Which statements accurately characterize agricultural life in preindustrial America?

1. F Unlike European agriculture, American colonial agriculture never really developed regional specialization. Along the entire Atlantic coast farms remained pretty much the same because transportation difficulties limited regional specialization so dramatically.
2. F European agricultural experience prepared colonists fairly well for life in the New World. European farming practices worked in America, and other rural skills, such as hunting, fishing, and house building, also served well.
3. T  The abundance of forests did have an impact colonial life, and trade in wood products such as charcoal and lumber provided one of the most important areas of economic opportunity.
4. F Curiously, despite an abundance of timber, Colonial Americans abandoned the European practice of constructing wooden fences. American colonists preferred stone walls.

Which statements describe colonial crafts and the culture of preindustrial artisans?

5. T  Most craft work was ‘bespoken’, that is, artisans only worked when they received an order from an customer.
6. F Some crafts, such as coopering (barrel making) and leather tanning were almost entirely absent in the English colonies. For the most part colonists had to depend on imports from England for complex products such as leather goods or barrels.
7. F Most crafts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries depended on an artisan’s ability to use fairly complex tools.
8. F Blacksmiths, who had to be highly skilled, were rare in Colonial New England. Very few villages boasted the presence of a smithy.
9. F Most artisans welcomed the chance for wage work because it provided the kind of steady income that was so difficult to earn in typical craft work.
10. F Craft workers tended to develop a strong sense of community, thrift, and a dedication to regular work habits.
11. F Craft workers were very egalitarian, that is, they drew few social, or status, distinctions among themselves based on their craft activities.

What can we say about the ‘Domestic Economy’ and Preindustrial housewives?

12. F When Cowan speaks of the ‘reciprocal’ relationship between the preindustrial housewife and husband in preparing meals, the only part the husband really played was in chopping the firewood.
13. T  In general, we would expect a colonial family of lower economic status to be more dependent on the cash economy than a more wealthy family.
14. F For the typical preindustrial housewife, cooking daily meals, tending children, and daily housecleaning provided the major basis for her participation in the "domestic economy."
15. T  The ownership of household tools provides a good index to the likely wealth of a preindustrial family—the more tools, the more likely the family enjoyed economic security.
16. T  In the priorities of a typical housewife, food growing, preservation, and processing would clearly rank above cooking daily meals or cleaning house.

What does Livesay tell us about Eli Whitney?

17. T  The invention and development of the cotton gin nearly lead Whitney into bankruptcy.
18. F Whitney succeeded in making muskets with fully interchangeable parts, and his system allowed him to deliver the Army’s 10,000 muskets below cost and ahead of schedule.
19. F According to Livesay, the difficult part of Whitney’s effort to develop interchangeable parts was in the idea. Once the concept clicked in his mind, the actual development of the machines and the supporting organization proved fairly easy.
20. T  Whitney’s first effort in manufacturing came during the American Revolution when he took up making iron products in a forge he set up on his father’s farm.

Which statements accurately describe the origins of industrialization and American factories?

21. T  Early factories in America were known for their ‘paternalistic’ practices, respectable workforce, and relatively good working conditions.
22. F Slater’s success lay entirely in knowing how to build the English textile machinery. He knew almost nothing about how to organize or run a factory when he opened Slater Mill.
23. F According to Cross and Szostak, English and American industrialization followed very similar patterns in the uses of technology, treatment of workers, and basic operating patterns.
24. T  Curiously--from a modern viewpoint--throughout the early 19^th century, most American mills and factories were located in rural areas – not in cities.

What happened in American industrial development during the early 19th century?

25. F if you were looking for the location of a typical colonial iron works, you would look in cities such as Baltimore or Richmond.
26. T  Robert Fulton’s success in developing the steamboat really amounted to bringing together, improving, and perfecting existing technology--rather than the invention of anything really ‘new’.
27. F Colonial ironmasters were noted for their innovative attitudes and often outstripped their British competitors in adopting new technologies and approaches to iron smelting—for example, American ironmasters pioneered both coke smelting and ‘puddling and rolling’.
28. T  American entrepreneurs were very slow to adopt the early steam engine (Newcomen).
29. T  Americans copied or bought British railroad technology, but soon had to develop new types of equipment because the climate and geography of America were so different from England’s.
30. F Although some Americans were quick to take up railroading, the overall of pace of railroad development in America actually lagged far behind England for most of the 19^th century.