ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY
Homework Assignment
Age of Urbanization

 

Directions:  Read Chapter Seventeen of your textbook, and answer the following questions in complete sentences.  Your responses must be either typewritten or hand-written in black or blue ink.

 

Part One:

 

1.      What were some of the significant changes in steel manufacturing in the nineteenth century, and what impact did the steel industry have on the American economy as a result of these changes?

 

2.      What were some of the ways in which the railroad industry modernized its business practices and increased efficiency in the mid- to late nineteenth century?

3.      What were some of the changes in business practices that facilitated large-scale enterprise and the growth of mass markets in nineteenth-century America?

4.      How did national origin influence the jobs that immigrants took in the United States?

5.      How were occupations sex typed?

6.      What were some of the ways that nineteenth-century workers maintained control over their workplace, and how did new managerial techniques attempt to break down this control?

7.      How did the struggle for the eight-hour day highlight the differences between the first national labor organizations?

8.      What role did state and the federal government play in labor uprisings in the 1890s?

9.      What were some of the radical responses to American industrialism at the turn of the century?

 


Part Two:

 

A.      Read American Voices, John Brophy: A Miner's Son in Chapter 17 of the text. After reading the document, write a brief paragraph-length response to each of the following questions.


Coal mining was one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. The coal seams ran deep underground, and a high level of skill was required to drill the tunnels and brace the sides and roofs in order to prevent cave-ins. Regardless of the danger inherent in deep rock mining, generation after generation proudly followed their ancestors into the mines. Threat of mine disasters made the workers particularly sensitive to any lack of safety precautions on the part of the mine owners. As a result, miners were among the most demanding of union members and were most often engaged in violent confrontations with the bosses. In this selection, the author recalls his feelings on entering his father's occupation.

 

1.      It is clear that John Brophy is passionate about following in the footsteps of his ancestors, especially his father, as a miner. At what point does he really understand what it takes to work in the mining industry? From his description, how might you characterize mining work?

2.      What did the author mean by saying that the miners "were both individualists and they were group conscious"?

3.      What is there in this selection to indicate that miners would be particularly interested in organizing unions?

 

B.      Read American Voices, Rose Schneiderman: Trade Unionist in Chapter 17 of the text. After reading the document, write a brief paragraph-length response to each of the following questions.

 

1.       What grievances about seamstress work does the author describe in the passage?

 

2.      Of all the grievances the seamstresses faced, why do you think the newly unionized women selected the one that they did as the first issue to raise with their boss?

 

3.      What does the attitude of Schneiderman's mother suggest about late nineteenth-century gender roles?