Nice work!
Review your answers above to learn from any mistakes.
About This Drill
AP U.S. History — Period 6 (1865–1898) — Drill 12 is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Period 6: 1865–1898. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
This AP U.S. History Period 6 drill uses a modern historian's analysis of the Populist movement of the 1890s. Questions address the historian's reinterpretation of Populism, the economic context driving the silver coinage demand, and the broader significance of agrarian political activism.
Passage
The following is adapted from a modern historian's essay on the Populist movement of the 1890s.
The Populist movement of the 1890s is often misread as a backward-looking revolt by farmers who simply could not adapt to the modern market economy. This reading misses the point entirely. Populists were not opposed to markets — they were opposed to rigged markets. They understood perfectly well that railroads charged discriminatory rates that favored large shippers over small farmers, that grain elevator operators manipulated prices at farmers' expense, and that the tight money supply produced by the gold standard forced debtors to repay loans in dollars worth far more than those they had borrowed. Their demands — for railroad regulation, government-owned warehouses, and currency expansion — were not nostalgic fantasies but sophisticated policy proposals designed to level a playing field that had been systematically tilted against them by concentrated corporate and financial power.
Questions in This Drill
- The historian's argument that Populists 'were not opposed to markets — they were opposed to rigged markets' primarily challenges which of the following characterizations of the Populist movement?
- According to the historian, the Populists' demand for currency expansion through the free coinage of silver was most directly a response to
- The historian's description of Populist demands as 'sophisticated policy proposals' rather than 'nostalgic fantasies' is best supported by which of the following historical evidence?
- The 'concentrated corporate and financial power' that the historian identifies as tilting the economic playing field against farmers was most directly represented by which of the following in the 1880s and 1890s?
- The Populist movement's ultimate electoral failure in 1896 most directly resulted from