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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What power does Marx credit government with, in reversing the trend toward urbanization and industrialization?
(a) Inability to manage complex problems.
(b) Hesitancy to impose lifestyle changes on the people.
(c) Powerlessness before the will of the people.
(d) The ability to create lasting change.

2. What dangers were writers warning about as America urbanized?
(a) Creation of a permanently poor underclass.
(b) Loss of nature.
(c) Decline of morals.
(d) Declining value of money.

3. What else does Marx say about people who live pastoral lives?
(a) They are powerless.
(b) They are Indians and blacks.
(c) They are rich.
(d) They are poor.

4. What role has literature played in the formation of the culture Marx describes in 'The Machine in the Garden'?
(a) Literature reflected the changes after they had happened.
(b) Literature guided people as they settled the land.
(c) Literature spurred the developments that shaped the landscape.
(d) Literature inspired the urge to abandon farms for cities.

5. What did Emerson's philosophy ultimately propose?
(a) Domestication of nature.
(b) Rejection of industry.
(c) Urbanization of nature.
(d) Reconciliation of industry and nature.

6. What did Thoreau conclude as a result of his time at Walden?
(a) That man should simplify his life.
(b) That technology must be stopped.
(c) That men are desperate and sad.
(d) That men should remove themselves from society.

7. What is the relationship between industrialism and pastoralism?
(a) Mutual exclusivity.
(b) Conflict.
(c) Mutual reinforcement.
(d) Cause and effect.

8. Who was Tench Coxe?
(a) A Philadelphia merchant.
(b) A Philadelphia inventor and statesman.
(c) A Boston statesman.
(d) A New York financier.

9. What kinds of machines especially did Americans welcome at the end of the 18th century?
(a) Railroads.
(b) Milling machines.
(c) Telegraphs.
(d) Machine tools.

10. What percentage of Americans lived on farms (in the time of Marx's writing)?
(a) 25%.
(b) 10%.
(c) 40%.
(d) 60%.

11. What effect does fire have in Hawthorne's The Unpardonable Sin?
(a) It spreads light into the wilderness.
(b) It brings religion to people.
(c) It destroys an everyman.
(d) It drives factories and great productivity.

12. What feeling characterized the beginning of Mark Twain's writing career?
(a) Fear about the consequences of the railroad.
(b) Lamentation about the death of Indian cultures.
(c) Optimism about industrial expansion into the midwest.
(d) Nostalgia for the old days on the Mississippi.

13. What does fire symbolize in Hawthorne's The Unpardonable Sin?
(a) The demonic element in factories.
(b) Chaotic forces of nature.
(c) Intellect.
(d) Man's desire for progress.

14. What is Huck Finn lamenting at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn?
(a) His current civilized state.
(b) Jim's incarceration.
(c) Tom Sawyer's punishment.
(d) His loss of his father.

15. How does industrialism devalue man, in Carlyle's opinion?
(a) It requires long hours in dark factories.
(b) It treats him as a commodity.
(c) It discourages invention.
(d) It uses only one part of him.

Short Answer Questions

1. What has happened to the ideal of the pastoral society, in Marx's opinion?

2. How did Emerson describe the relationship between the east and the west?

3. What would men of understanding provide in Emerson's vision?

4. What did Henry Adams envision as the consequence of technology?

5. What did Coxe foresee for America?

(see the answer keys)

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