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15 multiple-choice questions and 25 flashcards on Industrialization, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era (1877-1920), about 6% of the High School U.S. History bank. Every one carries a written rationale.
Industrialization, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era (1877-1920) is one of 13 chapters in CoStudy's High School U.S. History bank, and it holds 15 of the bank's 270 multiple-choice questions — roughly 6% of the total. That proportion is not arbitrary: chapters follow the certifying body's published exam outline, and the number of questions in each is set by that domain's published weight, so the share of your practice time this chapter takes matches the share of the real exam it accounts for.
Studying by chapter is worth doing once you have a diagnostic score. A single overall percentage tells you whether you are close; it does not tell you which domain is dragging. Working a weak chapter in isolation, and re-testing it in isolation, is the fastest way to move a score that has stalled — and it is why the mock exams in CoStudy report by domain rather than as one number.
9 questions drawn from this chapter, with the full rationale shown — the controlling principle behind the right answer, and why each wrong option tempts and fails.
The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) was passed largely in response to muckraking journalism, most famously:
Answer: C — Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," which exposed meatpacking conditions
C) Sinclair's 1906 novel drove federal food-safety legislation that same year. A) Targeted Standard Oil → antitrust action. B) Focused on tenement housing. D) Focused on municipal corruption.
The Declaration of Independence (1776) draws heavily on the ideas of:
Answer: C — John Locke (natural rights, social contract, right to alter unjust government)
Jefferson drew on Locke's natural rights theory: life, liberty, property (Jefferson: 'pursuit of happiness'). Government by consent; right to alter or abolish unjust government. Foundational political philosophy.
A "muckraker" in the Progressive Era was:
Answer: C — An investigative journalist who exposed corruption, unsafe conditions, and abuses
C) Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and others coined the genre. A/B/D) Off topic.
The 19th Amendment (1920):
Answer: B — Granted women the right to vote
19th = women's suffrage. 18th = Prohibition; 21st = repeal (1933); 26th = 18-year-old vote (1971). Students confuse the sequence — memorize the 18/19/20 cluster.
Which Progressive-era amendment established a federal income tax?
Answer: A — 16th Amendment (1913)
16th = income tax. 17th = direct election of senators. 18th = Prohibition. 19th = women's suffrage. The four Progressive-era amendments are heavily tested — memorize them together.
The Mayflower Compact (1620) is significant because it:
Answer: C — Was an early agreement among colonists to self-govern by majority consent — an early step toward democratic governance in America
Mayflower Compact: Pilgrims aboard ship pledged to combine into civil body and obey just laws by consent. Foundation idea: government by consent of the governed. Influence on later American political thought.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) established which constitutional doctrine?
Answer: B — 'Separate but equal' — permitting state-mandated racial segregation as long as facilities were nominally equal
Plessy upheld segregation and stood until Brown (1954). Judicial review is Marbury (1803); one person, one vote is Reynolds v. Sims (1964); right to counsel is Gideon v. Wainwright (1963).
The Spanish-American War (1898) ended with the U.S. gaining control of which of the following territories?
Answer: B — Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines
The Treaty of Paris (1898) transferred Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba became independent under U.S. oversight (Platt Amendment). Alaska (1867) and Hawaii (1898) were separate acquisitions.
What event on September 11, 2001 dramatically reshaped U.S. foreign and security policy in the early 21st century?
Answer: C — Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon
The 9/11 attacks led to the War on Terror, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the USA PATRIOT Act.
4 cards from the 25 in this chapter.
What was the transcontinental railroad?
Completed in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah; linked east and west coasts and accelerated economic development.
What was the Dawes Act (1887)?
Broke up tribal lands into individual allotments to assimilate Native Americans; resulted in massive loss of tribal land.
What was the Progressive Era?
Roughly 1890s–1920 reform movement responding to industrialization: regulating business, expanding democracy, improving social conditions.
What were 'robber barons' and 'captains of industry'?
Two views of late-19th-century industrialists: as exploiters who crushed competition vs. visionaries who built modern industry.
These are a sample. The full Industrialization, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era (1877-1920) chapter runs 40 items with per-chapter progress tracking, on the web and in the iOS app.
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