American Economic History

Economics 1740

Spring 2007

Midterm Exam Preparation Sheet

Instructions

The midterm is in-class next Wednesday, February 28. In that exam, you will have a choice of writing an essay or writing an essay and filling out some multiple choice questions. If you choose the first option, the essay is, of course, worth 100% of your midterm grade. If you choose the second option, the essay is worth 50% of your grade and the multiple choice is worth 50% of your grade. You will see the mulitple choice questions and the essay question prior to having to decide which way you want to go.

You have the alternative of making this a take-home exam, receiving an essay question on Monday and returning it on Wednesday at the beginning of class. If you do the take-home, you do not have the option of taking the multiple choice questions. The take-home essay must be typed and may not be more than 800 words. The in-class essay will have a limited length that will amount to about 400 words. The two essays will be graded differently with the expectation that the take-home essays, as a group, will be better relative to the in-class essays. I will simply adjust the grading so as a group, the grades from each essay type will average about the same.

Sample essay questions: (One of these questions will be selected by the instructor for the midterm essay. The essay for those doing take-home may—but may not—differ from the in-class essay). Essay instructions are as follows: you are limited to four bluebook pages, one side, normal margins, normal handwriting size. Introduce and conclude your essay. Write in paragraphs. Have a topic sentence for each paragraph that presents the basic thesis of that paragraph. If I read your introduction, each of your topic sentences and then your conclusion, these sentences should flow in a sensible, logical way.

1. Jared Diamond argues that geography is destiny: the shape of the continents determined the diffusion of agriculture; the diffusion of agriculture determined the development of technology; the differential development of technology gave the Europeans an advantage over those in the Western Hemisphere after Columbus. Explain this argument about “guns and steel”and integrate Diamond’s argument about “germs” into it. Specifically indicate how geography affected the domestication of animals and how geography and the domestication of animals together gave the Europeans an advantage in resisting smallpox and other contangions that decimated those in the Western Hemisphere after Columbus.
2. Summarize Chapter 3 in Heilbroner—“Setting the Economic Stage.” (75% of essay) At the end of this chapter, Heilbroner asks the question—“Was [Economic] Growth Inevitable?” He said that climate, land and culture (“ambitious self-selected individuals”) all combined to make the economy expansive. But that Canada had “nearly all of the American blessings” but did not take off. Thus, maybe growth was an accident. Critically evaluate Heilbroner’s answer to the question he posed—was growth inevitable? (25% of essay)
3. Summarize Chapter 5 in Heilbroner—“Preparations for the Age of Manufacture.” (75% of essay) Heilbroner emphasizes the role of the cutlure of Yankee ingenuity (“every workman seemed to be continually devising mechanical aids to his work”) in driving technological change. Philips, in contrast, emphasized the role of the detailed division of labor, the seperation of the planning from the execution of work, and the rise of managerial and engineering classes devotined to the transformation of work. Can Philips and Hielbroner be made to agree with each other? Or are these two distinct explanations? Who is right? (25% of essay)
4. Philips put on the board during one of the lectures an outline of his argument that the social division of labor requires exhange to knit it together. Exhange originally was based on tradition and status but with the rise of market capitalism, exchange became based on an equivalence between what was being exchanged. Philips argued that the transformation of exchange from tradition to equivalence alterred the dynamics of material life. Explain and critically evaluate Philips’ argument.
5. Explain the rise of public schooling in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states from the early colonial period to the Civil War. How does the immigration of the Irish after the Irish potato famine play into the story? Now explain the rise of child labor during the outset of industrialization of the American economy. How do education and industrialization interact to eventually create compulsory public schooling and discourage the use of child labor?
6. Philips argues that the rise of market capitalism is a process of separation—the seperation of the social from the detailed division of labor, the seperation of the planning from the execution of work, the seperation of invention and technological development from the workplace itself, and the seperation of the family from the workplace. He also argues that the rise of public education is a seperation of child bearing from child rearing. Explain Philips’ theory. (75% of essay) This theory of seperation is not emphasized (is it even mentioned?) in Heilbroner. Nonetheless, are there facts in Heilbroner that can be used to support Philips’ theory? Are there facts in Heilbroner that contradict Philips’ theory? Is Philips’ theory right or wrong? Why?

