AP U.S. History: Period 7 (1890–1945) (Drill 13)

Question 1. Riis's phrase 'it is the business of civilization to attend to these things' most directly conveys his belief that

• A) private charities and religious organizations were better suited than government to address urban poverty because they could respond more quickly to immediate need
• B) urban poverty was an individual moral failure that could only be corrected through the reform of personal habits and character among the poor
• C) addressing the conditions of urban poverty was a collective social and civic responsibility, not merely a matter of individual charity ✓
• D) American cities had fallen behind European nations in providing housing and social services to their immigrant and working-class populations

Explanation: Choice C is correct. Riis's phrase explicitly frames poverty relief as 'the business of civilization', a collective obligation of society as a whole, not merely a private or individual concern. This is a foundational argument of Progressive Era reformers: that industrial society had created conditions requiring organized social and governmental response, not just individual charity. Choice A is incorrect. Riis's language, 'the business of civilization', implies a collective, systemic responsibility that goes beyond private charities. He is moving toward a governmental and civic obligation argument, not a defense of private charity over public action. Choice B is incorrect. Riis does not argue that poverty results from individual moral failure. His entire approach, documenting structural conditions of tenement life, argues the opposite: that poverty is produced by environmental conditions, not personal character. Choice D is incorrect. While Riis was aware of European social reform efforts, this specific phrase makes no comparative reference to European nations. His argument is about American civilization's obligations, not a comparative critique.

Question 2. Riis's comparison of tenement children to 'cattle turned out' from the tenements primarily serves to

• A) argue that the tenement system was so dehumanizing that it prevented immigrants from fully assimilating into American civic culture
• B) shock middle-class readers by depicting the dehumanizing conditions of tenement life and generate moral outrage that would demand reform ✓
• C) suggest that the high child mortality in tenements was comparable to the losses farmers experienced when livestock were exposed to summer heat
• D) criticize the parents of tenement children for failing to provide adequate supervision and care during the summer months

Explanation: Choice B is correct. Riis was a journalist and reformer who deliberately used shocking language and imagery, including his pioneering use of flash photography, to confront middle-class readers with the reality of tenement life. The cattle metaphor is designed to provoke moral revulsion by stripping away any comfortable distance between reader and subject. This is the central rhetorical strategy of muckraking journalism. Choice A is incorrect. While Riis did hold nativist views about immigrant assimilation elsewhere in his work, this specific cattle metaphor is not making an argument about civic culture or assimilation; it is generating emotional impact about physical conditions. Choice C is incorrect. Riis is not making a literal agricultural comparison. The cattle metaphor is a rhetorical device to convey dehumanization, not an analytical comparison of mortality rates between urban children and livestock. Choice D is incorrect. Riis explicitly does not blame the poor for their conditions. His entire project is to expose the structural failures of landlords, city government, and society, not to criticize individual parental behavior.

Question 3. The context most directly relevant to understanding the impact of How the Other Half Lives was

• A) the rapid growth of American cities in the late nineteenth century as industrialization drew millions of immigrants and rural migrants into urban wage labor ✓
• B) the passage of the Tenement House Act of 1867, which had established minimum standards for New York City tenements but proved largely unenforced
• C) the emergence of the settlement house movement, in which reformers like Jane Addams established community centers in urban immigrant neighborhoods
• D) the assassination of President Garfield in 1881, which galvanized public support for civil service reform and demonstrated the dangers of political corruption

Explanation: Choice A is correct. Riis's book was responding directly to the consequences of rapid urban industrial growth. The massive immigration of the 1880s had packed millions of people into New York's Lower East Side and similar neighborhoods in other cities, creating the tenement conditions he documented. Without understanding the scale and speed of urban growth driven by industrialization and immigration, the conditions Riis describes make little contextual sense. Choice B is incorrect. While the 1867 Tenement Act is relevant background, it is a narrower legislative context rather than the broad historical force that created the conditions Riis was documenting. The act's failure is a symptom of the broader problem, not its cause. Choice C is incorrect. The settlement house movement was a parallel and related reform effort; Jane Addams founded Hull House in 1889, the year before Riis published, but it was a contemporary development rather than the context that explains the conditions Riis was exposing. The movements shared a cause but were distinct responses. Choice D is incorrect. The Garfield assassination and civil service reform had nothing to do with tenement conditions or urban poverty. This is a period-appropriate event that has no logical connection to Riis's subject matter.

Question 4. Riis's criticism that 'the landlord baits his trap with what passes for home' reveals which of the following tensions in Gilded Age urban America?

• A) the conflict between native-born Americans and recent immigrants over access to affordable housing in rapidly growing cities
• B) the contradiction between the promise of the American home as a place of refuge and dignity and the exploitative reality of tenement landlordism ✓
• C) the tension between municipal governments that sought to regulate housing conditions and landlords who argued that regulation violated property rights
• D) the disagreement among reformers over whether to address urban poverty through individual moral reform or through structural changes to housing markets

Explanation: Choice B is correct. The phrase 'what passes for home' captures the cruel irony that landlords marketed squalid tenements using the emotionally powerful American ideal of home as sanctuary and aspiration. Riis exposes the gap between the cultural promise of home, central to American identity and immigrant dreams, and the exploitative commercial reality of tenement housing. Choice A is incorrect. While immigrant-nativist tensions were real in this period, Riis's landlord critique is not specifically about competition between native-born and immigrant residents for housing. He is criticizing landlord exploitation regardless of tenant nationality. Choice C is incorrect. While regulatory conflicts between cities and landlords were a real political dynamic, this specific phrase, 'baits his trap', is a moral critique of landlord exploitation, not a description of a regulatory dispute. Choice D is incorrect. The debate between moral reformers and structural reformers was a real internal division in the Progressive movement, but Riis's phrase is not about that debate; it is a direct condemnation of landlord exploitation as a structural economic problem.

Question 5. The muckraking journalism exemplified by Riis most directly contributed to which of the following developments in the Progressive Era?

• A) the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which established federal oversight of food and pharmaceutical industries
• B) the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, which established direct election of senators and reduced the influence of corporate interests in the Senate
• C) the growth of public pressure for municipal and state housing regulations, tenement reform laws, and expanded government responsibility for urban living conditions ✓
• D) the formation of the National Child Labor Committee, which lobbied Congress to pass federal legislation restricting the employment of children in factories and mines

Explanation: Choice C is correct. How the Other Half Lives directly contributed to housing reform in New York City; it was credited with influencing the passage of the New York Tenement House Act of 1901 and inspiring Theodore Roosevelt, then a New York City police commissioner who read the book, to pursue urban reform. More broadly, Riis's work exemplified how investigative journalism generated public pressure for housing regulations and expanded government responsibility for urban conditions. Choice A is incorrect. The Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act were most directly inspired by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), which exposed meatpacking industry conditions. While Riis was a predecessor of this tradition, his specific work was about urban housing, not food safety. Choice B is incorrect. The Seventeenth Amendment addressed political corruption and corporate influence over the Senate, a different reform stream from the urban housing and public health concerns Riis documented. Choice D is incorrect. The National Child Labor Committee focused on industrial child labor in factories and mines. While Riis did document child poverty, his work was about tenement conditions and urban poverty broadly, not specifically about factory child labor reform.