read Chapter Eighteen of your Text, and answer the following
questions in complete sentences. Your
responses must be either typewritten or hand-written in black or blue ink.ALL Questions must be answered
fully and completely or no credit will be awarded for any answers.
Part
I
Why are the presidents of the late nineteenth century so little remembered?
Why did Protestantism in the late nineteenth century agree with the ideal of
individualism?
What was the most powerful branch of the federal government in the late
nineteenth century? How did it become so?
What was the impact of ethnicity on partisan politics in the late nineteenth
century?
How did women's organizations like
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union reconcile the ideal of separate
spheres with an increased public role for women?
What were the two sides of the free-silver issue? Who took which side?
What were some of President Cleveland's responses to the depression of 1893?
In what ways did the Populists differ from the two major parties?
Part
II
Read:Helen Potter: The Case
for Women's Political Rights in Chapter 18 of the text. After
reading the document, write a brief paragraph-length response to each of
the following questions. When you are finished, select "Submit" to
compare your responses with the model answers provided.
In the late nineteenth century,
middle-class American life was sharply divided by gender, with a clear
distinction drawn between men and women's "spheres." Women were said to
be most suited to the "higher and more spiritual realm" of the domestic
sphere and men to the rough-and-tumble public sphere. Those who
formulated this distinction did not see it as a denial of gender
equality but argued that it recognized the moral superiority of women
within their sphere. Given this proposition, some women argued that they
needed public—that is, political—power in order to defend and advance
their private concerns. Other women, however, were frustrated by this
"separate spheres" concept. When men insisted that public life,
particularly electoral politics, was too dirty and vicious a business
for women to be mixed up in, some women responded by offering to clean
up the mess if they could be allowed to participate. In the 1883
testimony of Helen Potter before a Senate committee, she gives vent to
the frustration that grows out of political powerlessness.
1. What does the questioner fear
about women voting?
2.According to Potter, why do men refuse to extend
suffrage to women?
3.What is Potter's case for expanding women's
political rights?
Read:Tom Watson: The Case
for Interracial Unity in Chapter 18 of the text. After reading the
document, write a brief paragraph-length response to each of the
following questions. When you are finished, select "Submit" to compare
your responses with the model answers provided.
In the post-Reconstruction South,
racial animosities dividing poor whites from poor blacks enabled a
conservative elite to maintain its grip on political power. Recognizing
this, the fiery Georgia Populist Tom Watson appealed to whites and
blacks to look to their class interests, most memorably in this
document, which was made in advance of the 1892 election. In the bitter
aftermath, Watson reversed course and rebuilt his career as a
race-baiting politician, exploiting the very hatreds that he had once so
strenuously resisted.
1.To whom does Watson address his words?
2.What faction of southern society would not have
been pleased by a coalition of black and white tenants? Why?
3.What does
Watson mean when he says, "The question of social equality does not enter into
the calculation at all. . . . No statute ever yet drew the latch of the humblest
home—or ever will. Each citizen regulates his visiting list—and always will."
Why would he include such a statement?