Multiple Choice:

These are sample multiple choice questions like those that will be on the examinations if you choose a multiple choice option.

1. Heilbroner argues that history must be written from a perspective, highlighting one theme or another from our "total" history. Why does Heilbroner take this position?

a. Because Heilbroner believes that all historians have biases and that no one can write a truly "objective" history.

b. Because Heilbroner believes that the ruling class of every society will force its vision of society on all the classes of that society. So a history of slavery written in the South during the time of slavery will reflect the perspective of Southern slave owners no matter who is the individual writing the history.

c. Because "total" history involves too much material. An all encompassing history can never be written. The historian must be selective and focus on selected themes to the exclusion of other issues. Some may focus on political history while others focus on the history of jazz. The choice of a theme is a decisive determinant of what we find in "history".

d. all of the above

e. none of the above

2. Which of the following is a key aspect of the mercantilist system?

a. It focused on production as the key source of profits

b. It used market competition as its main regulating force.

c. Through its emphasis on mercantile trade it increased the number of trading partners any one country or colony would have.

d. all of the above are key elements of the mercantile system

e. none of the above

3. Immediately after the Civil War between 1865 and 1870

a. the economy went into a deep post-war depression

b. the economy expanded rapidly increasing GNP by almost 50 percent

c. continuous processing technology and the assembly line developed in arms manufacturing during the war now dominated all Northern manufacturing

d. the CIO was founded

e. none of the above

4. Which of the following is not a factor helping explain the technical backwardness of western hemisphere societies compared to eastern hemisphere societies around 1400?

a. The western hemisphere’s north-south orientation compared to the eastern hemisphere’s east-west orientation

b. The limited numbers of large species available for draft animals in the western hemisphere relative to the eastern hemisphere

c. The relative immunity of peoples in the eastern hemisphere to infectious diseases compared to peoples in the western hemisphere

d. The greater impact mass extinctions had on the large animals of the western hemisphere compared to the eastern hemisphere

e. The earlier development of agriculture in the eastern hemisphere

5. Which of the following is among the advantages of the detailed division of labor?

a. It facilitates financial development.

b. It facilitates mechanization.

c. It facilitates the growth of the secondary sector.

d. It facilitates the growth of markets.

e. It facilitates the growth of money.

6. The colonial firm was general in its functions. Which of the following was not a function of the colonial firm?

a. finance

b. production

c. transportation

d. generalization

e. sales

7. Both the detailed division of labor and the specialized firm

a. were outcomes of the Civil War

b. needed growing markets

c. occurred first in the United States

d. developed initially through the innovative activities of Cornelius Vanderbuilt

e. all of the above

8. The market or capitalist system which first developed in new England and the Mid-Atlantic states spread west while including increasingly more people in it in the East

a. because it was a system of exchange based on equivalence among anonymous participants and consequently could embrace a geographically wider social division of labor and increasing numbers of relative strangers.

b. because it was a system which developed specialized firms capable of transacting a higher volume business than previous, generalized firms while it used the market to coordinate that higher volume of business across a wider area and among a larger number of people.

c. because it was a system which developed factories which could coordinate a more detailed division of labor than was possible using the market mechanism, and that detailed division of labor allowed more people to qualify for manufacturing labor while it facilitated mechanization.

d. because it became a system where power was based on profits and profits came from the economic growth of the firm which consequently embedded into the system a drive to grow.

e. all of the above.

9. Agriculture

a. first began in South Asia (that is, the Indian subcontinent) and spread from there east and west along the temperate corridor

b. prior to 1400 in the western hemisphere entailed a limited number of food crops

c. prior to 1400 in the western hemisphere entailed relatively few domesticated animals

d. in the fertile crescent involved the early domestication of sheep, goats and cattle

e. in Mesoamerica involved the early domestication of the donkey but the mule came only after Europeans brought horses

10. The Chinese in California were

a. the first wage laborers to be employed by manufacturers in San Francisco

b. excluded from all mining occupations in the California gold fields in the 1850s

c. located primarily in Central California gold mines while whites were in the North

d. located in the same mines that whites worked but were excluded from the best jobs such as blasting

e. worked along side whites miners in the same jobs because competition forced an integration of the mining labor force